About three years after this the girl had a baby boy. One day after this she went out to dig roots. Her husband had told her not to dig too deep in the ground, and for a long time she was careful, but one day she dug too deep and dug through that ground. There before her was a hole, through which she could look down and see this world below her. She could see a camp, and near it a party of men playing the stick game. They were very small and looked like ants. She looked at them and looked at them for a long time, and then suddenly she felt that she wanted to go back to where she had come from, and wanted again to see her people—the Pawnees.
After she had thought about this for a long time, she went home and asked her husband to bring her a lot of sinews. He brought them to her, and from the sinews she began to make a [[77]]rope. It took her a long time to make the rope, and in making it she used all the sinews that she had. After she had finished it, she waited until her man had gone out on his journey, and then put her child on her back and went to the hole, carrying the rope of sinew. She took with her also a long stake, and drove it into the ground near the hole. To this stake she tied the rope, and then let it down through the hole. It seemed to her that it did not reach the ground, but she thought that perhaps it reached almost down to it, and she made up her mind that she would try to descend.
All around the hole she dug the earth away so as to make it large enough for her body to pass through. Then she put her child on her back, and let herself slide down by the rope. For a long time she went down, and at last she came to the end of the rope, but it did not nearly reach the ground. That was far below her. She clung to the rope, crying, for she was afraid to let go and no one came to help her, for there was no one near to hear. It was a long way to the camp.
After a time the woman’s husband came back to their lodge and found that his wife was gone. [[78]]He looked for her everywhere, but could see nothing of her. At last he found the hole that she had dug, and when he looked down through it he saw her there hanging to the rope. Then he was angry. He looked about on the ground for a stone just the size of the hole, and dropped it through, and it fell on the woman’s head and killed her, but by his power the Star Man took care of the little child so that when it fell to the ground it was not hurt.
When the woman fell the boy crawled out from under her. He stayed there by his mother three days. Every now and then he would start to go off somewhere, and would go a little way, and then would come back to his mother and try to rouse her; but she was dead. The fourth day he started to go off a long way, and as he was going along he came to a patch of corn and squashes, and he walked among the corn and pulled some ears and ate them.
Near by this field was a poor little lodge, in which lived an old woman and her little grandson. One day the little boy went into the corn patch and saw there the footprints of a little child. He went back home and told his grandmother about it. They did not know whether [[79]]the tracks had been made by a girl or a boy. They looked for the child everywhere, but could not find it.
At last the old woman told her grandson to take out a flesher and a hoe and leave them in the field. “If it is a girl,” the old woman said, “she will take them.” The little boy did as she had said, and left the things there, but when the strange child came he did not take them. They could see his tracks where he had walked straight by them. Then the old woman said: “My son, take your bow and arrows and put them there. If it is a boy he will take them.” He did so.
When the little boy next went back to the corn patch after leaving the bow and arrows, they were gone. Then the little boy went into the corn and hid himself and waited. He stayed hidden there until the little Star Boy came back; then he walked up to him. He said: “Come, let us go to where my grandmother lives. We can play there together with our bows and arrows.” The boys went to the lodge and went in and ate together. Then they went out and played with their bows and arrows.
They lived thus for a long time. When they [[80]]had grown so that they could go a long way from home, they would sometimes stay away too long, and the old woman would get frightened about them and would scold them when they came back.
One day she said to the boys: “My sons, you must never go over there to that place where the timber grows thick. Never go there. That is where your fathers, mothers, uncles, aunts, and brothers were killed by a grizzly bear. It is dangerous to go there.”