60 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [bull. 39 



my account, try it in the fall. Then they always come down into 

 the thick timber below the glacier, and you can come up there with 

 dogs." 



In the autumn, therefore, they prepared to kill the sheep. The 

 people were told to put the sheep heads toward the rising sun and 

 throw their skins about anywhere without drying, for they thought 

 that this would make the mountain sheep let their friend go. 



Then the mountain-sheep chief said to the man, "They are going 

 to let you go now, because all of your fathers are suffering very much 

 from not having their skins well dried." 



The mountain shee]) could easily see when all of his friends started 

 out to fight for him, and they got him ready to send down to them. 

 Then they said, "Now you will be allowed to start down to them." 

 When they got down far enough the dogs which were coming up in 

 front met the flock he was standing among. Then they took off his 

 mountain-sheep skin and put it aside, leaving him in human form, and 

 he chased all the dogs away from them. 



He stood in the midst of the flock of sheep, and all the people stood 

 below. Then he said to his friends, "Do not kill any more mountain 

 sheep, for they will now let me go among you." So they broke all of 

 the shafts of the spears they had used in fighting the mountain sheej) 

 and threw them away. 



When he came down he smelt like the things that grow on the tops 

 of Cottonwood trees (doxkwa'nk!). They brought him into the house 

 and ho saw the mountain-sheep skins lying about there at random. 

 Then he said, "They let me come among you again that I might have 

 you dampen these, hang them up, and dry them thoroughly." After 

 they had worked upon the skins for some time they put red paint 

 upon them and eagle down. The man who had come down from 

 among the sheep told his people to say this to the skins while they 

 were doing so: "We will put your skins in just the position in which 

 they came off from the flesh." 



In the morning all of the houses shook. Every piece of flesh that 

 had come oft' of the mountain sheep w^as in its place in the skins, and, 

 when the man who had come back to them opened the door, they 

 came down from the drying racks and marched off. But they had 

 been so long among the Indians that just before they reached the 

 highest mountain where they belonged they lost their way and 

 became scattered over all the mountains. Because the mountain 

 sheep once saved (or captured) a man, they have beards and look 

 in other respects like human beings. 



After this the mountain sheep sent a spirit called Ylxa/ (A-very- 

 young-man (or -yek)) to the man who had been rescued, to be his 

 strength (yek). There was great rejoicing among his friends when 

 this spirit began to manifest itself in him, and all commenced to 



