SLAYING THE MONSTERS BY FIRE. 49 
burn the grass all over the world. I know how large the world is and 
what a big task we have, but we must do it.’’ 
As every one was willing to try Morning Star’s plan, he told a man 
who was present at the council that most of the work would fall to him, 
but that he would appoint two men to help him carry out the work. 
The man’s name was Fire, and the first man appointed to help Fire was 
the fastest runner in the world, and his name was Black Snake; the 
second man was the slowest in the world, and his name was Skunk. 
Fire took hold of Black Snake’s tail and put fire on the end of it, and 
then took hold of Skunk’s hind foot and placed fire between his toes. 
They both started out at the same time, the one going to the north, 
the other around to the south, so as to meet somewhere in the west, 
since they started in the east. While these two were on their way the 
people decided to make a long rope out of soapweeds that would reach 
up to the sky. Everybody helped make the rope, and as they worked 
Pigeon would go up into the blue sky to see how near the fire had 
approached. After atime the people could see that the sky was getting 
very dark on account of the smoke from the fire, and so they worked 
hard and fast to get their rope long enough. Finally they had the 
rope finished, and they appointed Crow to take it up to thesky. Crow 
took the rope and flew and flew until he was out of sight, and it was a 
long time before he returned, but when he came he assured the people 
that he had the rope firmly fastened to the sky. The fire was approach- 
ing rapidly, and so the people began climbing up the rope. After the 
people had climbed up, all kinds of animals came and began to get 
hold of the rope, and all the bad animals came, and then the rope 
began to move upward. After the people were high up they sent a 
man down the rope as far as the first bad animal. This man’s name 
was Bat, and because he had very sharp teeth he was sent to cut the 
rope. The animal saw him chewing something and asked him what 
he was eating. Bat said that his grandmother had parched some corn 
for him and that he was eating it. He kept on cutting the rope, and 
finally it broke and let the bad animals fall down. When the animals 
dropped down to the ground Bat followed them down to see what 
would become of them. He saw a large animal and heard it call 
all the other animals to enter his body through his nose, ears, and 
mouth. ‘These animals went in, and so large was the big animal that 
it had room inside of it for all the bad animals. After all the others 
were in, Bat slipped in and began to pull out some hair from the 
animal’s nose. ‘That made the animal sneeze, and he sneezed so hard 
that he threw all the other animals out through his nose. The animals 
“were scattered every place and burned, for the fire was upon them. 
