"When the council heard all this they were almost discouraged. They thought
it would be impossible for anyone to get by all of these guards and steal
the fire.
"They first asked the fox to try, but he only reached the first door when
the great snake nearly made a meal of him. Thoroughly frightened, he rushed
back to the top of the earth and told of his narrow escape.
"For a time nothing more was done to try and get the fire. The people
continued to suffer, for the earth kept getting colder and colder and ice
and snow were now to be found in lands that had previously been comfortably
warm. So the council was called again, and the question again raised as to
what could be done.
"It happened that there came to the council a very old man who remembered a
tradition, handed down from his forefathers, which said that part of the
earth beneath us was hollow, and that some of the animals, even the great
buffaloes, had dwelt in those underground regions before they came to dwell
on the surface of the earth. He said that the coyote, the prairie wolf, was
the last one to leave, and that he was sure that he still remembered the
route to the very spot where Sistinakoo, the head chief of the regions,
guarded the fire so jealously."
"Why should they so guard the fire, and be so careful about letting people
have it, when we know how good it is?" asked Minnehaha.
"Because," replied Kinnesasis, "there was a tradition that at some time or
other the fire should get the mastery over men, and the whole world be
burned by it, and they thought that they would carefully guard it from
getting scattered about by careless people who might set the world on
fire.
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