"The big one has stones in his head, Derla. Look at him up there on the clifftop. He has grown a beard. Each day he looks less a god and more a man. But he drinks _qaral_-juice too much. He stays away from us and he stays away from the other gods. What is the matter with him?" "I do not know, Kuru. He is very strange. Beautiful things make him sad. I know when he is sad, because then he really drinks and goes away to sleep it off somewhere." "What do you mean--beautiful things?" "Well, it is when we are happiest in the mornings when the suns are still too low in the sky to drink the dew from the leaves and grasses, when we bathe in the river and laugh and play. Or when many of us sit around the great fires at night and listen to the old ones' stories. He watches us then, and he drinks, and after a while he goes away. He is very sad." "Soon they will all be gone. I saw them bringing many things to the sky cave...." "I will be sad to see them go." "You will be sad to see the crazy big one go." "Yes. There is something in his eyes--a kindness that is for all of us--and there is even something in his eyes for me." "You believe in the things you wish for. But that does not make them true." "Kuru. Where do you think they go?" "Now _that_ is a question for a woman to ask! Is it not obvious? They go into the sky, whence they came...." * * * * * One morning the large families of the Great Cliffs, Snake Lake and Cloud Valley were startled out of their sleep by a shaking of the ground and a blinding light in the sky. Before they could rub the sleep out of their eyes, a giant, invisible hand swept over the country, bending trees almost to the ground. And then a terrible roar smote their ears. They did not know if the gods of the mountains had spoken or if this were some new manifestation of powers on the part of the sky gods who were soon to depart. When they saw the angry cloud and the fire in the sky they fell to the ground, trembling with fear, and praying. They did not know how they had angered these strange new gods, but there could be no doubt that they were angered. Hours later, when the angry cloud began to fade away in the sky above that valley where the sky-cave was located, the father-chiefs and hunters gathered at Council Rock. "Our bravest hunters must go to appease them with great sacrifices," announced Bortu. "They must go at once. And my son, Kuru, will lead them." So it was decided. The fattest horny-head beasts were killed and skinned. Kuru and nine other hunters shouldered their sacrifices and started toward the Valley of the Gods, as it was now called. Over three hundred members of the three great families stood on the Great Cliffs and watched them go, hoping that the gods would not destroy them in their mysterious wrath.