Then he made great haste back to his village and told what he had seen. Chief Yee-khoo called all his braves together. They put on their war paint and brandishing their war clubs, rushed across the creek and fell upon the village, killing everyone in it and setting fire to their lodges.
Only Cowoh and her daughter, who had hid under their lodge, were saved. When at last the wild chant of the savage war dance of their enemies ceased, they stole like black shadows through the forest to the lodge in the mountains.
But after a time Cowoh’s heart was troubled.
“Who now will marry my daughter?” she asked herself. “There is no man of my people left for her to wed.”
One day as she walked in the forest with her daughter, At-ku-dakt (modest-little-one) she cried aloud, “Who now will marry my daughter?”
At once a little red bird came flying down and said: “I will marry your daughter.”
But Cowoh heeded him not.
Then a squirrel ran down from a tree, a rabbit came out of the woods, a deer paused in his flight, and each in turn said, “I will marry your daughter.” [[9]]
But Cowoh would have none of them.
Then Hoots, the great brown bear, came and said, “I can pull up huge trees by the roots. I can tear a man’s head and body apart. I shall marry your daughter.”