blinded them, stretching their bow strings of sinew and quenching the
flight of their arrows as the flight of bees is quenched by the
sprinkling plume of the honey-hunter. But they devised bow strings of
yucca and the Two Little Ones sought counsel of the Sun-father who
revealed the life-secret of the Ancient Woman and the magic powers over
the under-fires of the dwellers of the mountains, so that our enemy in
the mountain town was overmastered. And because our people found in that
great town some hidden deep in the cellars, and pulled them out as rats
are pulled from a hollow cedar, and found them blackened by the fumes of
their war magic, yet wiser than the common people, they spared them and
received them into their next of kin of the Black Corn. . . .

But the tremblings and warnings still sounded, and the people searched
for the stable Middle.

Now they called a great council of men and the beasts, birds, and
insects of all kinds. After a long council it was said,

"Where is Water-skate? He has six legs, all very long. Perhaps he can
feel with them to the uttermost of the six regions, and point out the
very Middle."

So Water-skate was summoned. But lo! It was the Sun-father in his
likeness which appeared. And he lifted himself to the zenith and
extended his fingerfeet to all the six regions, so that they touched the
north, the great waters; the west, and the south, and the east, the
great waters; and to the northeast the waters above. and to the
southwest the waters below. But to the north his finger foot grew cold,
so he drew it in. Then gradually he settled down upon the earth and
said, "Where my heart rests, mark a spot, and build a town of the