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?”
She said: “I am sorry, but under the circumstances I don’t see how we can become husband and wife.”
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.”
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 pigmies 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.