The Big River, or Great River, in the stories of the Northwest Indians
is the Columbia. The Big Shining Mountains are the Rockies.

"Long, long ago, when the world was young and people had not come out
yet," said an elderly Indian years ago, "the animals and the birds were
the people of this country. They talked to each other just as we do.
And they married, too."

Coyote (ki-o-ti) was the most powerful of the animal people, for he had
been given special power by the Spirit Chief. For one thing, he changed
the course of Big River, leaving Dry Falls behind. In some stories, he
was an animal; in others he was a man, sometimes a handsome young man.

In that long ago time before this time, when all the people and all the
animals spoke the same language, Coyote made one of his frequent trips
along Great River. He stopped when he came to the place where the water
flowed under the Great Bridge that joined the mountains on one side of
the river with the mountains on the other side. There he changed
himself into a handsome young hunter.

When travelling up the river the last time, he had seen a beautiful
girl in a village not far from the bridge. He made up his mind that he
would ask the girl's father if he might have her for his wife. The girl's
father was a chief. When the handsome young man went to the chief's
lodge, he carried with him a choice gift for the father in return for his
daughter.

The gift was a pile of the hides and furs of many animals, as many
skins as Coyote could carry. He made the gift large and handsome because he
had learned that the man who would become the husband of the girl would
one day become the chief of the tribe.

The chief knew nothing about the young man except that he seemed to be
a great hunter. The gift was pleasing in the father's eyes, but he
wanted his daughter to be pleased.

"She is my only daughter," the chief said to the young hunter. "And she
is very dear to my heart. I shall not be like other fathers and trade
her for a pile of furs. You will have to win the heart of my daughter,
for I want her to be happy."

So Coyote came to the chiefs lodge every day, bringing with him some
small gift that he thought would please the girl. But he never seemed to
bring the right thing. She would shyly accept his gift and the run away
to the place where the women sat in the sun doing their work with
deerskins or to the place where the children were playing games.

Every day Coyote became more eager to win the beautiful girl. He
thought and thought about what gifts to take to her. "Perhaps the prettiest
flower hidden in the forest," he said to himself one day, "will be the
gift that will make her want to marry me."

He went to the forest beside Great River and searched for one whole
day. Then he took to the chief's lodge the most beautiful flower he had
found. He asked to see the chief.

"I have looked all day for this flower for your daughter," said Coyote
to the chief. "If this does not touch her heart, what will? What gift
can I bring that will win her heart?"

The chief was the wisest of all the chiefs of a great tribe. He
answered, "Why don't you ask my daughter? Ask her, today, what gift will make
her heart the happiest of all hearts."

As the two finished talking, they saw the girl come out of the forest.
Again Coyote was pleased and excited by her beauty and her youth. He
stepped up to her and asked, "Oh, beautiful one, what does your heart
want most of all? I will get for you anything that you name. This flower
that I found for you in a hidden spot in the woods is my pledge."

Surprised, or seeming to be surprised, the girl looked at the young
hunter and at the rare white flower he was offering her.

"I want a pool," she answered shyly. "A pool where I may bathe every
day hidden from all eyes that might see."

Then, without accepting the flower that Coyote had searched for so many
hours, she ran away. As before, she hurried to play with her young
friends.

Coyote turned to her father. "It is well. In seven suns I will come for
you and your daughter. I will take you to the pool she asked for. The
pool will be for her alone."

For seven suns Coyote worked to build the pool that would win the heart
of the girl he wished to marry. First he cut a great gash in the hills
on the south side of Great River. Then he lined that gash with trees
and shrubs and ferns to the very top of a high wall that looked toward
the river.

Then he went to the bottom of the rock wall and slanted it back a long
way, far enough to hollow out a wide pool. He climbed up the wall again
and went far back into the hills. There he made a stream come out of
the earth, and he sent it down the big gash he had made, to fall over the
slanting rock wall. From the edge of that wall the water dropped with
spray and mist. And so the water made, at the bottom, a big screen that
hid the pool from all eyes.

When he had finished his work, Coyote went to the village to invite the
chief and his daughter to see what he had made. When they had admired
the new waterfall, he showed them the pool that lay behind it and the
spray. He watched the eyes of the girl.

She looked with smiling eyes, first at the pool and the waterfall in
front of it, and then at the young hunter who had made them for her. He
could see that she was pleased. He could see that at last he had won her
heart. She told her father that she was willing to become the wife of
the young hunter.

In that long ago time before this time, two old grandmothers sat all
day on top of the highest mountains. One sat on the top of the highest
mountain north of Great River. The other sat on the highest mountain
south of it. When the one on the north side talked, she could be heard
eastward as far as the Big Shining Mountains, westward as far as the big
water where the sun hides every night, and northward to the top of the
world.

The grandmother on the south side of the river also could be heard as
far west as the big water and as far south as anyone lived. The two old
women saw everything that was done, and every day they told all the
people on both sides of the river.

Now they saw the chief's daughter go every morning to bathe in the
pool, and they saw Coyote wait for her outside the screen of waterfall and
spray. The old grandmothers heard the two sing to each other and laugh
together. The grandmothers laughed at the pair, raised their voices,
and told all the people what they saw and heard.

Soon the chief's daughter knew that all the people were laughing at
her--all the people from the big water to the Big Shining Mountains, all
the people from the top of the world to as far south as anyone lived.

She was no longer happy. She no longer sang with joy. One day she asked
Coyote to allow her to go alone to the pool. The old grandmothers
watched her go behind the waterfall. Then they saw her walk from the pool
and go down into Great River. Her people never saw her again.

Coyote, in a swift canoe, went down Great River in search of her. He
saw her floating and swimming ahead of him, and he paddled as fast as he
could. He reached her just before she was carried out into the big
water where the sun hides at night.

There the two of them, Coyote and the girl, were turned into little
ducks, little summer ducks, floating on the water.

That was a long, long time ago. But even today, when the sun takes its
last look at the high cliff south of Great River, two summer ducks swim
out to look back at the series of waterfalls that dash down the high
mountain. They look longest at the lowest cascade and the spray that
hides the tree-fringed pool behind them.

If those who want to understand will be silent and listen, they will
hear the little song that the chief's daughter and Coyote used to sing to
each other every morning after she had bathed in the pool. The song
begins very soft and low, lifts sharply to a high note, and then fades
gently away.