Thus shortens my story.
HOW THE RATTLESNAKES CAME TO BE WHAT THEY ARE
KNOW you that long, long ago there lived at Yathlpew’nan, as live there now, many Rattlesnakes; but then they were men and women, only of a Rattlesnake kind.
One day the little children of one of the houses there wished to go out to play at sliding down the sand-banks south of the Bitter Pond on the other side of our river. So they cried out to their parents: “Let us go, O mother, grandmother, father! and take our little sister to play on the sunny side of the sand-banks.”
“My children,” said the mother, “go if you wish, but be very careful of your little sister; for she is young. Carry her gently on your shoulders, and place her where she will be safe, for she is very small and helpless.”
“Oh, yes!” cried the children. “We love our little sister, don’t we, little one?” said they, turning to the baby girl. Then they took her up in their mantles, and carried her on their shoulders out to the sunny side of the sand-banks; and there they began to play at sliding one after another.
The little girl, immensely delighted with their sport, toddled out from the place where they had set her down, just as one of the girls was speeding down the side of the sand-hill. The little creature ran, clapping her hands and laughing, to catch her sister as she came; and the elder one, trying in vain to stop herself, called out to her to beware; but she was a little thing, and knew not the meaning of her sister’s warning; and, alas! the elder one slid down upon her, knocked her over and rolled her in the sand, crushing her so that she died, and rolling her out very small.
The children all gathered around their little sister, and cried and cried. Finally they took her up tenderly, and, placing her on their shoulders, sang as they went slowly toward home:
“Tchi-tola tsaaana!