“Somebody has come,” said the people below. “Listen to that!”
The maiden shrugged her shoulders and said: “Thou comest?”
“Yes,” answered the young man; “draw me in.”
So she reached up and pulled the huge bundle down into the room, placing it on the floor, and the young man followed it down.
Said the old man, who was sitting by the fire, for it was night: “Thou comest. Not thinking of nothing doth one stranger come to the house of another. What may be thy thoughts?”
The young man looked at the maiden and said to himself: “What a magnificent creature she is! She will be my wife, no fear that she will not.” Then said he aloud: “I came, thinking of your daughter. I would rest my hopes and thoughts on her.”
“It is well,” said the old man. “It is the custom of our people and of all people, that they may possess dignity, that they may be the heads of households; therefore, young men and maidens marry and establish themselves in certain houses. I have no objection. What dost thou think, my daughter?”
“I have no objection,” said the daughter.
“Ah, what did I tell you?” said the youth to himself, and ate with a great deal of satisfaction the meal placed before him.
The father laid out the cornhusks and tobacco, and they had a smoke; then he said to his daughter: “The stranger who is now my son has come a long way, and should not be kept sitting up so long.”
As the daughter led him to another room, he thought: “What a gentle creature she is! How softly she steps up the ladder.”
When the door was reached, she said: “Here we will say good night.”
“What is the matter?” he asked.
Said she: “I would like to know of my husband this much, that he is a good hunter; that I may have plenty of food all my days, and plenty of buckskins for my clothing. Therefore I must ask that in the morning you go forth and hunt the deer, or bring home an antelope for me.”
The young man quickly recovered himself, and said: “It is well,” and lay himself down to rest.
So the next morning he went out, and there was the maiden at the top of the house watching him. He couldn’t wait for daylight; he wanted the Sun, his father, to rise before his time, and when the Sun did rise he jumped out of bed, tied his quiver to his belt, took his bow in his hand, and, with a little luncheon the maiden had prepared for him, started off.
As he went down the river he saw the maiden was watching him from the top of the house; so he started forward and ran until he was out of sight, to show how fine a runner he was and how good a hunter; because he was reputed to be a very strong and active young man. He hunted and hunted, but did not find any deer, nor even any tracks.
Meanwhile, the maiden went up the stream as before and kept watch of the corral; and he fared as the other young man had fared. At night he came home, not quite so downcast as the other had been, because he was a young man of more self-reliance.
She asked, as she met him: “Haven’t you got any deer today?”
He answered: “No.”
She said: “I am sorry, but under the circumstances I don’t see how we can become husband and wife.”
So he carried his bundle home.
The next day there was a young man in the City of Salt who heard of this—not all of it, but he heard that day after day young men were going to the home of this maiden to court her, and she turned them all away. He said: “I dare say they didn’t take enough with them.” So he made up two bundles and went to the home of the maiden, and he said to himself: “This time it will be all right.”
When he arrived, much the same conversation was gone through as before with the other young men, and the girl said, when she lighted him to the door of his room: “My young friend, if you will find a deer for me tomorrow I will become your wife and rest my hope only on you.”
“Mercy on me!” thought the young man to himself, “I have always been called a poor hunter. What shall I do?”
The next morning he tried, but with the same results.
Now, this girl was keeping the deer and antelope and other animals so long closed up in the corral that the people in all the villages round about were ready to die of hunger for meat. Still, for her own gratification she would keep these animals shut up.
The young man came back at evening, and she asked him if he had found a deer for her.
“No,” said he, “I could not even find the trail of one.”
“Well,” she said, “I am sorry, for your bundles are heavy.”
He took them up and went home with them.
Finally, this matter became so much talked about that the two small gods on the top of Thunder Mountain, who lived with their grandmother where our sacrificial altar now stands, said: “There is something wrong here; we will go and court this maiden.” Now, these gods were extremely ugly in appearance when they chose to be—mere pygmies who never grew to man’s stature. They were always boys in appearance, and their grandmother was always crusty with them; but they concluded one night that they would go the next day to woo this maiden.
Said one to the other: “Suppose we go and try our luck with her.” Said he: “When I look at you,
