The youngest of the Gletcówas brothers listened to Kéis’ song and watched for him to come out from among the rocks. As he ran back and forth he called: “Gletcówas! Gletcówas!” “What is the matter?” asked his brothers. “I have no father or mother; that is why I cry all the time.” The brothers said to one another: “Kéis is the man who killed our father and mother; we must kill him.” As Gletcówas went toward the rocks, he hit against a mole hill and fell; then he talked to the earth, and said: “You shouldn’t treat me in this way. I have no father or mother; you should carry me safely.” As Gletcówas fell, Kéis came out from among the rocks. He had grown so tall that he almost touched the sky. His song was loud and nice. The brothers hid behind rocks and tied cross sticks to their arrows. “Go up to the sky,” called they to their youngest brother, for Kéis was just going to throw his medicine at him. The brothers shot their arrows and hit Kéis. He fell, but he kept singing. The eldest brother pulled up a tree stump and pounded him on the head till he died. They cut Kéis into small pieces, threw the pieces over the rocks, and said: “You will no longer be great; even old women will kill you.” The pieces became rattlesnakes. Then the three brothers went north. Kéis had made them lose their minds. They crossed the Shasta River and became birds. HOW OLD AGE CAME INTO THE WORLD CHARACTERS Komúchass Old Age Nébăks Sickness Five brothers and their sister lived alone on a mountain; the brothers had killed a great many people in the country around. The sister gathered the wood and cooked the meat. When it was time for her maturity dance, she asked: “How can I dance when there is nobody to sing for me?” “Walk around all the time,” said her eldest brother; “pile stones, and don’t sleep for five nights.” The girl kept awake four nights, then she was so tired that she fell asleep. She dreamed that her brothers were covered with sores and were starving. When she woke up, she cried and said: “I wish I had died long ago, then I shouldn’t have brought trouble on my brothers. I have done this by not dancing and by going to sleep.” When she got home, she found that Sickness had been in the house. Sickness came every day for five days. Then each one of the five brothers had great sores on his body. There was nobody to hunt for deer, or rabbits, and soon the brothers were starving. The sister brought wood and kept the fire, but she couldn’t find anything to eat. Everybody was glad that the brothers were sick and hoped they would die. One of the brothers saw two swans on a pond near the house, and when the sister came with a load of wood on her back, he said: “I wish we could kill one of those swans.”