ORIGIN OF CLEAR LAKE—ORIGIN OF WATER. Q2Ai 
He created other little frogs to assist him and by thétr concentrated efforts 
they finally made the lake. Then he created the little flat whitefish, which 
voyaged down Cache Creek and turned into the great salmon, pike, stur- 
geon, and other fishes that swim in the Sacramento. 
The Chenposel also tell this : 
THE GREAT FIRE. 
There was once a man who loved two women and wished to marry 
them. Now these two women were magpies (atch’-atch), but they loved 
him not and laughed his wooing to scorn. Then he fell into a rage and 
cursed these two women, and went far away to the north. There he 
set the world on fire, then made for himself a tule boat, wherein he 
escaped to the sea and was never heard of more. But the fire which he 
had kindled burned with a terrible burning. It ate its way south with 
frightful swiftness, licking up all things that are on earth—men, trees, 
rocks, animals, water, and even the ground itself. But the Old Coyote saw 
the burning and the smoke from his place far in the south, and he ran with 
all his might to put it out. He took two little boysin a sack and ran north 
like the wind. So fast did he run that he gave out just as he got to the 
fire and dropped the two little boys. But he took Indian sugar (honey- 
dew) in his mouth, chewed it up, spat it on the fire, and so put it out. 
Now the fire was out, but the coyote was mighty thirsty, and there was no 
water. Then he took Indian sugar again, chewed it up, dug a hole in the 
bottom of the creek, covered up the sugar in it, and it turned to water, and 
the earth had water again. But the two little boys cried because they were 
lonesome, for there was nobody left on earth. Then the coyote made a 
sweat-house, and split out a great number of little sticks, which he laid in 
the sweat-house over night. In the morning they were all turned to men 
and women, so the two little boys had company, and the earth was re- 
peopled. 
It seems probable that this story relates to some great volcanic erup- 
tion, perhaps to that of which an account was given by Professor Le Conte 
in a paper read before the California Academy of Sciences in the spring of 
1874. 
