Then the people rushed past one another out of the plaza toward the place where they thought she would strike. And just over there below the Home of the Eagles, where the Waters of the Coyote gush forth from the cliff-base, fell the beautiful maiden.
Then there were born twin children—two wee infants who rolled off into the rubbish and were concealed under sticks and stones.
Down rushed the people, and an Acoma spectator seized her body. “Mine!” cried he, triumphantly, as he raised the body above him.
“Thine!” cried the people, for they had lost the beautiful maiden.
“Ours!” cried the Acomas, one to another, who had come to witness the dances. “Great good fortune this day has smiled on us.” And they bore her body away to their pueblo in the east.
Now, under the other end of Thunder Mountain was the home of the Badgers, and an old Badger who lived there was out hunting. After the people had again gathered in the city, he passed near the Waters of the Coyote and heard the voices of the infants crying among the rubbish.
“Ah!” said he, “I hear the cry of children. My little boys, my little girls,” cried he, “whichever ye may be”; and he hastily searched and found them where they were rolling about and crying among the refuse. “Twins!” cried he. “Boys! Somebody has left them here. Soon he will come back to reclaim them. Let me walk away for a few moments.”
So he walked all around, but found no traces of the parents, only the tracks of many men who had gathered near.
“Mine!” said he, as he trotted back; and with soft grass he rubbed them till they were free from the mud and refuse. “Thanks, thanks! Splendid! Children have I, and boys at that, and when I am older grown they will take from me the cares of the chase. Goodness! Thanks! Nothing but boys shall be my children!” So he rubbed them dry and clean with more soft grass, and they stopped crying. Then he took some dry grass and made a bundle and put them in it, and started off for his home in the Red Hills.
The old Badger-woman was up on top of their house looking around, running back and forth and jumping in and out of her doorway. “Hai!” said she; “thou comest?”