Tcûskai went home, and said: “Oh, brother, there is a beautiful woman over there in the bushes. You must have her for a wife. Send Skóŭks off and take her.” Tskel said: “Why don’t you get her for a wife; she must have come for you.” He [[298]]was sleepy. He had been in a half dream since the first day he heard the woman’s song.
Tcûskai went three or four times to see the woman and each time she spat beads. When she found that Tskel wouldn’t come to her, she went to the house. Skóŭks saw her coming and she fixed herself up. She had power and could do things. Tskel was lying on the ground. When the woman came in, she sat down by him and began spitting beads. Then Skóŭks spat, and her beads were nice. The woman was frightened a little; she spat long white beads; Skóŭks spat more beautiful beads. They kept spitting beads till, just as the sun went down, the woman by her power made sleep come over Tskel and Tcûskai, and made Skóŭks grow so sleepy she could scarcely see. When darkness came the woman began to wrap Tskel in a skin blanket to carry him off.
Right away Skóŭks was wide awake. She jumped on the woman and fought with her. They fought all night. First one would have Tskel and then the other. He was sound asleep all the time. There was such a dust from their fighting that Tcûskai was covered with it. Just at daylight Skóŭks gave out; she couldn’t fight any longer.
The woman snatched up Tskel and carried him off. She went under the ground, and as she went she made a furrow on the surface. Skóŭks followed for a long time, but she couldn’t get at the woman, for she couldn’t travel underground. At last she went home, struck Tcûskai with his neck rattles, and said: “You had better get up and follow your brother. You found him a nice wife, nicer than I am. Now you can go and live with them!”
Tcûskai woke up and went off to look for his brother. The trail had disappeared; he couldn’t find even one track.
When the woman went into the ground, she was just such an animal as her father had been. She carried Tskel on her horns till she came out at the lake, then she put him down and said: “I will let you rest twice before I kill you. How do you like this place?”
“I like it. I have been here before,” said Tskel.
She carried him to the middle of the trail in the lake, then [[299]]she put him down, and asked: “What did you do when you were here before?”
“Nothing.”
“Do you think you will ever go home?”