That day Tekewas came for roots. She saw the mat and asked: “Why did you throw away that nice mat?”
“Go off!” cried her mother. “Don’t torment me. You have killed your brothers. My spirit is old; you can kill me if you want to, but don’t torment me. Go away and let me alone!” She drove her off.
The next morning Tekewas went early to look for tracks. [[103]]She found the place where the boys had rolled straw rings and saw that some of the tracks were very small. She followed the larger tracks till she came to her mother’s house. “You didn’t tell me the truth!” cried she. “There are children here! Every afternoon I hear little boys laughing.”
The old woman scolded her, drove her off, watched her till she was out of sight; then she took the boys out of the hole and told them to go and play, but not to run around; if they did a bad woman would catch them.
That day the boys followed a white-necked duck. They tried to shoot it but couldn’t. At night the elder boy said: “Grandmother, you must give me an arrow with a strong head; then I can kill ducks.”
She gave him one and all the next day he followed the duck; at last he hit it. The bird screamed like a man and hid in the bushes. Ever since that time ducks like that one scream in the same way. When the boy found the bird, it said: “Don’t kill me. I always bring good news. Take this arrow out and I will talk to you.”
The boy pulled out the arrow, then the bird said: “Little boys, don’t think that you have a father and a mother. Your aunt killed them. She loved her youngest brother, but he didn’t love her, so she killed him and all of her brothers. Now she is trying to kill you. I hear her sing in her heart: ‘I will kill my nephews, I will kill my nephews!’ When you are large enough to shoot ducks from a canoe, you can kill her if you try. She swims in the lake in the form of a duck; when she is in the form of a woman she has long red hair. She will call you as though she loved you, but you must remember my words. Don’t tell your grandmother that you know about your aunt; she wouldn’t let you kill her. She could have saved your father if she had killed her daughter.”
“Grandmother,” asked the boy that night, “is there any place around here where there are green-headed ducks?”
“Yes, but you can’t kill them; you are too small.”
The boy went to the lake, sat in the reeds, and watched till he saw two green-headed ducks and killed them. The next day he killed five green-headed ducks. The old woman was [[104]]frightened. She didn’t dare to let a feather drop or fly away for fear Tekewas would see it. She burned each feather and roasted the ducks in hot ashes.