“Let us take things in time,” said the elder one, after he had thought of it. And they jumped up and called to the maiden: “Where are those buckskins?”
“They are in the upper room,” said she.
She showed them the way to the upper room. It was packed to the rafters with buckskins. They began to make big bales of these and then took them down to the river. When they got them all down there they said: “How in the world can we scrape so many skins? There are more here than we can clean in a year.”
“I will tell you what,” said the younger brother; “we will stow away some in the crevices of the rocks, and get rid of them in that way.”
“Always hasty, always hasty,” said the elder. “Do you suppose that woman put those skins away without counting every one of them? We can’t do that.”
They spread them out in the water that they might soak all night, and built a little dam so they would not float away. While they were thus engaged they heard some one talking, so they pricked up their ears to listen.
Now, the hill that stands by the side across from the Village of the Yellow Rocks was, and still is, a favorite home of the Field-mice. They are very prolific, and have to provide great bundles of wool for their families. But in the days of the ancients they were terrible gamblers and were all the time betting away their nests, and the young Mice being perfectly bare, with no wool on them at all, died of cold. And still they kept on betting, making little figures of nests and betting these away against the time when they should have more. It was these Mice which the two gods overheard.
Said the younger brother: “Listen to that! Who is talking?”
“Some one is betting. Let us go nearer.”
They went across the river and listened, and heard the tiny little voices calling out and shouting.