She washed it, and would have carried it, but it was so heavy that she could not lift it.  Then she said to herself, "I shall have to leave my child.  I must hurry on, for elk may overtake me."  So she walked away.

She had not gone very far, when the child cried, "Come back!  Why do you  leave me?  People do not desert their children."  She went back and tried again to lift it, but could not do so.  Again, she left it, and was called back by the child.  This happened four times.  As she was leaving it the fourth time, the child was strong enough to get up and follow her.  Now they journeyed together, and the child grew up strong and large very rapidly.

After traveling some distance, they lost their way, but finally, came upon a trail, which they followed.  After some time they arrived at a house that was inhabited by the four Lice women, who lived on people.  Human bones were scattered all around.  The Lice women seized them, and put them in a house in which they had previously made a fire.  The house was of logs, built closely together, and covered with earth.  The Lice put wet wood and boughs on the fire, to make it smoke, and locked them in after closing up all the chinks in the walls.  The would have suffocated, but the woman drew the smoke up her nostrils, and they remained unharmed.  The Lice waited until they thought their victims were dead, then they went in and built a large fire.

When the fire had burned down, they took what appeared to be the dead bodies of the woman and her son, and put them in the ashes to bake.  Then they built a fire on top of them, and went out.  But the woman and her son went into a clamshell which they had picked up on the shore of a lake that they had passed the previous day, and remained unharmed.  Four time the Lice came in and built up the fire.  After they had done so the fourth time, the boy urinated on the fire and put it out.  Then he urinated at the house, thus making a hole ¹ through it; and the stream of urine stood like a rainbow from the inside to a place far off outside the house.  He and his mother ran along it, and thus escaped.

About midnight the Lice said, "They will be ready to eat now.  Let us look at them."  The went in and found the fireplace wet.  The scraped the ashes and found nothing but an empty clamshell. Now they saw the hole into he house, and knew that their victims had escaped.  They started in pursuit, and overtook them on a large open prairie.

When the woman saw the Lice coming, she plucked four hairs from her privates, and threw them on the ground.  They were transformed into four trees, in one of which they took refuge.  The Lice arrived, and began to gnaw the tree down.  When it was about to fall, they swung themselves into the branches of another one.  At last they were forced to take refuge in the fourth and last tree.  The Lice gnawed it also, and would soon have cut it down but the woman called on her father, Coyote, for help; and he let loose his two large and fierce dogs, - Grisly Bear and Rattlesnake, - who ran to the woman's help.

1.  Some say through the wall; other, through the roof.
 

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