Seven young girls from the Kiowa camp
were out gathering berries, up along the
stream, far from the campsite. The Bears
came upon them and growled to attack. The
girls ran and ran, out across the open
prairie, until they came to a large gray
rock. They climbed onto the rock, but the
bears began to climb the rock also.

The girls began to sing a prayer to the
rock, asking it to protect them from the
Bear People. No one had ever honored
the rock before, and the rock agreed to
help them. The rock, who had laid quietly
for centuries, began to stand up and
reach to the sky. The girls rose higher
and higher as the rock stood up. The
bear warriors began to sing to the bear
gods, and the bears grew taller as the
rock rose up.

     The bears tried and tried to climb the
rock as it grew steeper and higher, but
their huge claws only split the rock face
into thousands of strips as the rock grew
up out of their reach. Pieces of rock
were scraped and cut away by the
thousands and fell in piles at the foot
of the rock. The rock was cut and
scarred on all of its sides as the bears
fought to climb it.

At last, the bears gave up the hunt, and
turned to go back to their own houses.
They slowly returned to the original
sizes. As the huge bears came back
across the prairie, slowly becoming
smaller, the Kiowas saw them and broke
camp. They fled in fear, and looking
back at the towering mountain of rock,
they guessed that it must be the lodge
of these giant bears. "Tso' Ai'," some
People say today, or "Bears' Lodge."

The Kiowa girls were afraid, high up
on the rock, and they saw their People
break camp and leave them there, thinking
the girls had all already been eaten
by the bears.