One day a messenger came from White River asking that Slender-maiden’s husband come to treat a sick man. Red-boy knew the songs and ritual of a healing ceremony. He went with his wife, and camped by the man who had been suddenly taken ill. He was burning with fever and covered with an eruption. The songs were of no avail for before dawn the man was dead. The body was almost immediately placed in a cleft of the rocks in a nearby canyon and covered with sticks and stones.