Again, some other well-equipped young man would be passing that way, and hearing the sound made by the solitary player, and being attracted thereby, would be drawn in the same way into the game, would lose everything, and old Mítsina would wring his neck and keep his treasures.
Thus it was in the days of the ancients. Great were the losses of the young men, and many of them perished.
Well, one day little Áhaiyúta and Mátsailéma—the War-gods of peace times—who dwelt, as you know, where their shrine now stands on Face Mountain, with their old grandmother,—went out hunting rabbits and prairie-dogs. It chanced that in following the rabbits along the cliffs of a side cañon they came into the Cañon of the Pines, near where the house of Mítsina stood. Presently they heard the sounds of his game. “Hu, hu!” the old fellow would exclaim as he cast his canes into the air. Ke-le-le-le they would rattle as they fell on the skin.
“Uh!” exclaimed Áhaiyúta, the elder. “Brother younger, listen.”
The younger listened. “By my eyes!” exclaimed he, “it is someone playing at cane-cards. Let’s go and have a peep at him.” So they climbed the ladder and peered in through the sky-hole.
Presently, old Mítsina espied them, and called out: “Ha! my little fellows; glad to see you today! How are you? Come in, come in! I am dying for a game; I was playing here all by myself.”
The two little War-gods clambered down the ladder, and old Mítsina placed blankets for them, invited them most cordially to sit down, and asked if they would like to play a game. Nothing loth they, seeing all the fine things hanging round his room; so out from their girdles they drew their cane-cards, for those, as you know, they always carried with them.
Perhaps I have not told you that even the basket-drum old Mítsina played with was fringed with the handsome long turquoise earrings which he had won, and even under the robe on which he played there were piled one over another, in a great flat heap, the finest of the necklaces gathered from those whom he had defeated in playing and then slain.
“What would you like to put up?” asked the old fellow, pointing around his room—particularly to the basket-drum fringed with turquoises—and lifting the robe and showing just enough of the necklaces underneath it to whet the appetites of the little War-gods.
“We’ve nothing fine enough to bet for these things,” said they ruefully.