The great snake raised his head, with the diamond in front flashing fire, and came straight at his enemy, but the magician, turning quickly, ran at full speed down the mountain, cleared the circle of fire and the trench at one bound, and lay down on the ground inside. The Uktena tried to follow, but the arrow was thru his heart, and in another moment he rolled over in his death struggle, spitting poison over all the mountainside. The poison drops could not pass the circle of fire, but only hissed and sputtered in the blaze, and the magician on the inside was untouched except by one small drop which struck upon his head as he lay close to the ground; but he did not know it. The blood, too, as poisonous as the froth, poured from the Uktena’s wound and down the slope in a stream, but it ran into the trench and left him unharmed.
The dying monster rolled over and over down the mountain, breaking down large trees in its path until it reached the bottom. Then Agan-uni-tsi called every bird in all the woods to come to the feast, and so many came that when they were done not even the bones were left. After seven days he went by night to the spot.
The body and the bones of the snake were gone, all eaten by the birds, but he saw a bright light shining in the darkness, and going over to it he found, resting on a low-hanging branch, where a raven had dropped it, the diamond from the head of Uktena. He wrapped it up carefully and took it with him, and from that time he became the greatest medicine-man in the whole tribe.
When he came down again to the settlement the people noticed a small snake hanging from his head where the single drop of poison from the Uktena had struck him; but so long as he lived he himself never knew that it was there.
Where the blood of the Uktena had filled the trench a lake formed afterwards, and the water was black and in this water the women used to dye the cane splits for their baskets.
MYTH NINETEEN.
The Red Man and the Uktena.
Two brothers went hunting together, and when they came to a good camping place in the mountains they made a fire, and while one gathered bark to put up a shelter, the other started up the creek to look for a deer. Soon he heard a noise on the top of the ridge as if two animals were fighting. He hurried thru the brush to see what it might be, and when he came to the spot he found a great Uktena coiled around a man and choking him to death. The man was fighting for his life, and called out to the hunter, “Help me, nephew; he is your enemy as well as mine.” The hunter took good aim, and, drawing the arrow to the head, sent it thru the body of the Uktena, so that the blood spouted from the hole. The snake loosed its coils with a snapping noise, and went tumbling down the ridge into the valley, tearing up the earth like a water-spout as it rolled.
The stranger stood up, and it was the Asgaya Gigagei, the Red Man of the Lightning. He said to the hunter: “You have helped me, and now I will reward you, and give you a medicine so that you can always find game.” They waited until it was dark, and then went down the ridge to where the dead Uktena had rolled, but by this time the birds and the insects had eaten the body and only the bones were left.