Nearer and nearer they
approached, and now the chosen residents of this fair plain were
filled with alarm for their lives, and at once began to build
fortifications against the terrible intruders. The snakes, who
appeared to prefer the flesh of man to that of the other animals,
crawled up close to the defence of their enemies, and flung their long
horrible bodies against it, but in vain. It was useless to attack them
with bows and arrows, on account of the scales which enveloped them
like an armour. Those who ventured without the walls were instantly
swallowed, while those within, who had fasted many suns, were growing
weak from want of food.
"Now there was among them a chief, called the Big Bear, who was very
brave and cunning. He had been a hunter of the deer and wolf ever
since he had been pronounced a man. No danger was so great that he
could not find a trail out of it. So when he began to speak all the
people who remained gathered round him.
"'Brothers and chiefs,' he said, 'I perceive that one of our enemies
is a woman, because she is less sluggish in her movements than the
other, and her eyes are bright and deceitful.
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