“These cloud people are very wild; we cannot go near them. But we should like to drive them back or catch them.”
“Go west, my brothers,” said Olelbis, “and get something to stop that gap on the east where the cloud people pass you and go north. Stop that opening on the east, and stop the western slope also, leaving only a narrow place for them to go through. Get yew wood, make a very high fence with it, and stop the eastern slope.”
They brought the yew wood and made a very high fence on the eastern slope, and then one on the west, leaving only a narrow gap open.
“Go to the east now,” said Olelbis, “get katsau, which is a strong, fibrous plant, and make strings of it. Make a rope of the string and set a snare in the opening of the fence across the western slope to catch those cloud people.”
The elder brother was on the ridge near the western slope, and the younger on the ridge near the eastern slope. The brothers made the snare and set it on the western slope. Both watched and waited for the clouds to come.
“Now, my brother,” said Olelbis, when he saw this work, “watch these people well, frighten them into the trap, and I will go back to Olelpanti.”
Next morning early the two brothers were watching, and very soon they saw a great many cloud people coming. Both brothers were lying flat on the middle of the ridge, so that the clouds could not see them. The clouds watched closely. They came to the place where they had always turned east to go past little Katkatchila; they ran against the fence and could not pass. They turned and went toward the west to pass northward along the central ridge; but when both brothers stood up, the clouds rushed to the western slope and fell into the trap.
Olelbis saw this and said: “Now, my brothers are driving them in. I must go and see!” And he ran off quickly.
“Oh, my brother,” said the Katkatchilas when he came, “we have caught one cloud. All the rest went through the fence. They broke it—we caught one; the others burst away.”
Olelbis looked at the cloud and said,—