The old man looked at her gravely. No matter how hard the question was, or how unexpected, Iagoo was always glad to answer. He never said: "I'm too busy, don't bother me," or, "Wait till some other time." So when Morning Glory
asked him this very peculiar question, he nodded his wise old head, saying:
"Do you know, I've often asked myself that very thing: Were the mountains always here?"
He paused, and looked once more into the fire, as if the answer was to be found there if he only looked long enough. At last he spoke again:
"Yes, I think it must be true that the mountains were always here—the mountains and the hills. They were made when the world was made—a long, long time ago; and the story of how the world was made you have heard before. But there is one high hill that was not always here—a hill that grew like magic, all of a sudden. Did I ever tell you the story of the Big Rock—how it rose and rose, and carried the little boy and girl up among the clouds?"
"No, no!" shouted the children in a chorus. "You never told us that one. Tell it to us now."
And this is the story of the magical Big Rock, as old Iagoo heard it from his grandfather, who heard it from his great-grandfather, who was almost old enough to have been there himself when it all happened:
In the days when all animals and men lived on friendly terms, when Coyote, the prairie wolf, was not a bad sort of fellow when you came to know him, and even the Mountain Lion would growl pleasantly and pass you the time of day—there lived in a beautiful valley a little boy and girl.