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But we're alone now out here on the desert. And this girl's brother is absent. You haven't answered me yet.... Is there anything between you and Glen Naspa except religion?" "No, you insulting beggar?" Shefford had forced the reply that he had expected and which damned the missionary beyond any consideration. "Willetts, you are a liar!" said Shefford, steadily.
Shefford recognized him as the brave who had been in love with Glen Naspa. The moment Nas Ta Bega saw this visitor he made a singular motion with his hands a motion that somehow to Shefford suggested despair and then he waited, somber and statuesque, for the messenger to come to him. It was the Piute who did all the talking, and that was brief.
He got up, feeling cramped and sore, yet with unfamiliar exhilaration. The whipping air made him stretch his hands to the fire. An odor of coffee and broiled meat mingled with the fragrance of wood smoke. Glen Naspa was on her knees broiling a rabbit on a stick over the red coals. Nas Ta Bega was saddling the ponies.
Shefford nodded and then they were off, with Glen Naspa in the lead. They did not climb the trail which they had descended, but took one leading to the right along the base of the slope. Shefford saw down into the red wash that bisected the canyon floor. It was a sheer wall of red clay or loam, a hundred feet high, and at the bottom ran a swift, shallow stream of reddish water.
"Bi Nai," he said, with the beautiful sonorous roll in his voice, "Glen Naspa is in her grave and there are no paths to the place of her sleep. Glen Naspa is gone." "Gone! Where? Nas Ta Bega, remember I lost my own faith, and I have not yet learned yours." "The Navajo has one mother the earth. Her body has gone to the earth and it will become dust. But her spirit is in the air.
The missionary's gaze shifted and a tinge of red crept up from under his collar. "Absurd thing to ask a missionary!" he burst out, impatiently. "Do you care for Glen Naspa?" "I care as God's disciple who cares to save the soul of heathen," he replied, with the lofty tone of prayer. "Has Glen Naspa no no other interest in you except to be taught religion?"
Willetts was talking earnestly; Glen Naspa was listening intently. Shefford watched long enough to see that the girl loved the missionary, and that he reciprocated or was pretending. His manner scarcely savored of pretense, Shefford concluded, as he slipped away under the trees. He did not go at once into camp. He felt troubled, and wished that he had not encountered the two.
"Is it because of of Glen Naspa?" inquired Shefford. Nas Ta Bega stalked on, still silent, but Shefford divined that, although his service to Glen Naspa would never be forgotten, still it was not wholly responsible for the Indian's subtle sympathy. "Bi Nai!
The canyon appeared to be full of purple shadows under one side of dark cliffs and golden streaks of mist on the other where the sun struck high up on the walls. "Good morning," said Shefford. Glen Naspa shyly replied in Navajo. "How," was Nas Ta Bega's greeting. In daylight the Indian lost some of the dark somberness of face that had impressed Shefford.
Shefford caught a glimpse of the shy, dark Glen Naspa, Nas Ta Bega's sister, but she did not come out. Other Indians appeared, coming from adjacent hogans. Nas Ta Bega turned the mustangs loose among those Shefford had noticed, and presently there rose a snorting, whistling, kicking, plunging melee. A cloud of dust hid them, and then a thudding of swift hoofs told of a run through the cedars.
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