There was no snow or ice ever seen except on
the tops of the very highest mountains. Great animals now all dead, and
others that could only live in the hottest countries, lived all over these
great lands. Then there was abundance of fruit and nuts and roots that were
all very good for food. Then some great disaster happened to the world and
soon it began to grow colder and many animals, and even families, perished.
Snow and ice appeared where they were never seen before. There was great
suffering from the cold. The hunters began to kill the animals for food.
They were now not satisfied with the fruit and roots, they wanted something
better.

"So the fire was much needed. But where it was, or how to get it, was the
question. Fortunately an old dreamer dreamed a dream about it. As the
council assembled to hear his dream he told them that the fire was
preserved in the heart of the earth by a magician called Sistinakoo, and
that it was kept very carefully surrounded by four walls, one within the
other, in each of which was a single door. At the first door a great snake
kept guard. At the second door a mountain lion or panther was the guardian.
A grizzly bear guarded the third door, and at the fourth and last door
Sistinakoo himself kept watchful care over the precious fire that smoldered
on a stone altar just inside this last wall.

"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