Soon they began to say: “We should like to have other food; we should like to have game to eat. We saw mountain quail to-day; we saw deer.” At last they talked this way every night. Kele listened, thinking what to do. These girls had a nice bed made of skins, and they talked every night to each other; but one night they went to bed early and fell asleep right away. Kele had wished them to sleep; that is why they fell asleep quickly. He hurried down to some mountain-ash trees, went to the middle of them, and cut off five sticks. He whittled these, made them smooth, cut each in two. He had ten smooth sticks then. Next he cut five other sticks. These he left rough; cut them also in two; had ten of them. Kele placed the twenty sticks overhead in the house on the north side, and lay with his back to the fire. The fire was a good one, a hot manzanita fire. His club of green oak was there at the fireplace.
Kele lay without sleeping and waited. He was awake and was thinking. The two girls were sound asleep all the time. Just before daybreak he heard a sound as if some barefooted person had sprung from above to the floor. Next moment some one took the club and struck him. Another came down in the same way and struck him. Ten times he was struck with the club.
The ten smooth sticks had turned into people. Each man gave him a blow, went to the wall of the house, and sat there. Kele did not rise yet. He heard some one barefoot jump down and seize the club. This one hit Kele once. A second one sprang down and hit him twice, a third three times, a fourth four times, and so on to the tenth, who struck him ten times. There were twenty in all; ten from the smooth and ten from the rough sticks.
The first ten sticks he had whittled smooth, and they made ten good sons, but from the ten untrimmed sticks came ten rough, uproarious sons. Kele hadn’t smoothed them, and they struck him many times. When the tenth rough son struck him the last blow, Kele stood up and made a big fire; he could barely move, he had been so beaten with the club. He lay down then and said,—
“Now, my boys, come here; warm yourselves, dance and sweat, then go to the creek to swim, and come here again.” He sang then, and made his sons dance. The boys danced, and hurried to the creek to swim, shouting as they went. They came back to the sweat-house good-looking persons.
The two girls rose now. They knew already what their father had done.
“Go, my daughters, and cook for your brothers,” said Kele.
The two sisters made the food ready and placed it before their brothers.
“Now, my sons, eat what we have,” said Kele. “You will go out after that, you will hunt, and bring game.”
The first ten, the smooth men, had good sense; the second ten were inferior; the ninth and tenth of the second ten were very bad. The first ten took each only one mouthful; of the second ten, the first took one mouthful, the second two, the third three, and so on to the tenth, who took ten mouthfuls. After that they sat back and made ready to go out.