Myths and Legends
Next day he saw two men heating rocks and chipping arrow-heads from them. "Let me help you, for hot rocks will not hurt me," he said.
"You would have us to believe you are a spirit, eh?" they questioned, with a jeer.
"No ghost," he answered, but a better man than you. Hold me on those rocks, and, if I do not burn, you must let me do the same to you."
The men complied, and heating the stones to redness in the fire they placed him against them, but failed to see that by his magic breath he kept a current of air flowing between him and the hot surface. Rising unhurt, he demanded that they also should submit to the torture, and, like true Indians, they did so. When their flesh had been burned half through and they were dead, he sounded his war-whoop and went on.
On the day following he met two women picking berries, and told them to blow the leaves and thorns into his eyes. They did so, as they supposed, but with his magic breath he kept the stuff away from his face.
"You are a ghost!" the women exclaimed.
"No ghost," said he. "Just a common person. Leaves and thorns can do no harm, See, now," And he puffed thorns into their faces and made them blind. "Aha! You are caught with your own chaff. I am on my way to kill the Sun. This is good practice." And he slew them, sounded his war-whoop, and went on.
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