When Ndúkis passed Tcoóks’ house, the old man asked: “Where have you been?”
“I have just been walking around,” said Ndúkis. “I met the two sisters. They were scared and ran into the bushes. I don’t like them.”
When Tcoóks told Wískäk that Ndúkis was mad at her daughters, she cried; she thought maybe he had killed them. [[198]]
On the way home from Mlaiksi, the girls saw people digging roots in places where they had always dug.
When they told their mother, she said: “Stay in the house. I will go and see why they are digging around here.”
She took five steps and was there. The people were scared. They had never seen Wískäk, for she always stayed at home and sent her daughters to dig. When she found that they were getting all the roots, she went home, and said: “Come and help me; we must dig fast and get as many roots as we can.”
Those people lived near Shasta River. When they started, they sent word to all their kin that they were going off to dig roots, but they forgot to tell young man Wámanik, who lived on the north side of the digging place, so he started off alone.
The elder Wískäk girl said to her mother: “You go straight ahead: we will go on the north side, where there are nice long roots.” When they got there, the ground was turned up and all the roots were gone.
Wámanik was there. When he found that the roots had been dug, he was mad. He stood up tall and looked bright. The elder sister didn’t see him. The younger one saw him and ran.
Wámanik fell in love with her right away. He thought she was so nice-looking that he would like her for a wife, and in some way he took hold of her heart, so she wouldn’t get frightened. He followed her to the spring where she went to get water to drink.