So the boys started for Oak-wood Cañon, and, arrived there, soon had a large bundle of branches cut down with their big flint knives, and four stout, dry oak-sticks. They shouldered their “sprouts” and started home, and, although they had bundles big enough to almost hide them, they trotted along as though they had nothing. On their way they picked up a lot of obsidian, and went fast enough until they were near their home, and then they were “very tired”—so tired that the old grandmother, when she caught sight of them, pitied them, and hurried down to stir some mush for them. She buried some corn-cakes in the ashes, too, and roasted some prairie-dogs in the same way; so that when those two lying little rascals came up and seemed so worn-out, she hurried so fast to get their food ready that it made her sinews twitch.
When the boys had eaten all they could and cracked a few prairie-dog bones, they fell to breaking the sprouts. They worked with their stone chips very fast, and soon had barked all they wanted. These they straightened by passing them through their horns[19] and placed them before the fire. While the shafts were drying, they broke up the obsidian, and laying chips of it on a stone covered with buckskin, quickly fashioned them into sharp arrow-heads with the points of other stones, and these they fastened to the ends of the shafts, placing feathers of the eagle on the other ends, until they had made enough for four big bundles. Then they made a bow of each of the four oak-sticks, and stood them up to dry against the wall.
[19] Fragments of mountain-sheep horn are used to this day by the Zuñis for the same purpose. They are flattened by heat and perforated with holes of varying size. By introducing the shaft to be straightened, and rubbing with a twisting motion the inner sides of the crooked portions, they are gradually straightened out, afterward to be straightened by hand from time to time as they dry before the fire. [Back]
As it grew dark they heard something like a dry leaf in a little wind.
“Ah!” said one to the other, “our grandfather comes”; and sure enough presently Amiwili poked his yellow eyes in at the door, but quickly drew back again.
“Kutchi!” said he, “your fire is fearful; it scares me!”
“The grandfather cometh!” exclaimed the boys. “Come in; sit down.”
“Very well. Ah! you are stretching shafts, are you?” said the old Worm, crawling around behind the boys and into the darkest corner he could find.
“Yes,” replied they. “Why do you not come out into the light, grandpa?”
“Kutchi! I fear the fire; it hurts my eyes, and makes me feel as the sun does after a rain-storm and I have no leaves to crawl into.”