As soon as they had gone, the two boys went to their corner and lay down to rest, first filling their quivers with arrows, and laying their water-shield20 out on the floor. They were presently quiet, and then began to snore; so their old grandmother went into another room and brought out a new bowl which she filled with water. Then she retired into the room again, and when she came out she was dressed in beautiful embroidered mantles and skirts and decorated with precious ornaments of shell and turquoise.
The noise she made awoke Áhaiyúta, who punched his younger brother, and said: “Wake up, wake up! Here’s grandmother dressed as though she were going to a dance!”
Then the younger brother raised his voice to a sharp whisper (they knew perfectly well what the old grandmother was intending to do): “What for?”
“Here!” said the old woman, turning toward the bed. “Go to sleep! What are you never-weary little beasts doing now? For shame! You pretend you are going out to war tomorrow!”
“Why are you dressed so, grandmother?” ventured the younger.
“What should I be dressed for but to make medicine for you two? Now, mind, you must not watch me. I shall make the medicine and place it in these two cane tubes, and you must shoot them into the middle of the plaza of Háwikuh as soon as you get there. That will make the people like women; for the canes will break and make the medicine fly about like mist, and whomsoever gets his skin wet by it, will become no more of a warrior than a woman. Go to sleep, I say, you pests!”
But the boys had no intention of sleeping. To be sure, they stretched themselves out and slyly laid their arms across their eyes. The old grandmother did not notice this at first. She began to wash her arms in the bowl of water. Then she rubbed them so hard that the yepna (“substance of flesh”) was rolled off in little lumps and fell into the water. This she began to mix carefully with the water, when Áhaiyúta whispered to the other: “Brother younger, just look! Old grandmother’s arms look as bright as a young girl’s. Look, look!” said he, still louder, for the other had already begun to giggle; but when the old woman turned to talk sharply at them, they turned over, the rascals, as dutifully as though they had never joked with their poor old grandmother. Soon they were indeed sleeping.
Then the grandmother proceeded to fill the canes with the fluid, and then she fastened these to the ends of two good arrows. “There!” she exclaimed, with a sigh; and after she had chanted an incantation over the canes, she laid some food near the boys and softly left the room, to sleep.
The boys never minded the things they had to do in the morning, but slept soundly until the coming of day, when they arose, took their bows and quivers, knives, war-clubs, arrows, and water-shield, and quietly stole away.
It was not long ere they approached the house of Amiwili. He was fairly gorging the leaves of all the lizard plants he could lay hold of, and already looked so full that he must have felt like a ball. But he munched away so busily that he wouldn’t have looked at the boys had it been light enough.
“How did our grandfather come unto the morning?” asked they.
“Thluathlá!” (“Get out!”) was all the old Worm vouchsafed them between his cuds; and they sped on.
Soon they reached the home of the old Turtle. This old grandfather was more leisurely. “You will return at the height of the sun,” said he. “Now mind what I told you last night. I’ll wait right here on the bank for you.”
“Very well,” laughed the boys, for little they cared that they were on the warpath.
By-and-by they neared the town of Háwikuh. It was twilight, for the morning star was high. The boys sat down a moment and sang an incantation—the same our fathers and children, the Ápithlan Shíwani, sing now. Then the younger brother ran round the pueblo to scout. Two or three people were getting up, as he could see, for nearly everybody slept on the roofs, it was so warm.
“Iwolohkia-a-a!” cried he, at the top of his voice; and as the people were rousing he drew one of the cane arrows full length in his bow, and so straight and high did he shoot, that it fell thl‑i‑i‑i‑i! into the middle of the plaza, splitting and scattering medicine-water in every direction, so that the people all exclaimed, as they rubbed their eyes: “Ho! it is raining, and yet the sky is clear! And didn’t someone cry ‘Murder, murder!’ ”
When Áhaiyúta’s arrow struck, it scattered more medicine-water upon them, until they thought they must be dreaming of rain; but just then Mátsailéma shouted, “Ho‑o‑o! Murder!” again, and everybody started to hunt bows and arrows. Then the boy ran to the hiding-place of his brother in the grass on the trail toward the wood border, and just as he got there, some of the people who were shouting and gabbling to one another ran out to see him.
“Ha!” they shouted, “there they are, on the northern trail.”
So the Háwikuhkwe all poured down toward them, but when they arrived there they found no enemy. While the people were looking and running about, tsok tsok, and tsok tsok, and tsok tsok, the arrows of Áhaiyúta, and Mátsailéma struck the nearest ones, for they had crawled along the trail and were waiting in the grass. They never missed. Every man they struck fell, but many, many came on, and when these saw that there were only two, their faces were all the more to the front with haste. Still the two boys shot, shot, shot at them until many were killed or wounded before the
