To the old women Kŭt-o-yĭs´ then said, "Now, grandmothers, where are there any more people? I want to travel about and see them."
The old women said, "At the Point of Rocks—on Sun River—there is a camp. There is a piskun there."
So Kŭt-o-yĭs´ set off for that place, and when he came to the camp he went into an old woman's lodge.
The old woman gave him something to eat—a dish of bad food.
"Why is this, grandmother?" asked Kŭt-o-yĭs´. "Have you no food better than this to give to a visitor? Down there I see a piskun; you must kill plenty of buffalo and must have good food."
"Speak lower," said the old woman, "or you may be heard. We have no good food because there is a great snake here who is the chief of the camp. He takes all the best pieces. He lives over there in that snake-painted lodge."
The next morning when the buffalo were led in, Kŭt-o-yĭs´ killed one, and they took the back fat and carried it to their lodge. Then Kŭt-o-yĭs´ said, "I think I will visit that snake person." He went over and went into the lodge, and there he saw many women that the snake person had taken to be his wives. The women were cooking some service berries. Kŭt-o-yĭs´ picked up the dish and ate the berries and threw the dish away. Then he went up to the big snake, who was lying there asleep, and pricked him with his knife, saying, "Here, get up; I have come to visit you. Let us smoke together."
Then the snake was angry and he raised up his head and began to rattle, and Kŭt-o-yĭs´ cut off his head and cut him in pieces. He cut off the heads of all the snake's wives and children; all except one little female snake which got away by crawling into a crack in the rocks.
"Oh, well," said Kŭt-o-yĭs´, "you can go and breed snakes so there will be more. The people will not be afraid of little snakes."
Kŭt-o-yĭs´ said to the old woman, "Now, grandmother, go into this snake lodge and take it for your own and everything that is in it."