She gave him his breakfast as quickly as she could, and he ran down the ladder and went to shooting at the birds, until he happened to see that his mother and others were out of sight; then he skulked into the sagebrush and went as straight as he could for the den of the Misho Lizards. There happened to be two young ones sunning themselves outside, and they said:
“Ah, my fine little fellow, glad to see you this morning. Come in, come in; the old ones will be very much pleased to entertain you. Come in!”
“Thank you,” said the boy. He walked in, but he felt under his coat to see if a huge lump of rock salt he had was still there.
“Sit right down here,” said the old people. The whole den was filled with these Misho Lizards, and they were excessively polite, everyone of them.
The boy sat down, and the old Misho said to the young ones: “Hurry up, now; be quick!” And they began to throw their venom at him, and continued until he was all covered with it; but, knowing beforehand, and being the child of the gods, he was prepared and protected, and it did him no harm.
“Thank you, thank you,” said the boy. “I will do the same thing.” Then he pulled out the salt and pushed it down into the fire, where it exploded and entirely used up the whole council of Misho Lizards.
“There!” cried the boy. “Thus would you have done unto me, thus unto you.”
He took two fine ones and cut out their hearts, then started for home. When he arrived there, he climbed the ladder and suspended the two hearts beside that of the Bear and went down into the house, saying, “Well, mother, is dinner ready?”
“There now,” said she, “I know it. I saw you hang those hearts up. You have been down there.”
“Yes,” said he, “they are all gone—every solitary one of them.”
“Oh, you foolish, foolish, disobedient fellow! I am all alone in the world, and if you should go to some of those fearful places some time and not come back, who would hunt for me? What should I do?” said the mother.
“Don’t be troubled, mother, now,” said the boy. “I don’t think I will go any more. There is nothing else of that kind around, is there, mother?”
“No, there is not,” she replied; “not a thing. There may be somewhere in the world, but there is not anywhere here.”
In the evening, as he sat with his mother, the boy kept questioning and teasing her to tell him of some other monsters—pulling on her skirts and repeating his questions.
“I tell you,” she said, “there are no such creatures.”
“Oh, mother, I know there are,” said he, “and you must tell me about them.”
So he continued to bother her until her patience gave out, and she told him of another monster. Said she: “If you follow that canyon down to the southeast, there is a very, very, very high cliff there, and the trail that goes over that cliff runs close by the side of a precipice. Now, that has been for ages a terrible place, for there is a Giant living there, who wears a hair-knot on his forehead. He lies there at length, sunning himself at his ease. He is very good-natured and very polite. His legs stretch across the trail on which men have to go who pass that way, and there is no other way to get by. And whenever a man tries to go by that trail, he says: ‘Pass right along, pass right along; I am glad to see you. Here is a fresh trail; someone has just passed. Don’t disturb me; I am sunning myself.’ Down below is the den where his children live, and on the flesh of these people he feeds them.”
“Mercy!” exclaimed the boy. “Fearful! I never shall go there, surely. That is too terrible! Come, let us go to sleep; I don’t want to hear anything more about it.”
But the next morning, just as soon as daylight appeared, he got up, dressed himself, and snatched a morsel of food.
His mother said to him: “Where are you going? Are you thinking of that place I told you about?”
“No,” said he; “I am going to kill some prairie-dogs right here in sight. I will take my war-club.”
So he took his war-club, and thrust it into his belt in front, ran down the hill on which the village stood, and straightway went off to the place his mother had told him of. When he reached the top of the rocks he looked down, and there, sure enough, lay the Giant with the forehead knot.
The Giant looked up and said: “Ah, my son, glad to see you this morning; glad to see you coming so early. Someone just passed here a little while ago; you can see his tracks there.”
“Well,” said the boy, “make room for me.”
“Oh, just step right over,” said the old man; “step right over me.”
“I can’t step over your great legs,” said the boy; “draw them up.”
“All right,” said the old Demon. So he drew his knees up. “There, now, there is plenty of room; pass right along, my son.”
Just as the boy got near the place, he thrust out his leg suddenly that way, to kick him off the cliff; but the boy was too nimble for him, and jumped aside.
“Oh, dear me,” cried the Monster; “I had a stitch in my leg; I had to stretch it out.”
“Ah,” said the boy, “you tried to kick me off, did you?”
“Oh, no,” said the old villain; “I had a terrible stitch in my knee,”—and he began to knead his knee in the most vehement manner. “Just pass right along; I trust it won’t happen again.”
The boy again attempted to pass, and the same thing happened as before.
“Oh, my knee! my knee!”
