THE DELUGE AND REPEOPLING THE EARTH. 291 
supernatural powers. Things were going wrong, for there was no such 
thing as death. All the people who were old stayed old, and those who 
were young remained young. 
In a certain village there was a chief whose wife became pregnant. 
Time passed very rapidly. In a very little while after the woman had 
become pregnant she brought forth four litthe monsters. They grew 
every day. Most of the powerful men of the village came around and 
visited the chief’s place, saying among themselves that the monsters 
were ‘a very dangerous sort of children. They said it would be better 
to carry them off and kill them, but the mother said that she thought 
that they would be good children. She thought the children might turn 
out well, and did not want them killed. There was in the village a man 
who was a prophet, and he could foretell things. He said that of all 
the animals existing there were none like these monsters; that their 
birth was a sign that something dreadful was going to happen. ‘The 
monsters grew every day, and finally they began to go around. They 
had four feet, and they went around with the other children. The 
chief announced to the people that they should not harm the monsters. 
The monsters played with the other children. Sometimes they would 
run over them, but since the chief had forbidden that the monsters 
should be harmed the children could not say very much against them. 
As the monsters grew older they began to do much damage. They 
would eat buffalo robes, upturn tipis, eat rawhide ropes, etc. The 
chief’s wife did not say anything more in the defence of the monsters, 
for she knew that they were dangerous. When the monsters were 
plundering the villages the people would try to harm them, but could 
not. Finally the monsters began to run over the children and to eat 
them, and they did more and more mischief. The prophet told the people 
that something fearful was about to happen. After the monsters began 
to eat people the chief of the tribe told the people to go ahead and do 
as they pleased with the monsters. They tried to kill them, but could 
not harm them. They kept on growing. Finally the monsters went 
to the middle of the village and stood together, one facing east, one 
facing south, one facing west, and one facing north. In that way they 
all grew together. As they grew higher they could not stoop down to 
their feet to get the people, but the ones who were far away they could 
reach. The monsters continued to grow. The taller they grew the 
better it was for the people near their feet, but whenever they saw a 
person coming from far away they would stretch their necks in that 
direction. They would bend down their heads and grab the person. 
The monsters continued to grow. The people looked up, and it seemed 
that they would soon reach the sky. They grew higher and higher. 
