“Make the bone long,” said Winishuyat. Tulchuherris stretched the bone. “Stick the bone into the head of each snake and gather them all on it.”
Tulchuherris did this quickly; had them all; then he slipped them off and let them drop to the earth. After that he sat on the limb and thought: “What shall I do now?”
“My brother,” said Winishuyat, “what are you thinking of? Why not try to do something? Do you want to die? If you cannot think of a way to escape, I will tell you a way.”
“Tell me, my brother.”
“Stretch your right hand toward the west. Something will come on it.”
Tulchuherris stretched his hand toward the west, where his grandmother was, and immediately something came with a whirr and a flutter, and settled on his arm like a bird. It was a sky-strap, blue like the sky, narrow, and very strong. He fastened one end of it to the limb, knotting it in such a way that he could untie it with a jerk at the other end. He slipped down on it, and when on the ground jerked it loose. He strung the snakes on the long bone, they were all dead, and carried them to Sas’s house. He laid them at the door, went in, sat down, and then said to the two women,—
“I have the woodpeckers if you wish to play with them. If you don’t want them, you can send your father to look at them.”
The girls told Sas. He went to the snakes and cried out: “Oh, my son-in-law, you are killing all my children.” Sas buried them in the old woman’s grave, and cried, and sang the same song over them as over his wife and the bears. Then he danced, wearing the beaver teeth.
Next morning old Sas rose first, and said: “My son-in-law, be up. My daughters always want me to fish and hunt; but I cannot fish now, I cannot hunt. I am old and weak. My feet are tender, I cannot walk; my head is dizzy. But you are young, my son-in-law. You can do many things. If you wish to hunt, I will show you where to find game in plenty. When I was young, I used to go to that place and kill game of every sort.”
“I will go,” said Tulchuherris.