In one place were flashes of light coming up from the ground, and on digging here, just under the surface, the Red Man found a scale of the Uktena. Next he went over to the tree that had been struck by lightning, and gathering a handful of splinters he made a fire and burned the scale of the Uktena to a coal. He wrapped this in a piece of deerskin and gave it to the hunter, saying: “As long as you keep this you can always kill game.”
Then he told the hunter that when he went back to camp he must hang up the medicine on a tree outside, because it was very strong and dangerous. He told him also that when he went into the cabin he would find his brother lying inside nearly dead on account of the presence of the Uktena scale, but he must take a small piece of cane, which the Red Man gave him, and scrape a little of it into water and give it to his brother to drink, and he would be well again.
Then the Red Man was gone, and the hunter could not see where he went. He returned to camp alone, and found his brother very sick, but soon cured him with the medicine from the cane, and that day and the next, and every day after, he found game whenever he went for it.
MYTH TWENTY.
The Hunter and the Uksuhi.
A man living down in Georgia came to visit some relatives at Hickory-log. He was a great hunter, and after resting for some days, got ready to go into the mountains. His friends warned him not to go toward the north, as in that direction, near a certain large uprooted tree, there lived a dangerous monster Uksuhi snake.
It kept constant watch, and whenever it could spring upon an unwary hunter it would coil about him and crush out his life in its folds, and then drag the dead body down the mountainside into a deep hole in Hiwassee river. He listened quietly to the warning, but all they said only made him the more anxious to see such a monster, so, without saying anything of his intentions, he left the settlement and took his way directly up the mountain toward the north.
Soon he came to the fallen tree and climbed upon the trunk, and there, sure enough, on the other side was the great Uksuhi stretched out in the grass, with its head raised, but looking the other way.
It was as large as a common trunk of a tree, and at the sight of this terrible monster the hunter became so much frightened that he made haste to get down from the log and started to run; but the great snake had heard him approach, and the noise as he started to make his escape, whereupon it turned quickly and pursued him.