At last a man from one of the northern settlements came down to visit some relatives in that neighborhood. When he arrived they made a feast for him, but only had corn and beans, and excused themselves for having no meat because the hunters were afraid to go into the mountains. He asked the reason, and when they told him he said he would go himself tomorrow and either bring in a deer or find the Ustutli. They tried to dissuade him from it, but as he insisted upon going they warned him that if a fawn bleated in the thicket he must run at once and if the snake came after him he must not try to run down the mountain, but along the side of the ridge.
In the morning he started out, and went directly to the mountain. Working his way thru the bushes at the base, he suddenly heard a fawn bleat in front. He guessed at once that it was the Ustutli, but he had made up his mind to see it, so he did not turn back, but went straight forward, and there, sure enough, was the monster, with its great head in the air, as high as the pine branches, looking in every direction to discover a deer, or maybe a man, for breakfast. It saw him and came at him at once, moving in jerky strides, every one the length of a tree trunk, holding its scaly head high above the bushes and bleating as it came. The hunter was so badly frightened that he lost his wits entirely and started to run directly up the mountain.
The great snake came after him, gaining half its length on him every time it took a fresh grip with its fore feet, and would have caught the hunter before he reached the top of the ridge, but that he suddenly remembered the warning and changed his course to run along the side of the mountain. At once the snake began to lose ground, for every time it raised itself up the weight of its body threw it out of a straight line and made it fall a little lower down the side of the ridge. It tried to recover itself, but now the hunter gained and kept on until he turned the end of the ridge and left the snake out of sight. Then he cautiously climbed to the top and looked over and saw the Ustutli still slowly working its way toward the summit.
He went down to the base of the mountain, opened his fire pouch, and set fire to the grass and leaves. Soon the fire ran all around the mountain and began to climb upward.
When the great serpent smelled the smoke and saw the flames coming, it forgot all about the hunter and turned to make all speed for a high cliff near the summit. It reached the rock and got upon it, but the fire followed and caught the dead pines about the base of the cliff until the heat made the Ustutli’s scales crack.
Taking a close grip of the rock with its hind feet, it raised its body and put forth all its strength in an effort to spring across the wall of fire that surrounded it, but the smoke choked it and its hold loosened and it fell among the blazing pine trunks and lay there until it was burned to ashes.
MYTH TWENTY-TWO.
The Uwtsunta.
At Nundayeli, the wildest spot in Nantahala river, (in what is now Macon County, North Carolina), where the overhanging cliff is highest and the river far below, there lived in the old time a great snake called the Uwtsunta (or bouncer), because it moved by jerks like a measuring worm, with only one part of its body on the ground at a time. It stayed generally on the east side, where the sun came first in the morning, and used to cross by reaching over from the highest point of the cliff until it could get a grip on the other side, when it would pull over the rest of its body.