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.