this is one of the stories that alan had from the basket woman after she came to understand that the boy really loved her tales and believed them. she would sit by the spring with her hands clasped across her knees while the clothes boiled and alan fed the fire with broken brush, and tell him wonder stories as long as the time allowed, which was never so long as the boy liked to hear them. the story of the fire bringer gave him the greatest delight, and he made a game of it to play with little indian boys from the campoodie who sometimes strayed in the direction of the homesteader's cabin. it was the story that came oftenest to his mind when he lay in his bed at night, and saw the stars in the windy sky shine through the cabin window.
he heard of it so often and thought of it so much that at last it seemed to him that he had been part of the story himself, but his mother said he must have dreamed it. the experience came to him in this way: he had gone with his father to the mountains for a load of wood, a two days' journey from home, and they had taken their blankets to sleep upon the ground, which was the first time of alan's doing so. it was the time of year when white gilias, which the children call "evening snow," were in bloom, and their musky scent was mingled with the warm air in the soft dark all about him.
he heard the camp-fire snap and whisper, and saw the flicker of it brighten and die on the lower branches of the pines. he looked up and saw the stars in the deep velvet void, and now and then one fell from it, trailing all across the sky. small winds moved in the tops of the sage and trod lightly in the dark, blossomy grass. near by them ran a flooding creek, the sound of it among the stones like low-toned, cheerful talk. familiar voices seemed to rise through it and approach distinctness. the boy lay in his blanket harking to one recurring note, until quite suddenly it separated itself from the babble and called to him in the basket woman's voice. he was sure it was she who spoke his name, though he could not see her; and got up on his feet at once. he knew, too, that he was alan, and yet it seemed, without seeming strange, that he was the boy of the story who was afterward to be called the fire bringer. the skin of his body was dark and shining, with straight, black locks cropped at his shoulders, and he wore no clothing but a scrap of deerskin belted with a wisp of bark. he ran free on the mesa and mountain where he would, and carried in his hand a cleft stick that had a longish rounded stone caught in the cleft and held by strips of skin. by this he knew he had waked up into the time of which the basket woman had told him, before fire was brought to the tribes, when men and beasts talked together with understanding, and the coyote was the friend and counselor of man. they ranged together by wood and open swale, the boy who was to be called fire bringer and the keen, gray dog of the wilderness, and saw the tribesmen catching fish in the creeks with their hands and the women digging roots with sharp stones. this they did in summer and fared well, but when winter came they ran nakedly in the snow or huddled in caves of the rocks and were very miserable. when the boy saw this he was very unhappy, and brooded over it until the coyote noticed it.
"it is because my people suffer and have no way to escape the cold," said the boy.
"i do not feel it," said the coyote.
"that is because of your coat of good fur, which my people have not, except they take it in the chase, and it is hard to come by."
"let them run about, then," said the counselor, "and keep warm."
"they run till they are weary," said the boy, "and there are the young children and the very old. is there no way for them?"
"come," said the coyote, "let us go to the hunt."
"i will hunt no more," the boy answered him, "until i have found a way to save mypeople from the cold. help me, o counselor!"
but the coyote had run away. after a time he came back and found the boy still troubled in his mind.
"there is a way, o man friend," said the coyote, "and you and i must take it together, but it is very hard."
"i will not fail of my part," said the boy.
"we will need a hundred men and women, strong and swift runners."
"i will find them," the boy insisted, "only tell me."
"we must go," said the coyote, "to the burning mountain by the big water and bring fire to your people."
said the boy, "what is fire?"
then the coyote considered a long time how he should tell the boy what fire is. "it is," said he, "red like a flower, yet it is no flower; neither is it a beast, though it runs in the grass and rages in the wood and devours all. it is very fierce and hurtful and stays not for asking, yet if it is kept among stones and fed with small sticks, it will serve the people well and keep them warm."
"how is it to be come at?"
"it has its lair in the burning mountain, and the fire spirits guard it night and day. it is a hundred days' journey from this place, and because of the jealousy of the fire spirits no man dare go near it. but i, because all beasts are known to fear it much, may approach it without hurt and, it may be, bring you a brand from the burning. then you must have strong runners for every one of the hundred days to bring it safely home."
"i will go and get them," said the boy; but it was not so easily done as said. many there were who were slothful and many were afraid, but the most disbelieved it wholly, for, they said, "how should this boy tell us of a thing of which we have never heard!" but at the last the boy and their own misery persuaded them.
the coyote advised them how the march should begin. the boy and the counselor went foremost, next to them the swiftest runners, with the others following in the order of their strength and speed. they left the place of their home and went over the high mountains where great jagged peaks stand up above the snow, and down the way the streams led through a long stretch of giant wood where the sombre shade and the sound of the wind in the branches made them afraid. at nightfall where they rested one stayed in that place, and the next night another dropped behind, and so it was at the end of each day's journey. they crossed a great plain where waters of mirage rolled over a cracked and parching earth and the rim of the world was hidden in a bluish mist; so they came at last to another range of hills, not so high but tumbled thickly together, and beyond these, at the end of the hundred days, to the big water quaking along the sand at the foot of the burning mountain.
it stood up in a high and peaked cone, and the smoke of its burning rolled out and broke along the sky. by night the glare of it reddened the waves far out on the big water when the fire spirits began their dance.
then said the counselor to the boy who was soon to be called the fire bringer, "do you stay here until i bring you a brand from the burning; be ready and right for running, and lose no time, for i shall be far spent when i come again, and the fire spirits will pursue me." then he went up the mountain, and the fire spirits when they saw him come were laughing and very merry, for his appearance was much against him. lean he was, and his coat much the worse for the long way he had come. slinking he looked, inconsiderable, scurvy, and mean, as he has always looked, and it served him as well then as it serves him now. so the fire spirits only laughed, and paid him no farther heed. along in the night, when they came out to begin their dance about the mountain, the coyote stole the fire and began to run away with it down the slope of the burning mountain. when the fire spirits saw what he had done, they streamed out after him red and angry in pursuit, with a sound like a swarm of bees.
the boy saw them come, and stood up in his place clean limbed and taut for running. he saw the sparks of the brand stream back along the coyote's flanks as he carried it in his mouth and stretched forward on the trail, bright against the dark bulk of the mountain like a falling star. he heard the singing sound of the fire spirits behind and the labored breath of the counselor nearing through the dark. then the good beast panted down beside him, and the brand dropped from his jaws. the boy caught it up, standing bent for the running as a bow to speeding the arrow; out he shot on the homeward path, and the fire spirits snapped and sung behind him. fast as they pursued he fled faster, until he saw the next runner stand up in his place to receive the brand. so it passed from hand to hand, and the fire spirits tore after it through the scrub until they came to the mountains of the snows. these they could not pass, and the dark, sleek runners with the backward-streaming brand bore it forward, shining star-like in the night, glowing red through sultry noons,[pg 118] violet pale in twilight glooms, until they came in safety to their own land. here they kept it among stones, and fed it with small sticks, as the coyote had advised, until it warmed them and cooked their food. as for the boy by whom fire came to the tribes, he was called the fire bringer while he lived, and after that, since there was no other with so good a right to the name, it fell to the coyote; and this is the sign that the tale is true, for all along his lean flanks the fur is singed and yellow as it was by the flames that blew backward from the brand when he brought it down from the burning mountain. as for the fire, that went on broadening and brightening and giving out a cheery sound until it broadened into the light of day, and alan sat up to hear it crackling under the coffee-pot, where his father was cooking their breakfast.
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