At last the elder brother let go of the deer and dropped to the ground. He went back and picked up his cap and the [[340]]pieces of his blanket. He pinned the pieces together with sticks and mended his moccasins with sticks.
The younger brother clung on for a good while, then he hit against a tree, and got such a blow that he fell off and lay on the ground for a long time. At last he got up, and started for home; as he went along, he picked up the pieces of his blanket and fastened them together with sticks. He was mad at his brother for letting go so soon. When they met, they quarreled a while, then made up and went on. Soon they saw a number of women coming toward them; each woman was carrying a basketful of roots. The brothers sat down and waited.
When the women came, they put their baskets on the ground, put some roots in a small basket, and gave the basket to the elder brother. He called to his brother: “Come and eat some of these roots.” The brother didn’t go; he made believe that he was mad; he didn’t say a word. The elder brother called him a second time; the third time he called, the younger brother said: “I won’t eat those roots. The women gave them to you; they didn’t give me any.”
The women were afraid; they knew that those brothers were cross and powerful. One of the women asked: “What is the matter? Why are you mad? What are you quarreling about?”
The two began to fight. Each brother had a piece of burnt fungus; they chewed the fungus and rubbed it on their faces and heads to frighten the women. The women were so scared that they left their baskets and ran off.
Then the brothers stopped fighting and laughed. They took the roots and went home. They had a sister married to a man on the other side of Klamath Lake. They started off to visit her. The elder brother asked: “What will you do when we get there?”
The younger said: “I don’t know; what will you do?”
“I will make the young men fight; the chief’s son will get shot in the eye. Everybody will run off to see him, and while they are gone, we will steal all they have in their houses.”
When they got to their sister’s house she cried because she [[341]]had nothing to give them to eat. She began to pound fish bones for them. The younger brother asked: “Why do you cry? I will make those bones good.” He made the fish bones into nice sweet seeds just by thinking hard. After a while, the young men of the village began to quarrel and then to fight, and right away the chief’s son was shot in the eye. Everybody ran to see what had happened. The two brothers stole all there was in the village,—blankets, beads, everything,—made packs of them; made the packs small and put them under their finger nails; then they started off in their canoe, taking their sister with them.
When the people went back to their houses and found their things gone, they knew that the brothers had stolen them. They followed them in their canoes, and were catching up when the elder brother asked: “What shall we do now?”