“It is true, this which you say,” said the youth reverently, breathing on his hands. “O ye, my fathers! I bring greetings from the fathers of my town below the mountain, and offerings from them.”
“It is well thus, my child,” replied the Gods.
“And I bring also my burden of trouble, that I may listen to your counsel, and perchance implore your aid,” said the youth.
“What is it?” said the Two; and they listened.
Then the youth related his misfortune, telling how he had been stripped of his clothing by Old Tarantula; how the old ones, gathered in council, had sought the aid, one after another, of the wisest and swiftest of feathered beings, but with little success; how they had at last counselled his coming to them, the fathers of the people in times of difficulty and strife.
“Grandmother!” shouted the younger brother War-god. “Make haste! Make haste, grandmother! Bestir yourself! Grind flour for us. Let it be rock flour!”
The old grandmother gathered some white calcareous sandstone called kétchïpawe. She broke those rocks into fragments and ground them into meal; then reduced them on a finer stone to soft, impalpable powder. She made dough of this with water, and the two Gods, with wonderful skill, molded this dough, as it hardened, into figures of elk-kind,—two deer and two antelope images they made. When they had finished these, they placed them before the youth, and said: “Take these and stand them on the sacrificial rock-shelf or terrace on the southern side of our mountain, with prayer to the gods over them. Return to your home, and tell the old ones what we have directed you to do. Tell them also where we said you should place these beings, for such they will become upon the rock-shelf; and you should go to greet them in the morning and guide them with you toward the den of Old Tarantula,—Old Tarantula is very fond of hunting; nothing is so pleasing to him as to kill anything,—that thereby he may be tempted forth from his hiding-place in his den.”
The youth did as he was directed, and when he had placed the figures of the deer and the antelope in a row on the shelf, and reached home, he informed the old ones of the word that had been sent to them.
His father, the old priest-chief, called the warrior priest, and said to him: “It may be possible that Old Tarantula will be tempted forth from his den tomorrow. Would it not be well for us to take the war-path against him?”
“It would, indeed, be well,” said the warrior priest. And the priest-chief went to the house-top and called to the people, saying: