“All right,” said the Bear. He walked over to the other side of the roof and stood there, and the boy took one of the arrows, fitted it to the bow, and let go. It went straight into the heart of the Bear, and even passed through him entirely.
“Wah!” uttered the Bear, as he gave a great snort and rolled over on the house-top and died.
“Ha, ha!” shouted the boy, “what you had intended to do unto me, thus unto you! Oh, mother!” called he, as he ran to the sky-hole, “here is your husband; come and see him. I have killed him; but, then, he would have me make the experiment,” said the boy.
“Oh, you foolish, foolish, disobedient boy!” said the mother. “What have you been doing now? Are we safe?”
“Oh, yes,” said he; “my step-father is as passive as if he were asleep.” And he went on and skinned his once prospective step-father, and then took out his heart and hung it to the cross-piece of the ladder as a sign that the people could go and get all the bow-timber and arrows they pleased.
That night, after the evening meal was over, the boy sat down with his mother, and he said: “By the way, mother, are there any monsters or fearful creatures anywhere round about this country that kill people and make trouble?”
“I don’t know about that; I think there must be,” said the boy.
“No, there are none whatever, I tell you,” answered the mother.
The boy began to tumble on the floor, rolling about, playing with his mother’s blankets, and throwing things around, and once in a while he would ask her again the same question, until finally she got very cross with him and said: “Yes, if you want to know, down there in the valley, beyond the great plains of sagebrush, is a den of _Misho_ Lizards who are fearful and deadly to every one who goes near them. Therefore you had better be careful how you run round the valley.”
“Well,” said she, “they are venomous; they have a way of throwing from their mouths or breath a sort of fluid which, whenever it strikes a person, burns him, and whenever it strikes the eyes it blinds them. A great many people have perished there. Whenever a man arrives at their den they are very polite and greet him most courteously; they say: ‘Come in; sit down right here in the middle of the floor before the fire.’ But as soon as the person is seated in their house they gather round the walls and throw this venom on him, and he dies almost immediately.”