She told him again, as before, not to go east. She told him this many times. Now he was almost a young man, he had grown so fast. It was nearly spring, and the old woman talked to him seriously. When he had been with her all the winter, she said:
“My grandson, I suppose you wish to know something. I am going to talk to you. You will soon be full grown. I will let you know why I have told you so often not to go east. You wished to know why, now I will tell you.
“A long time ago all my people—my son, my brother, my relatives—went away off to the east and never came back again. I was left here alone. There is a great house off in the east there, called Saskewil. A big old man, Sas, with his wife and two daughters, live in it. All my kin went to that place and were killed there. When any one goes into Saskewil, the old woman, Sas’s wife, sits on the east of the door, which is open to the south; her daughters sit on the west side. The old woman sits with her back toward the wall and her face to the north. She never looks backward, but when a visitor is inside a while and is sitting, she turns slowly, puts her hands to each side of her eyes, bringing her finger-tips to meet in the middle of her forehead, and glares with big eyes at the stranger. He looks at her then and drops dead. There is a power in her eyes that kills him. Sas has something in his nose. He takes this, rolls it on his knee, and snaps it at people who go to his house. Nobody sees him do this, but he kills many people in that way.
“Now, my grandson, you know why I do not wish you to go east. I will tell you more. There was a man, the best of my people; he went to Saskewil, he went to the east and was killed there. I am sorry for him, I grieve for him yet. I am mourning now for him. He was your own brother, the one that I grieve most of all for. He was my grandson. His name was Kulitek Herit. You are large now, strong enough to hear this, and I tell you.”
After the old woman had told him of the people who had died in going to Saskewil, Tulchuherris answered,—
“I am sorry for my brother. I am sorry that he was killed. Now, my grandmother, I must see what I can do.”
He went out of the house then, went west and found a kind of white wood, brought it home and made an arrow,—a smooth, very small arrow; he painted this arrow red, blue, and black, painted it on the end and fastened feathers to it. Then he made a bow of wood which he found in the same place, far away west, and painted it nicely on the outer side.
Next morning before daylight, he went a short distance to the south from his grandmother’s, took his bow and arrow, strung the bow and shot his arrow toward the east.
After the little arrow had left the bow it became a humming-bird as it went through the air. Before the bird reached Sas’s house it turned to an arrow again.
A little way from Saskewil old Sas had his sweat-house with only one door to it. That door looked toward the south. The arrow dropped east of the door and stuck fast in the ground there. It dropped before daybreak, while Sas was in the sweat-house. He heard something fall outside the door, something that struck the ground with weight like a great rock. He knew not what to think. He had never heard such a noise before.