Chapter Five
The mountain had just about decided that the people with the smoking sticks would never return when some did! They were akin to the others the mountain had seen, but these dressed a little differently. The first dressed like people the mountain had always known, mostly in animal skins. But these men wore, well, the mountain was not sure what they were wearing. Their clothing was smooth and did not smell like animals. And the men walked around in hard boots instead of nice, tender moccasins. The boots did not hurt the mountain, but there was something about them it didn’t like.
When the new men killed animals with their sticks, the mountain noticed the sticks did not smoke as much as the others had. These sticks just made a big bang, and the animals fell dead. Was it maybe the sound, and not the smoke, which killed the animals, the mountain wondered? The men also ate the animals and threw away the skins, whereas the other men like this had killed more animals than they could eat and kept the skins. The mountain was sorely perplexed by these men and their ways!
Soon, the mountain realized something else. The men were digging into its sides! They had previously spent most of the day with their feet in a stream, swirling mud around in a pan. Now, however, the men used pick and shovels, and caused huge explosions, to drill into the mountain.
“What could they be after,” the mountain wondered? The men sometimes found things which they carefully placed in leather sacks. The men were very happy when they found the things, but what they were, the mountain had no idea. These were strange men, and the mountain decided it should keep an eye on them.