And so, as the Sun had told them, they finished their story. Then the people were convinced, and sent for the grandfather, the great priest-chief, and when he came they all embraced their new children, admiring greatly their straight, smooth limbs and abundant hair. Then the grandfather dressed them in some of the beautiful ornaments their mother used to wear, and when evening approached they feasted them. And after the meal was over, as the Sun was setting, the two boys arose and said, “We must go.”
“Stay with us, stay with us,” the young girls and the grandfather said. “Why should you go away from your home? This is your own home.”
“No; we said to our mother and father, the Badgers, that we would return to them; therefore we must go,” urged the boys. So at last they consented and wished them a happy journey.
“Fear not,” said the Two as they started, “for we shall yet go and get our mother. Even tomorrow we shall go to Acoma where the people dance day after day in her memory.” Then they departed and returned to the place of the Badgers.
When they arrived at home, sure enough, there were their Badger-mother and Badger-father awaiting them outside their holes.
“Oh, here you are!” they cried.
“Yes; how did you come unto the evening?”
“Happily!” replied the old ones. “Come in, come in!” So they entered.
When they had finished eating, the elder brother said: “Mother, father, look ye! Tomorrow we must go after our mother to Acoma. Make us a luncheon, and we will start early in the morning. We are swift runners and shall get there in one day; and the next day we will start back; and the next day, quite early, we will come home again with our mother.”
“Very well,” replied the Badger-father; “it is well.” But the Badger-mother said, “Oh! my poor children, my poor boys!”
So, early next morning, the Badger-mother rolled up some sweet corn-cakes in a blanket, for she did not have to string them now, and together the Twain started up the eastern trail. Their father, the Sun, thought to help them; therefore he lengthened the day and took two steps only at a time, until the two boys had arrived at the Springs of the Elks, almost on the borders of the Acoma country. Then, with his usual speed journeyed the Sun-father toward the Land of Night; and the two boys continued until they arrived within sight of the town of the Acomas—away out there on top of a mountain. Sure enough, there was an old hag struggling along under a load of wood, and as the two brothers came up to her they said: “Ha, grandmother, how are you these many days?”
“Happy,” replied the old woman.
“Why is it that you, a woman, and an old woman, have to carry wood?”
“Why, I am the priestess of the dance!” answered the old woman.
“Priestess of the dance?”
“Yes.”
“What dance?”
“Why, there once lived a maiden in the Town of the Eagles, and the two Gods of War shot her one day from the back of an Eagle who was trying to run away with her, and she fell; and one of my young men was the first to grasp her, therefore we dance with her bones every night.”
“Well, why do you get this wood?” they asked.
“I light the ceremonial chamber with it.”
“What do you do when you get home?”
“Why, the maidens of my clan come and baptize me and feast me; then when the evening comes I go and light a fire with this wood in the chamber and wait until the young men gather; and when everything is ready I go to a niche in the wall and get the maiden’s bones and distribute them; and when they have finished the dance I tell them to stop, and they replace the bones.”
“What do they do then?” asked the two boys.
“Why, some of them go home, and some sleep right there, and I lie down and sleep there, too.”
“Is that all?” inquired the two boys.
“Why, yes, what more should there be?”
“Nothing more, except that I think we had better kill you now.” Thereupon they struck her to the earth and killed her. Then they skinned her like a bag, and the elder brother dressed the younger in the skin, as the Sun-father had directed, and he shouldered the bundle of wood.
“How do I look?” asked he.
“Just like her, for all the world!” responded the other.
“All right,” said he; “wait for me here.”
“Go ahead,” said the elder brother, and away the younger went. He ran with all his might till he came near to the town, and then he began to limp along and labor up the pathway just as the old woman was wont to do, so that everybody thought that he was the old woman, indeed. And sure enough it all happened just as the Sun-father had said it would. When the dance was over, some of the young men went away and others slept right there. There were so many of them, though, that they almost covered the floor. When they all began to snore, the young man arose, threw off his disguise, and stepped carefully between the sleepers till he reached the niche in the wall. Then he put his mother’s bones, one by one, into his blanket, felt all around to see that he left nothing, and started for the ladder. He reached it all right and took one, two, three steps; but when his foot touched the fourth rung it creaked, and the sleeping dancers awoke and started.
“Somebody is going up the ladder!” they exclaimed to one another. Then the
