Soon the boy said: “It is well that we should tell some tales.” The Snakes said, “Let Old-Woman’s-Grandson tell his story first.” But the boy said, “No, you tell the first story.” The leader, the chief of the Snakes, who was very large, said that he would tell a story. This Snake began to tell a story of how a girl had said she liked a certain Star, and how the next day, the girl found the porcupine; that the porcupine had climbed the tree and she also had climbed it; that the tree had stretched and went up to the Star that the girl liked; that the Star had married this girl; that a boy had been born to them; that the boy had the image of a star upon his forehead; that the boy’s father was a Star; that the woman had requested her husband to get sinews for her; that this woman had given the sinews to an old woman that she might make a sinew string; that the Star had forgotten to get the two sinews under the shoulders of the buffalo, and for that reason the string had proved too short to reach the ground; that the Star had missed his wife and child; that he had hunted and had found a hole in the ground; that the Star had picked up a stone and had sent it down on the string to kill the woman, telling it to save the child; that the child had stayed around its mother until she had decayed; that the child had gone to the old woman’s lodge and gone into her field; that the old woman had made bow and arrows and a shinny ball and stick, had placed them in the field, so that she might find out whether the child was a boy or a girl; that the boy had come and picked up the bow and arrows and had gone to shoot at the squash in the field; that the old woman had caught the boy and had taken him home and made him her grandson, when he became known through the country as “Old-Woman’s-Grandson;” that through the boy’s powers he had scattered the blackbirds through the earth; that the mountain lions were also scattered through the earth; that the bears were scattered through the earth; that even the water-serpent had been killed and sent back to the lake; that the serpent had been the boy’s grandfather; that the boy had killed the old woman’s husband, who was really his grandfather; that the boy had visited the four wonderful men; that the four wonderful men had found a fœtus in a buffalo cow; that they had tried to put it next to him to scare him; that the boy had climbed the tree and they had placed the fœtus at the forks of the tree, so that he could not climb down; that the boy had offered his grandmother to the four wonderful men to get the men to take away the fœtus and let him down the tree; that the boy had taken the wonderful bow and arrows from the four wonderful men; that these men had married the old woman; that afterwards the boy was given a flute by his grandmother, which was done that he might take revenge upon the four wonderful men; that he had killed the four wonderful men, so they would be no longer on the earth; that now Old-Woman’s-Grandson had come to the people who were sitting in a den trying to catch eagles; that he now sat before them, sitting on a rock; that he was given a long gut to eat, but that he had found out that it was a Snake; that he had thrown it in the fire and burned it. “This,” said the leader, “ends our story. Old-Woman’s-Grandson will now please tell us a story.”
The boy then began to tell about himself, just as the Snake had told it, following it up. “Now,” said the boy, “as the people in the den were sitting around, listening to Old-Woman’s-Grandson, there came a strong wind from the southeast, and blew towards the den.” As the wind blew from the southeast the Snakes on that side went to sleep. Then he told about the wind coming from the southwest, and those Snakes in the southwest went to sleep. Then the wind from the northwest came, and those who were there went to sleep. Then the wind from the northeast came, and those Snakes on that side went to sleep. Now the boy waved his hand all around the circle, and all went to sleep as they were listening to Old-Woman’s-Grandson.
In the center was the fire. There was a long stick in the form of a circle around the den, and all the Snakes were upon this, in a circle all around. The boy now arose, took his flint knife, and commenced to cut the heads on the stick around the fireplace. When he came to the last one, it opened its eyes and woke up. It ran into a hole, and said, “Old-Woman’s-Grandson, watch yourself, for hereafter I am your enemy.” The Snake disappeared in the ground.
Now the boy went out and went home, and he told the old woman that he had killed the Snakes. The old woman was then afraid of the boy. She knew that he was wonderful. After that, the boy watched himself in all of his journeys, because of the Snake he had failed to kill. Whenever he wanted to drink he had to go among the rocks, where he would drink from the pools of water. The boy could not drink water from the springs, for the Snake was always ready to jump into his mouth. When the boy wanted to sleep he lay down, placing the arrows he had as follows: One outside of each knee and one outside of each shoulder, sticking them in the ground. The bow the boy used for a pillow. Whenever the Snake approached him sleeping the arrows fell upon him, so that he woke up.
The boy became very sleepy one time, for he had not slept much during all this time. He lay down, and placed the arrows as usual, and went to sleep. The Snake came. One of the arrows fell on the boy, but failed to wake him. Another fell on him, but he did not wake. Then another arrow fell, then the last one fell, but the boy did not wake. The Snake crawled up to the boy, and, as it reached his stomach, the boy, in his sleep, reached for his knife and made motions to cut the Snake, but the Snake kept on going. The boy kept trying to get the Snake, but it went into the boy’s mouth. It crawled up into the skull and nestled itself there. The boy lay there as though dead; but the Snake knew that the boy was not dead. The Snake remained there until the boy dried up and became nothing but a skeleton.
The father of the boy studied hard as to how to get the Snake out of the boy’s skull. Although the boy was dead, the skull was the living part of the boy. The boy’s father then found a plan for getting the Snake out. A storm came from the north. It rolled the skull over and turned it up so that the hole in the skull was upward, and as the rain fell it ran into the skull and filled it with water. This did not drive the Snake out. The father called on the Sun to get nearer to the earth, so as to heat the skull so that the Snake would have to jump out. The Sun moved towards the earth and heated the skull. Soon the water was boiling. It became too hot for the Snake, and finally the Snake crawled out of the skull. No sooner had it got out than the boy stood up and caught the Snake by the neck. He then took up stones and hit the Snake’s snout, so that it made its head short. Then the boy sat down upon a rock and began to rub the Snake’s teeth upon it, and said, “Now you must promise that you will never bother people again.” The snake promised. The Snake, as it was turned loose, said, “Once in a great while I shall bite people, but not often.” The boy reached for the Snake and it disappeared,—that is why the people get bitten by snakes once in a great while.
The boy then returned to his grandmother, who was glad to see him. The boy told his grandmother that she was now free to do as she pleased, for he was going off; that the country was now free from wild animals. So the old woman disappeared, and the boy went southeast to the village of the people.
There the boy told his story, and the people knew that he was the son of the girl who had climbed up the cottonwood tree. The boy did many wonderful things for the people, and the people said that it was through the boy that the people could travel through these wild countries, for now all the wild animals had been scattered and were not as fierce as they had been before. The old woman had disappeared and had made her camp in some other place. The boy died after he had cleared the country of all the wild animals.
There is an old cottonwood tree on the south side of the Missouri River, close to the place known as Armstrong, that the people claim is the tree that stretched upward, taking the girl up to the Star. Still south of the cottonwood tree is the place where the people say the stone is that was thrown down by the Star and which killed the woman. To the west is the lake where the monster fell. At the southwest of the cottonwood, it is supposed, was the Snake den. The people say that to-day snakes are very numerous there. South of this place, among the hills, is where the mountain-lion is supposed to have been. Close to the cottonwood, in the timber along the Missouri River, is the place where the bear is supposed to have been.