Atondido Stories
colours trembled and the heavens shook from the force of the
conflict. The animals waiting by the lake at the end of the path
looked up and saw the battle above them. They feared the re-
sults, for they wanted neither Bear nor Deer to die. So they sent
Wolf up to the sky to put a stop to the contest. When Wolf
reached the combatants, Bear was bleeding freely, for Deer with
his antlers had pierced his neck and side. Deer, too, was bleed-
ing where Bear's strong claws had torn a great wound in his
head. Wolf soon stopped the battle, and Bear and Deer went
away to dress their wounds. Then the other animals went up to
the sky over Rainbow's flaming path. And they decided to live in
the sky and to send their descendants back to earth when the
new race of creatures should come. And they can still sometimes
be seen, like clouds hurrying across the sky, in the shape they
had on earth.
But the blood of Bear and of Deer dropped from them as they
moved to the sky from the scene of their battle along the Rain-
bow road. It fell freely upon the leaves of the trees beneath them,
and changed them into varied colours. And every year when au-
tumn comes in the north country, the leaves take on again the
bright and wondrous colours given to them by the blood of Bear
and Deer when they fought on the Rainbow path ages and ages
ago. And Bear and Deer have never since been friends, and their
descendants no longer dwell together in peace, as they did in the
olden days.
23