"What is fire?" said the Boy. And the Coyote told him that fire was red
like a flower, yet not a flower; swift to run in the grass and to destroy,
like a beast, yet no beast; fierce and hurtful, yet a good servant to keep
one warm, if kept among stones and fed with small sticks.

"We will get this fire," said the Boy.

First the Boy had to persuade the people to give him one hundred swift
runners. Then he and they and the Coyote started at a good pace for the
far away Burning Mountain. At the end of the first day's trail they left
the weakest of the runners, to wait; at the end of the second, the next
stronger; at the end of the third, the next; and so for each of the
hundred days of the journey; and the Boy was the strongest runner, and
went to the last trail with the Counsellor. High mountains they crossed,
and great plains, and giant woods, and at last they came to the Big Water,
quaking along the sand at the foot of the Burning Mountain.

It stood up in a high peaked cone, and smoke rolled out from it endlessly
along the sky. At night, the Fire Spirits danced, and the glare reddened
the Big Water far out.

There the Counsellor said to the Boy, "Stay thou here till I bring thee a
brand from the burning; be ready and right for running, for I shall be far
spent when I come again, and the Fire Spirits will pursue me."

Then he went up to the mountain; and the Fire Spirits only laughed when
they saw him, for he looked so slinking, inconsiderable, and mean, that
none of them thought harm from him. And in the night, when they were at
their dance about the mountain, the Coyote stole the fire, and ran with it
down the slope of the burning mountain. When the Fire Spirits saw what he