The maidens were frightened, and ran to the basket and jumped in, and the basket flew up into the sky, and grew smaller till at last he could not see it at all.
The young man went home to his wigwam, and his mother roasted buffalo meat for his dinner; but he could not eat, and he could not think of anything but the twelve beautiful maidens. His mother begged him to tell her what the matter was; and at last he told her, and said he would never be happy till he brought one of the maidens home to be his wife.
"Those must be the Star-people," said his mother, who was a great magician—the prairie was full of magic in those days, before the white man came and the buffalo went. "You had better take an Indian girl for your wife. Don't think any more of the Star-maidens, or you will have much trouble."
"I care little how much trouble I have, so long as I get a Star-maiden for my wife," he said; "and I am going to get one, if I have to wait till the world ends."
"If you must, you must," said his mother.
So next morning she sewed a bit of gopher's fur on to his feather; and he ate a good breakfast of buffalo meat and tramped away over the prairie to the dancing ring. As soon as he came into the ring he turned into a gopher; but there were no gophers' holes there for him to hide in, so he had to lie in the grass and wait.
Presently he saw a speck up in the sky, and the speck grew larger and larger till it became a basket, and the basket came down and down till it rested on the earth in the middle of the ring.
The eldest maiden put her head over the edge and looked all around, north and east and south and west.
"There is no man here," she said. So they all jumped out to have their dance. But before they came to the beaten ring the youngest maiden spied the gopher, and called out to her sisters to look at it.
"Away! away!" cried the eldest maiden. "No gopher would dare to come on our dancing ground. It is a conjuror in disguise!"