“What is the matter?” asked his brothers.
“I have no father or mother; that is why I cry all the time.”
The brothers said to one another: “Kéis is the man who killed our father and mother; we must kill him.”
As Gletcówas went toward the rocks, he hit against a mole hill and fell; then he talked to the earth, and said: “You shouldn’t treat me in this way. I have no father or mother; you should carry me safely.”
As Gletcówas fell, Kéis came out from among the rocks. He had grown so tall that he almost touched the sky. His song was loud and nice.
The brothers hid behind rocks and tied cross sticks to their arrows. “Go up to the sky,” called they to their youngest brother, for Kéis was just going to throw his medicine at him.
The brothers shot their arrows and hit Kéis. He fell, but he kept singing. The eldest brother pulled up a tree stump and pounded him on the head till he died. They cut Kéis into small pieces, threw the pieces over the rocks, and said: “You will no longer be great; even old women will kill you.” The pieces became rattlesnakes.
Then the three brothers went north. Kéis had made them lose their minds. They crossed the Shasta River and became birds. [[68]]
[1] Doctors often rub a whipsnake in dust and pull off his skin, then he gets a new skin, so what Wéwenkee said was true. [↑]