THE GIRL WHO MARRIED A STAR. 55 
living part of the boy. The boy’s father then found a plan for get- 
ting the Snake out. A storm came from the north. It rolled the skull 
over and turned it up so that the hole in the skull was upward, and 
as the rain fell it ran into the skull and filled it with water. This did 
not drive the Snake out. The father called on the Sun to get nearer 
to the earth, so as to heat the skull so that the Snake would have to 
jump out. The Sun moved towards the earth and heated the skull. 
Soon the water was boiling. It became too hot for the Snake, and 
finally the Snake crawled out of the skull. No sooner had it got out 
than the boy stood up and caught the Snake by the neck. He then 
took up stones and hit the Snake’s snout, so that it made its head 
short. Then the boy sat down upon a rock and began to rub the 
Snake’s teeth upon it, and said, “Now you must promise that you 
will never bother people again.” The snake promised. The Snake, 
as it was turned loose, said, “Once in a great while I shall bite people, 
but not often.” The boy reached for the Snake and it disappeared,— 
that is why the people get bitten by snakes once in a great while. 
The boy then returned to his grandmother, who was glad to see 
him. The boy told his grandmother that she was now free to do as 
she pleased, for he was going off; that the country was now free from 
wild animals. So the old woman disappeared, and the boy went south- 
east to the village of the people. 
There the boy told his story, and the people knew that he was 
the son of the girl who ‘had climbed up the cottonwood tree. The 
boy did many wonderful things for the people, and the people said that 
it was through the boy that the people could travel through these wild 
countries, for now all the wild animals had been scattered and were 
not as fierce as they had been before. The old woman had disap- 
peared and had made her camp in some other place. The boy died 
after he had cleared the country of all the wild animals. 
There is an old cottonwood tree on the south side of the Mis- 
souri River, close to the place known as Armstrong, that the people 
claim is the tree that stretched upward, taking the girl up to the Star. 
Still south of the cottonwood tree is the place where the people say 
the stone is that was thrown down by the Star and which killed the 
woman. To the west is the lake where the monster fell. At the south- 
west of the cottonwood, it is supposed, was the Snake den. The people 
say that to-day snakes are very numerous there. South of this place, 
among the hills, is where the mountain-lion is supposed to have been. 
Close to the cottonwood, in the timber along the Missouri River, is 
the place where the bear is supposed to have been. 
