“Excellent! Excellent!” exclaimed the boys, and they clapped their hands and wa-ha-ha-ed and ho-ho-ho-ed till they were sore. Then, dragging the skin along, they ran as fast as they could, down to the plain below Twin Mountain.
The Sun was climbing down the western ladder, and their old grandmother had been looking all over the mountains and valleys below to see if the two boys were coming. She had just climbed the ladder and was gazing and fretting and saying: “Oh! those two boys! terrible pests and as hard-hearted and as long-winded in having their own way as a turtle is in having his! Now, something has happened to them; I knew it would,” when suddenly a frightened scream came up from below.
“Ho-o-o-ta! Ho-o-o-ta! Come quick! Help! Help!” the voice cried, as if in anguish.
“Uhh!” exclaimed the old woman, and she went so fast in her excitement that she tumbled through the trap-door, and then jumped up, scolding and groaning.
She grabbed a poker of piñon, and rushed out of the house. Sure enough, there was poor Mátsailéma running hard and calling again and again for her to hurry down. The old woman hobbled along over the rough path as fast as she could, and until her wind was blowing shorter and shorter, when, suddenly turning around the crags, she caught sight of Áhaiyúta struggling to get away from Átahsaia.
“O ai o! I knew it! I knew it!” cried the old woman; and she ran faster than ever until she came near enough to see that her poor grandson was almost tired out, and that Mátsailéma had lost even his war-club. “Stiffen your feet,—my boys,—wait—a bit,” puffed the old woman, and, flying into a passion, she rushed at the effigy and began to pound it with her poker, till the dust fairly smoked out of the dry grass, and the skin doubled up as if it were in pain.
Mátsailéma rolled and kicked in the grass, and Áhaiyúta soon had to let the stuffed demon fall down for sheer laughing. But the old woman never ceased. She belabored the demon and cursed his cannibal heart and told him that was what he got for chasing her grandsons, and that, and this, and that, whack! whack! without stopping, until she thought the monster surely must be dead. Then she was about to rest when suddenly the boys pulled the strings, and the demon sprang up before her, seemingly as well as ever. Again the old woman fell to, but her strokes kept getting feebler and feebler, her breath shorter and shorter, until her wind went out and she fell to the ground.
How the boys did laugh and roll on the ground when the old grandmother moaned: “Alas! alas! This day—my day—light is—cut off—and my wind of life—fast going.”
The old woman covered her head with her tattered mantle; but when she found that Átahsaia did not move, she raised her eyes and looked through a rent. There were her two grandsons rolling and kicking on the grass and holding their mouths with both hands, their eyes swollen and faces red with laughter. Then she suddenly looked for the demon. There lay the skin, all torn and battered out of shape.
“So ho! you pesky wretches; that’s the way you treat me, is it? Well! never again will I help you, never!” she snapped, “nor shall you ever live with me more!” Whereupon the old woman jumped up and hobbled away.