When Tskel saw Tcûskai, he asked: “What are you doing? Why are you so dirty?”
Tcûskai said: “I was just going to look for you.”
Skóŭks said: “He should be whipped for telling lies. He [[297]]has been everywhere in the world hunting for you. Just now he came home and put coal on his head, for when he couldn’t find you he thought you were dead.”
Tskel was chief in the Klamath country. He was the strongest person living. No other man could have killed the old man of the lake.
Now Tskel stayed at home for a long time. He killed deer and dried the meat and told his brother many things about the people in the world.
One day when he was out hunting, he heard somebody singing a beautiful song; he listened and wondered who it was. Then he followed the sound. It drew him along till he came to a big cedar tree. A woman was sitting on a bough of the tree and throwing cedar berries on to a blanket spread under the tree. When she saw Tskel, she called out: “Come and sit on the blanket!” He knew she was the old man’s daughter, and he wouldn’t go near her; he went home.
The next day he heard the song again, but he didn’t follow it. He went home and told Skóŭks that the old man’s daughter had come to kill him. He didn’t hunt again. One day the woman came and sat in a clump of bushes near Tskel’s house and told the crows to fly over her. Little Tcûskai saw the crows and said to his brother: “The crows are eating something. You had better go and see what it is.”
“Don’t go near that place,” said Tskel.
Tcûskai thought: “Why does my brother tell me not to go to those bushes? I am going.” He went around the house, out of Tskel’s sight, and crept toward the bushes. He found a woman sitting on a low stump; as he went up to her she spat out beautiful beads. The second time she spat, Tcûskai picked up some of the beads. Each time she spat the beads were more beautiful than before.
“What kind of a woman are you?” asked Tcûskai. She didn’t answer.