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  XIV

  HOW THE MAN OF TWO HEARTS KEPT THE SECRET OF THE HOLY PLACES; TOLD BYTHE CONDOR

  "In the days of our Ancients," said the Road-Runner between shortskimming runs, "this was the only trail from the river to the Middle AntHill of the World. The eastern end of it changed like the tip of a wildgourd vine as the towns moved up and down the river or the Querescrossed from Katzimo to the rock of Acoma; but always Zuni was the root,and the end of the first day's journey was the Rock."

  Each time he took his runs afresh, like a kicking stick in a race, andwaited for the children to catch up. The sands as they went changed fromgray to gleaming pearl; on either side great islands of stone thinnedand swelled like sails and took on rosy lights and lilac shadows.

  They crossed a high plateau with somber cones of extinct volcanoes,crowding between rivers of block rock along its rim. Northward awilderness of pines guarded the mesa; dark junipers, each one with asecret look, browsed wide apart. They thickened in the canyons from whicharose the white bastions of the Rock.

  Closer up, El Morro showed as the wedge-shaped end of a high mesa,soaring into cliffs and pinnacles, on the very tip of which they couldjust make out the hunched figure of the great Condor.

  "El Morro, 'the Castle,' the Spaniards called it," said the Road-Runner,casting himself along the laps of the trail like a feathered dart. "Butto our Ancients it was always 'The Rock.' On winter journeys they campedon the south side to get the sun, and in summers they took the shade onthe north. They carved names and messages for those that were to comeafter, with flint knives, with swords and Spanish daggers. Men are allvery much alike," said the Road-Runner.

  On the smooth sandstone cliffs the children could make out strange,weathered picture-writings, and twisty inscriptions in much abbreviatedSpanish which they could not read.

  The white sand at the foot of the Rock was strewn with flakes ofcharcoal from the fires of ancient camps. A little to the south of thecliff, that towered two hundred feet and more above them, shallowfootholds were cut into the sandstone.

  "There were pueblos at the top in the old days," said the Road-Runner,"facing across a deep divide, but nobody goes there now except owls thathave their nests in the ruins, and the last of the Condors, who sinceold time have made their home in the pinnacles of the Rock. He'll haveseen us coming." The children looked up as a sailing shadow began tocircle about them on the evening-colored sands. "You can see by thefrayed edges of his wing feathers that he has a long time forremembering," said the Road-Runner.

  The great bird came slowly to earth, close by the lone pine thattasseled out against the south side of El Morro and the Road-Runnerducked several times politely.

  "My children, how is it with you these days?" asked the Condor withgreat dignity.

  "Happy, happy, Grandfather. And you?"

  The Condor assured them that he was very happy, and seeing that no onemade any other remark, he added, after an interval, looking pointedly atthe children, "It is not thinking of nothing that strangers come to thehouse of a stranger."

  "True, Grandfather," said the Road-Runner; "we are thinking of the gold,the seed of the Sun, that the Spaniards did not find. Is there left toyou any of the remembrance of these things?"

  "_Hai, hai_!" The Condor stretched his broad wings and settled himselfcomfortably on a nubbin of sandstone. "Of which of these who passed willyou hear?" He indicated the inscriptions on the rock, and then by way ofexplanation he said to the children, "I am town-hatched myself. Lads ofZuni took my egg and hatched it under a turkey hen, at the Ant Hill.They kept my wings clipped, but once they forgot, so I came away to theancient home of my people. But in the days of my captivity I learnedmany tales and the best manner of telling them. Also the Tellings of myown people who kept the Rock. They fit into one another like the arrowpoint to the shaft. Look!"--he pointed to an inscription protected by alittle brow of sandstone, near the lone pine. "Juan de Onate did thatwhen he passed to the discovery of the Sea of the South. He it was whobuilt the towns, even the chief town of Santa Fe.

  "There signed with his sword, Vargas, who reconquered the pueblos afterthe rebellion--yes, they rebelled again and again. On the other side ofthe Rock you can read how Governor Nieto carried the faith to them. Theycame and went, the Iron Shirts, through two hundred years. You can seethe marks of their iron hats on some of the rafters of Zuni town to thisday, but small was the mark they left on the hearts of the Zunis."

  "Is that so!" said the Road-Runner, which is a polite way of saying thatyou think the story worth going on with; and then cocking his eye at theinscription, he hinted, "I have heard that the Long Gowns, the Padreswho came with them, were master-workers in hearts."

  "It is so," said the Condor. "I remember the first of them who managedto build a church here, Padre Francisco Letrado. Here!" He drew theirattention to an inscription almost weathered away, and looking more likethe native picture-writings than the signature of a Spanish gentleman.He read:--

  "They passed on the 23d of March of 1832 years to the avenging of thedeath of Father Letrado." It was signed simply "Lujan."

  "There is a Telling of that passing and of that soldier which has to dowith the gold that was never found."

  _"Sons eso,"_ said the Road-Runner, and they settled themselves tolisten.

  "About the third of a man's life would have passed between the time whenOnate came to the founding of Santa Fe, and the building of the firstchurch by Father Letrado. There were Padres before that, and manybaptizings. The Zunis were always glad to learn new ways of persuadingthe gods to be on their side, and they thought the prayers andceremonies of the Padres very good Medicine indeed. They thought theIron Shirts were gods themselves, and when they came received them withsprinklings of sacred meal. But it was not until Father Letrado's timethat it began to be understood that the new religion was to take theplace of their own, for to the Indians there is but one spirit inthings, as there is one life in man. They thought their own prayers asgood as any that were taught them.

  "But Father Letrado was zealous and he was old. He made a rule that allshould come to the service of his church and that they should obey himand reverence him when they met, with bowings and kissings of his robe.It is not easy to teach reverence to a free people, and the men of theAnt Hill had been always free. But the worst of Father Letrado's rulingswas that there were to be no more prayers in the kivas, no dancings tothe gods nor scatterings of sacred pollen and planting of plumes.Also--this is not known, I think--that the sacred places where the Sunhad planted the seed of itself should be told to the Padres."

  "He means the places where the gold is found mixed with the earth andthe sand," explained the Road-Runner to Dorcas Jane and Oliver.

  "In the days of the Ancients," said the Condor, "when such a place wasfound, it was told to the Priests of the Bow, and kept in reverence bythe whole people. But since the Zunis had discovered what things whitemen will do for gold, there had been fewer and fewer who held thesecret. The Spaniards had burnt too many of those who were suspected ofknowing, for one thing, and they had a drink which, when they gave tothe Indians, let the truth out of their mouths as it would not have gonewhen they were sober.

  "At the time Father Letrado built his first chapel there was but one manin Hawikuh who knew.

  "He was a man of two natures. His mother had been a woman of theMatsaki, and his father one of the Onate's men, so that he was half ofthe Sun and half of the Moon, as we say,--for the Zunis called the firsthalf-white children, Moon-children,--and his heart was pulled two ways,as I have heard the World Encompassing Water is pulled two ways by theSun and the Moon. Therefore, he was called Ho-tai the Two-Hearted.

  "What finally pulled his heart out of his bosom was the love he had forhis wife. Flower-of-the-Maguey, she was called, and she was beautifulbeyond all naming. She was daughter to the Chief Priest of the Bow, andyoung men from all the seven towns courted her. But though she waslovely and quiet she was not as she seemed to be. She was a PassingBeing." The Cond
or thoughtfully stretched his wings as he considered howto explain this to the children.

  "Such there are," he said. "They are shaped from within outward by theirown wills. They have the power to take the human form and leave it. Butit was not until she had been with her mother to To-yalanne, the sacredThunder Mountain, as is the custom when maidens reach the marriageableage, that her power came to her. She was weary with gathering the sacredflower pollen; she lay under a maguey in the warm sun and felt the lightairs play over her. Her breath came evenly and the wind lifted her longhair as it lay along her sides.

  "Strangely she felt the pull of the wind on her hair, all along herbody. She looked and saw it turn short and tawny in the sun, and theshape of her limbs fitted to the sandy hollows. Thus she understood thatshe was become another being, Moke-iche, the puma. She bounded about inthe sun and chased the blue and yellow butterflies. After a time sheheard the voice of her mother calling, and it pulled at her heart. Shelet her heart have way and became a maid again. But often she wouldsteal out after that, when the wind brought her the smell of the maguey,or at night when the moon walked low over To-yalanne, and play as puma.Her parents saw that she had power more than is common to maidens, butshe was wise and modest, and they loved her and said nothing.

  "'Let her have a husband and children,' they said, 'and her strangenesswill pass.' But they were very much disappointed at what happened to allthe young men who came a-courting.

  "This is the fashion of a Zuni courting: The young man says to his OldOnes, 'I have seen the daughter of the Priest of the Bow at the MiddleAnt Hill, what think ye?' And if they said, 'Be it well!' he gatheredhis presents into a bundle and went to knock at the sky-hole of herfather's house.

  "'_She_!' he said, and '_Hai_!' they answered from within. 'Help medown,' he would say, which was to tell them that he had a bundle withhim and it was a large one. Then the mother of the girl would know whatwas afoot. She would rise and pull the bundle down through thesky-hole--all pueblo houses are entered from the top, did you not know?"asked the Condor.

  The children nodded, not to interrupt; they had seen as they came alongthe trail the high terraced houses with the ladders sticking out of thedoor-holes.

  "Then there was much politeness on both sides, politeness of foodoffered and eaten and questions asked, until the girl's parents weresatisfied that the match would be a good one. Finally, the Old Oneswould stretch themselves out in their corners and begin to scrape theirnostrils with their breath--thus," said the Condor, making a gentlesound of snoring; "for it was thought proper for the young people tohave a word or two together. The girl would set the young man a task, soas not to seem too easily won, and to prove if he were the sort of manshe wished for a husband.

  "'Only possibly you love me,' said the daughter of the Chief Priest ofthe Bow. 'Go out with the light to-morrow to hunt and return with it,bringing your kill, that I may see how much you can do for my sake.'

  "But long before light the girl would go out herself as a puma and scarethe game away. Thus it happened every time that the young man wouldreturn at evening empty-handed, or he would be so mortified that he didnot return at all, and the girl's parents would send the bundle back tohim. The Chief Priest and his wife began to be uneasy lest theirdaughter should never marry at all.

  "Finally Ho-tai of the pueblo of Matsaki heard of her, and said to hismother, 'That is the wife for me.'

  "'_Shoom_!' said his mother; 'what have you to offer her?' for they werevery poor.

  "'_Shoom_ yourself!' said Ho-tai. 'He that is poor in spirit as well asin appearance, is poor indeed. It is plain she is not looking for abundle, but for a man.' So he took what presents he had to the house ofthe Chief Priest of the Bow, and everything went as usual; except thatwhen Ho-tai asked them to help him in, the Chief Priest said, 'Beyourself within,' for he was growing tired of courtings that came tonothing. But when Ho-tai came cheerfully down the ladder with his gift,the girl's heart was touched, for he was a fine gold color like a fullmoon, and his high heart gave him a proud way of walking. So when shehad said, 'Only possibly you love me, but that I may know what manner ofhusband I am getting, I pray you hunt for me one day,' and when they hadbidden each other 'wait happily until the morning,' she went out as apuma and searched the hills for game that she might drive toward theyoung man, instead of away from him. But because she could not take hereyes off of him, she was not so careful as she should be not to let himsee her. Then she went home and put on all her best clothes, the whitebuckskins, the turquoises and silver bracelets, and waited. At evening,Ho-tai, the Two-Hearted, came with a fine buck on his shoulders, and astiff face. Without a word he gave the buck to the Priest's wife andturned away, '_Hai_',' said the mother, 'when a young man wins a girl heis permitted to say a few words to her!'--for she was pleased to thinkthat her daughter had got a husband at last.

  "'I did not kill the buck by myself,' said Ho-tai; and he went off tofind the Chief Priest and tell him that he could not marry his daughter.Flower-of-the-Maguey, who was in her room all this time peeking throughthe curtain, took a water jar and went down to the spring where Ho-taicould not help but pass her on his way back to his own village.

  "'I did not bring back your bundle,' she said when she saw him; 'what isa bundle to a woman when she has found a man?'

  "Then his two hearts were sore in him, for she was lovely past allnaming. 'I do not take what I cannot win by my own labor,' said he;'there was a puma drove up the game for me.'

  "'Who knows,' said she, 'but Those Above sent it to try if you werehonest or a braggart?' After which he began to feel differently. And indue course they were married, and Ho-tai came to live in the house ofthe Chief Priest at Hawikuh, for her parents could not think ofparting with her,

  "They were very happy," said the Condor, "for she was wisely slow aswell as beautiful, and she eased him of the struggle of his two hearts,one against the other, and rested in her life as a woman."

  "Does that mean she wasn't a puma any more?" asked Dorcas Jane.

  The Condor nodded, turning over the Zuni words in his mind for just theright phrase. "Understanding of all her former states came to her withthe years. There was nothing she dreaded so much as being forced out ofthis life into the dust and whirl of Becoming. That is one reason whyshe feared and distrusted the Spanish missionaries when they came, asthey did about that time.

  "One of her husband's two hearts pulled very strongly toward thereligion of the Spanish Padres. He was of the first that were baptizedby Father Letrado, and served the altar. He was also the first of thoseupon whose mind the Padre began to work to persuade him that in takingthe new religion he must wholly give up the old.

  "At the end of that trail, a day's journey," said the Condor, indicatingthe narrow foot-tread in the sand, which showed from tree to tree of thedark junipers, and seemed to turn and disappear at every one, "lies thevalley of Shiwina, which is Zuni.

  "It is a narrow valley, watered by a muddy river. Red walls of mesasshut it in above the dark wood. To the north lies Thunder Mountain,wall-sided and menacing. Dust devils rise up from the plains and veilthe crags. In the winter there are snows. In the summer great cloudsgather over Shiwina and grow dark with rain. White corn tassels arewaving, blue butterfly maidens flit among the blossoming beans.

  "Day and night at midsummer, hardly the priests have their rattles outof their hands. You hear them calling from the house-tops, and the beatof bare feet on the dancing places. But the summer after Father Letradobuilt his chapel of the Immaculate Virgin at Halona and the chapel andparish house of the Immaculate Conception at Hawikuh, he set his faceagainst the Rain Dance, and especially against the Priests of the Rain.Witchcraft and sorcery he called it, and in Zuni to be accused ofwitchcraft is death.

  "The people did not know what to do. They prayed secretly where theycould. The Priests of the Rain went on with their preparations, and thesoldiers of Father Letrado--for he had a small detachment withhim--broke up the dance and profaned the sacred places. Those were
harddays for Ho-tai the Two-Hearted. The gods of the strangers were stronggods, he said, let the people wait and see what they could do. The whitemen had strong Medicine in their guns and their iron shirts and theirlong-tailed, smoke-breathing beasts. They did not work as other gods.Even if there was no rain, the white gods might have another way to savethe people.

  "These were the things Father Letrado taught him to say, and thedaughter of the Chief Priest of the Bow feared that his heart would bequite pulled away from the people of Zuni. Then she went to her fatherthe Chief Priest, who was also the keeper of the secret of the HolyPlaces of the Sun, and neared the dividing of the ways of life.

  "'Let Ho-tai be chosen Keeper in your place,' she said, 'so all shall bebound together, the Medicine of the white man and the brown.'

  "'Be it well,' said the Priest of the Bow, for he was old, and hadrespect for his daughter's wisdom. Feeling his feet go from him towardthe Spirit Road, he called together the Priests of the Bow, andannounced to them that Ho-tai would be Keeper in his stead.

  "Though Two-Hearted was young for the honor, they did not question it,for, like his wife, they were jealous of the part of him that waswhite--which, for her, there was no becoming--and they thought of thisas a binding together. They were not altogether sure yet that theSpaniards were not gods, or at the least Surpassing Beings.

  "But as the rain did not come and the winter set in cold with a shortageof corn, more and more they neglected the bowings and the reverences andthe service of the mass. Nights Father Letrado would hear the muffledbeat of the drums in the kivas where the old religion was beingobserved, and because it was the only heart open to him, he twisted theheart of Ho-tai to see if there was not some secret evil, some seed ofwitchcraft at the bottom of it which he could pluck out."

  "That was great foolishness," said the Road-Runner; "no white man yetever got to the bottom of the heart of an Indian."

  "True," said the Condor, "but Ho-tai was half white, and the white partof him answered to the Padre's hand. He was very miserable, and in fact,nobody was very happy in those days in Hawikuh. Father Martin who passedthere in the moon of the Sun Returning, on his way to establish amission among the People of the Coarse Hanging Hair, reported to hissuperior that Father Letrado was ripe for martyrdom.

  "It came the following Sunday, when only Ho-tai and a few old women cameto mass. Sick at the sound of his own voice echoing in the empty chapel,the Padre went out to the plaza of the town to scold the people intoservices. He was met by the Priests of the Rain with their bows. Beingneither a coward nor a fool, he saw what was before him. Kneeling, heclasped his arms, still holding the crucifix across his bosom, and theytransfixed him with their arrows.

  "They went into the church after that and broke up the altar, and burnedthe chapel. A party of bowmen followed the trail of Father Martin,coming up with him after five days. That night with the help of some ofhis own converts, they fell upon and killed him. There was a half-breedamong them, both whose hearts were black. He cut off the good Padre'shand and scalped him."

  "Oh," said Oliver, "I think he ought not to have done that!"

  The Condor was thoughtful.

  "The hand, no. It had been stretched forth only in kindness. But I thinkwhite men do not understand about scalping. I have heard them talksometimes, and I know they do not understand. The scalp was taken inorder that they might have the scalp dance. The dance is to pacify thespirit of the slain. It adopts and initiates him into the tribe of thedead, and makes him one with them, so that he will not return as aspirit and work harm on his slayers. Also it is a notice to the gods ofthe enemy that theirs is the stronger god, and to beware. The scalpdance is a protection to the tribe of the slayer; to omit one of itsobservances is to put the tribe in peril of the dead. Thus I have heard;thus the Old Ones have said. Even Two-Hearted, though he was sad for thekilling, danced for the scalp of Father Martin.

  "Immediately it was all over, the Hawikuhkwe began to be afraid. Theygathered up their goods and fled to K'iakime, the Place of the Eagles,on Thunder Mountain, where they had a stronghold. There were Iron Shirtsat Santa Fe and whole cities of them in the direction of the SaltContaining Waters. Who knew what vengeance they might take for thekilling of the Padres? The Hawikuhkwe intrenched themselves, and fornearly two years they waited and practiced their own religion intheir own way.

  "Only two of them were unhappy. These were Ho-tai of the two hearts, andhis wife, who had been called Flower-of-the-Maguey. But her unhappinesswas not because the Padres had been killed. She had had her hand in thatbusiness, though only among the women, dropping a word here and therequietly, as one drops a stone into a deep well. She was unhappy becauseshe saw that the dead hand of Father Letrado was still heavy on herhusband's heart.

  "Not that Ho-tai feared what the soldiers from Santa Fe might do to theslayer, but what the god of the Padre might do to the whole people. ForPadre Letrado had taught him to read in the Sacred Books, and he knewthat whole cities were burned with fire for their sins. He saw doomhanging over K'iakime, and his wife could not comfort him. After awhileit came into his mind that it was his own sin for which the people wouldbe punished, for the one thing he had kept from the Padre was the secretof the gold.

  "It is true," said the Condor, "that after the Indians had forgottenthem, white men rediscovered many of their sacred places, and manyothers that were not known even to the Zunis. But there is one place onThunder Mountain still where gold lies in the ground in lumps like pinenuts. If Father Letrado could have found it, he would have hammered itinto cups for his altar, and immediately the land would have beenoverrun with the Spaniards. And the more Ho-tai thought of it, the moreconvinced he was that he should have told him.

  "Toward the end of two years when it began to be rumored that soldiersand new Padres were coming to K'iakime to deal with the killing ofFather Letrado, Ho-tai began to sleep more quietly at night. Then hiswife knew that he had made up his mind to tell, if it seemed necessaryto reconcile the Spaniards to his people, and it was a knife inher heart.

  "It was her husband's honor, and the honor of her father, Chief Priestof the Bow; and besides, she knew very well that if Ho-tai told, thePriests of the Bow would kill him. She said to herself that her husbandwas sick with the enchantments of the Padres, and she must do what shecould for him. She gave him seeds of forgetfulness."

  "Was that a secret too?" asked Dorcas, for the Condor seemed not toremember that the children were new to that country.

  "It was _peyote_. Many know of it now, but in the days of Our Ancientsit was known only to a few Medicine men and women. It is a seed thatwhen eaten wipes out the past from a man's mind and gives him visions.In time its influence will wear away, and it must be eaten anew, but ifeaten too often it steals a man's courage and his strength as well ashis memory.

  "When she had given her husband a little in his food,Flower-of-the-Maguey found that he was like a child in her hands.

  "'Sleep,' she would say, 'and dream thus, and so,' and that is the wayit would be with him. She wished him to forget both the secret of thegold in the ground and the fear of the Padres.

  "From the time that she heard that the Spaniards were on their way toK'iakime, she fed him a little _peyote_ every day. To the others itseemed that his mind walked with Those Above, and they were respectfulof him. That is how Zunis think of any kind of madness. They were notsure that the madness had not been sent for just this occasion when theyhad need of the gods, and so, as it seemed to them, it proved.

  "The Spaniards asked for parley, and the Caciques permitted the Padresto come up into the council chambers, for they knew that the long gownscovered no weapons. The Spaniards had learned wisdom, perhaps, andperhaps they thought Father Letrado somewhat to blame. They askednothing but permission to reestablish their missions, and to have theman who had scalped Father Martin handed over to them forSpanish justice.

  "They sat around the wall of the kiva, with Ho-tai in his place, hearingand seeing very little. But the parley was long, an
d, little by little,the vision of his own gods which the _peyote_ had given him began towear away. One of the Padres rose in his place and began a long speechabout the sin of killing, and especially of killing priests. He quotedhis Sacred Books and talked of the sin in their hearts, and, little bylittle, the talk laid hold on the wandering mind of Ho-tai. 'Thus, inthis killing, has the secret evil of your hearts come forth,' said thePadre, and 'True, He speaks true,' said Ho-tai, upon which the Priestsof the Hawikuhkwe were astonished. They thought their gods spoke throughhis madness.

  "Then the Padre began to exhort them to give up this evil man in theirmidst and rid themselves of the consequences of sin, which he assuredthem were most certain and as terrible as they were sure. Then the whiteheart of Ho-tai remembered his own anguish, and spoke thickly, as a mandrunk with _peyote_ speaks.

  "'He must be given up,' he said. It seemed to them that his voice camefrom the under world.

  "But there was a great difficulty. The half-breed who had done thescalping had, at the first rumor of the soldiers coming, taken himselfaway. If the Hawikuhkwe said this to the Spaniards, they knew very wellthey would not be believed. But the mind of Ho-tai had begun to comeback to him, feebly as from a far journey.

  "He remembered that he had done something displeasing to the Padre,though he did not remember what, and on account of it there was doomover the valley of the Shiwina. He rose staggering in his place.

  "'Evil has been done, and the evil man must be cast out,' he said, andfor the first time the Padres noticed that he was half white. Not one ofthem had ever seen the man who scalped Father Letrado, but it was knownthat his father had been a soldier. This man was altogether such a oneas they expected. His cheeks were drawn, his hair hung matted over hisreddened eyes, as a man's might, tormented of the spirit. 'I am thatman,' said Ho-tai of the Two Hearts, and the Caciques put their handsover their mouths with astonishment."

  "But they never," cried Oliver,--"they never let him be taken?"

  "A life for a life," said the Condor, "that is the law. It was necessarythat the Spaniards be pacified, and the slayer could not be found.Besides, the people of Hawikuh thought Ho-tai's offer to go in his placewas from the gods. It agrees with all religions that a man may lay downhis life for his people."

  "Couldn't his wife do anything?"

  "What could she? He went of his own will and by consent of the Caciques.But she tried what she could. She could give him _peyote_ enough so thathe should remember nothing and feel nothing of what the Spaniards shoulddo to him. But to do that she had to make friends with one of thesoldiers. She chose one Lujan, who had written his name on the Rock onthe way to K'iakime. By him she sent a cake to Ho-tai, and promised tomeet Lujan when she could slip away from the village unnoticed.

  "Between here and Acoma," said the Condor, "is a short cut which may betraveled on foot, but not on horseback. Returning with Ho-tai, manacledand fast between two soldiers, the Spaniards meant to take that trail,and it was there the wife of Ho-tai promised to meet Lujan at the end ofthe second day's travel.

  "She came in the twilight, hurrying as a puma, for her woman's heart wastoo sore to endure her woman's body. Lujan had walked apart from thecamp to wait for her; smiling, he waited. She was still very beautiful,and he thought she was in love with him. Therefore, when he saw thelong, hurrying stride of a puma in the trail, he thought it a pity sobeautiful a woman should be frightened. The arrow that he sped from hiscross-bow struck in the yellow flanks. 'Well shot,' said Lujancheerfully, but his voice was drowned by a scream that was strangelylike a woman's. He remembered it afterward in telling of theextraordinary thing that had happened to him, for when he went to look,where the great beast had leaped in air and fallen, there was nothing tobe found there. Nothing.

  "If she had been in her form as a woman when he shot her," said theCondor, "that is what he would have found. But she was a Passing Being,not taking form from without as we do, of the outward touchings ofthings, and her shape of a puma was as mist which vanishes in death asmist does in the sun. Thus shortens my story."

  "Come," said the Road-Runner, understanding that there would be no moreto the Telling. "The Seven Persons are out, and the trail is darkling."

  The children looked up and saw the constellation which they knew as theDipper, shining in a deep blue heaven. The glow was gone from the highcliffs of El Morro, and the junipers seemed to draw secretly together.Without a word they took hands and began to run along the trail afterthe Road-Runner.