“Take it and start right away,” said Torihas. “Daylight is coming. Go straight. I will go, too, and when I am on the top of Toriham Pui Toror I will shout, and show you where to put the block.”
Tichelis put the flint on his back and hurried away with it.
When Katkatchila reached home he told his brother-in-law, Tilikus, and his brother-in-law’s brother, Poharamas, and Yonot, his sister, how his flint had been stolen.
It was just before sunrise. Tilikus and Poharamas went out in front of the house and swept a space clean and smooth; then they ran off to the east and got pine as full of pitch as they could find it. They brought a great deal of this, split some very fine, and made a large pile there on the smooth place.
Just at this time Torihas’s people were in his sweat-house talking about the theft. “Nothing will happen,” said most of them; “old Patsotchet is always talking in that way, foretelling trouble. We will dance to-day. Tichelis has carried that thing far away; all will be well now.”
Yonot, Katkatchila’s sister, had one child, a little baby which she called Pohila (fire child). The woman never left the house herself, and never let any one carry the child out.
“Now, my sister,” said Katkatchila, “bring your child here; bring my nephew out, and put him on that nice, smooth place which we have swept clean; it will be pleasant there for him.”
She brought the boy out, put him on the smooth place. Poharamas was on the southeast side all ready, and Tilikus on the southwest side. As soon as Yonot put down the baby, they pushed pitch-pine sticks toward it. That instant fire blazed up. When the fire had caught well Poharamas took a large burning brand of pitch-pine and rushed off to the southeast; Tilikus took another and ran to the southwest. Poharamas, when he reached the southeast where the sky comes to the earth, ran around northward close to the sky; he held the point of his burning brand on the ground, and set fire to everything as he ran. When Tilikus reached the southwest, at the place where the sky touches the earth, he ran northward near the sky. The two brothers went swiftly, leaving a line of flame behind them, and smoke rose in a cloud with the fire.
After the two had started Yonot snatched up Pohila, and as she raised the boy a great flame flashed up from the spot. She ran into the house with her son, and put him into the basket where she had kept him till that morning.
Torihas’s people had begun to dance. Some time after sunrise they saw a great fire far away on the east and on the west as well.