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He was armed with a stone hammer, which is no sort of weapon for a narrow passage. Tse-tse had caught bow and quiver from the arms that hung always at the inner entrance of the passage, but made no attempt to draw. He was crouched against the wall, knife in hand, watching for an opening, when he heard me padding up behind him in the darkness. "'Good! Kabeyde, he cried softly; 'go for him.
He would go stretching himself after sleep and having no fear of man, for where Kabeyde lies up, who expects to find man also. His hand came under my chin as his custom was in giving orders. This was how I understood it; this I did "
He grew a little frightened, I think, and whipped at me with the whip of feathers which the Koshare carried to tickle the tribesmen. I laid back my ears I am Kabeyde, and it is not for the Dine to flick whips at me. All at once there rose a shouting for Tse-tse, who came running and beat me over the head with his bow-case.
He had hung up his buck at the camp and was cutting strips from it for his supper. "'Look well, Kabeyde, said my master; 'smell and remember. This man is my enemy. I did not like the smell in any case. The Queres smell of the earth in which they dig and house, but the Dine smelled of himself and the smoke of sagebrush. Tse-tse's hand was on the back of my neck.
I was Kabeyde, and the hunters thought I brought them luck." Thus having picked up the trail to her satisfaction, Moke-icha tucked her paws under her comfortably and settled to her story. "When Tse-tse-yote took me to sleep with him in the kiva of his clan, Kokomo, who was head of the kiva, objected.
The great cat flattened herself along the ground to spring, put back her ears, and showed her teeth with a snarly whine, almost too wicked to be pretended. "I was very good at that," said Moke-icha. "'The Delight-Maker was for you, Tse-tse, said the turkey girl next morning. 'Kokomo cannot prove that you gave it to Kabeyde, but he will never forgive you.
'Hey, Kokomo, have you been inviting Kabeyde to join the Koshare? A good shot! he said, and before Kokomo could answer it, he began putting me through my tricks." "Tricks?" cried the children. "Jumping over a stick, you know, and showing what I would do if I met the Dine."
There were no wandering tribes about except the Dine and they were all devils." "Devils they may have been," said the Navajo, "but they did not say their prayers to a yellow cat, O Kabeyde." "I speak but as the People of the Cliffs," said Moke-icha soothingly.
"Softly," said Moke-icha. "Though I slept in the kivas and am called Kabeyde, Chief of the Four-Footed, I did not know all the tales of the Queres. They were a very ancient people. On the Salt Trail, where it passed by Split Rock, the trail was bitten deep into the granite. I think they could not have been more than three or four hundred years in Ty-uonyi when I knew them.
The Navajo broke in angrily, "The Tellings were to be of the trails, O Kabeyde, and not of the virtues of my ancestors!" The children looked at him, round-eyed. "Are you the Dine?" they exclaimed both at once. It seemed to bring the Cliff People so much nearer. "So we were named, though we were called devils by those who feared us, and Blanket People by the Plainsmen.
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