“Wah!” uttered the Bear, as he gave a great snort and rolled over on the house-top and died.
“Ha, ha!” shouted the boy, “what you had intended to do unto me, thus unto you! Oh, mother!” called he, as he ran to the sky-hole, “here is your husband; come and see him. I have killed him; but, then, he would have me make the experiment,” said the boy.
“Oh, you foolish, foolish, disobedient boy!” said the mother. “What have you been doing now? Are we safe?”
“Oh, yes,” said he; “my step-father is as passive as if he were asleep.” And he went on and skinned his once prospective step-father, and then took out his heart and hung it to the cross-piece of the ladder as a sign that the people could go and get all the bow-timber and arrows they pleased.
That night, after the evening meal was over, the boy sat down with his mother, and he said: “By the way, mother, are there any monsters or fearful creatures anywhere round about this country that kill people and make trouble?”
“No,” said the mother, “none whatever.”
“I don’t know about that; I think there must be,” said the boy.
“No, there are none whatever, I tell you,” answered the mother.
The boy began to tumble on the floor, rolling about, playing with his mother’s blankets, and throwing things around, and once in a while he would ask her again the same question, until finally she got very cross with him and said: “Yes, if you want to know, down there in the valley, beyond the great plains of sagebrush, is a den of Misho Lizards who are fearful and deadly to every one who goes near them. Therefore you had better be careful how you run round the valley.”
“What makes them so fearful?” asked he.