s WANTON] TLINGIT MYTHS AND TEXTS 211 



after, my grandson?" and the boy answered, "On account of my 

 playmate who was taken up hither. " " Oh ! ' ' answered the old woman, 

 "he is next door, only a short distance away. I can hear him 

 crying every day. He is in the moon's house." 



Then the old woman began to give him food. vShe woidd put her 

 hand up to her mouth, and a salmon or whatever she was going to 

 give would make its appearance. After the salmon she gave him 

 berries and then meat, for she knew that he was liungr}- from his 

 long journey. After that she gave him a spruce cone, a rose bush, 

 a piece of devil's club, and a small piece of whetstone to take along. 



As the boy was going toward the moon's house with all of these 

 things he heard his playmate screaming with pain. He had been 

 put up on a high place near the smoke hole, so, when his rescuer 

 came to it, he climbed on top, and, reaching down through the 

 smoke hole, pulled him out. He said, "My friend, come. I am here 

 to help you." Putting the spruce cone down where the boy had 

 been, he told it to imitate his cries, and he and his chum ran away. 



After a while, however, the cone dropped from the ]:)lace where it 

 had been put, and the people discovered that their captive had 

 escaped. Then the moon started in pursuit. When the head 

 chief's son discovered this, he threw behind them the devil's club 

 he had received from the old woman, and a patch of de\4rs club 

 arose which the moon had so much trouble in getting through that 

 they gained rapidly on him. When the moon again approached, the 

 head chief's son threw back the rose bushes, and such a thicket of 

 roses grew there that the moon was again delayed. Wlien he ap- 

 proached them once more, they threw back the grindstone, and it 

 became a high cliff from which the moon kept rolling back. It is 

 on account of this cliff that people can say things about the moon 

 nowadays with impunity. W^hen the boys reached the old woman's 

 house they were very glad to see each other, for before this they 

 had not had time to speak. 



The old woman gave them something to eat, and, when they 

 were through, she said to the rescuer, "Go and lie down at the 

 place where you lay when you first came up. Don't think of anything 

 but the playground 3^ou used to have." They went there and lay 

 dowai, but after some time the boy who had first been captured thought 

 of the old woman's house and immediately they found themselves 

 there. Then the old woman said, "Go back and do not think of me 

 any more. Lie there and think of nothing but the place where you 

 used to play." They did so, and, when they awoke, they were l^ang 

 on their playground at the foot of the ladder. 



As the boys lay in that place they heard a drum beating in the 

 head chief's house, where a death feast was being held for them, 

 and the head chiefs son said, "Let us go," but the other answered, 



