One day the young men were hunting in Sky Land, and they found the tracks of a great moose. They followed him for several days. Then as they were tracking the moose, they looked down and saw the Earth Land far below them. The eldest brother said, “I am going to try to get down to the earth again.”
Now this brother told the other two to cover themselves with their blankets, and not to look down. Then he started down to the earth, but he was only halfway down when the youngest brother looked through a hole in his blanket. At once the eldest brother stopped. He could go no further. So the three brothers have all lived in the Sky Land among the stars. They live there with the great moose and their dog. The Indians can see them even to this day. The morning star is the old grandmother, with a torch, looking for the young men.
THE GREAT BEAR AND THE HUNTER
Chilcotin
Once a man went out with his two dogs to hunt. It was in the autumn and there was a little snow on the ground. At night he camped.
As he lay on the ground under the trees, Great Bear appeared in the sky. Then the hunter started on, because he knew it was nearly morning. When he had gone but a little way, however, his dogs started a bear.
The bear ran fast and the dogs followed. The man followed both as rapidly as he could, and soon he came to a man sitting on a log. At once the hunter knew this was the bear. The man wore a blanket made of many different kinds of skins.
When the hunter came up, Bear said, “You thought last night I was slow in coming up, but my trail in the Sky Land is very hard and rough. Sun has the same trouble. He travels rapidly at first when the trail is smooth, but in the middle of the day the trail is rough and he travels more slowly. Then his trail grows easier again, and he travels more rapidly to the going-down place at the edge of the earth.”
Great Bear then told the young man to pull out from the blanket which he wore the skins of whatever animals he wished most to kill. The man took the skins of marten and fisher. Great Bear told him whenever he went out to hunt, to put the skin of whatever animal he wished to kill in his pouch, and then he would easily kill as many as he wished.
Then Great Bear went back into the Sky Land.