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He walked deliberately onward, at the same time calling out in a low tone, "Nacaytzusle!" Nothing moved. He advanced a few steps and repeated, "Nacaytzusle! Hast thou seen anything?" "No," said a hollow voice near by, and a human form arose as if from beneath the surface. The man stepped up to Tyope; and to the latter's unpeakable relief, he looked stouter and shorter than Nacaytzusle.
But far above all this loomed up the terrible consequences, less of the defeat than of the blow which the Navajos, following the instructions he had once given Nacaytzusle, had struck during his absence. He had done most toward bringing about the expedition to the Puye; therefore he had led the flower of the tribe into perdition.
He crouched behind a flat rock and raised his eyes. It was in vain; nothing could be seen in the obscurity. He felt puzzled. Was this last signal the voice of another enemy who had hitherto remained silent, or was it Nacaytzusle who had changed his position? At all events it was safer to rise and go directly toward the spot, rather than approach it in a creeping posture.
Tyope felt angry and disappointed at himself. The failure in regard to Nacaytzusle was not the cause of his disappointment. What angered him was that he had not killed the Navajo whom he struck down on the mesa, and taken his scalp. There would have been ample time, and he could have concealed the trophy, returning for it in the daytime.
About a year before, then, Nacaytzusle disappeared from the Tyuonyi. Shortly afterward Tyope was suddenly accosted by him while hunting on the mesa, and a secret intercourse began, which led to the negotiations of which we have just heard the main purport. These negotiations were now broken, and in a manner that made a return to the Rito rather dangerous.
Topanashka disliked the appearance of the child, and his counsels weighed heavily. Thus Nacaytzusle became an adopted son of the Queres, but it did not change his nature. His physique at once indicated foreign origin; he grew up to be taller, more raw-boned, than the youth of the House people, and his dark, wolfish look and the angular cut of his features betrayed his Dinne blood.
"Thou hast courted the people of my tribe. They have not sought after thee. Thou knowest their language. Speak it, therefore, and then we shall see." He straightened himself, displaying a youthful figure full of strength and elasticity. Tyope took this change of manner very composedly. He answered quietly in the same dialect, "If thou wilt, Nacaytzusle, I can speak like thy people also.
Tyope had known Nacaytzusle thoroughly from childhood. Twenty years before, the Dinne had killed an old woman from the Tyuonyi. The murder took place near the gorge, on the mesa north of it, whither she had gone to collect the edible fruit of the piñon tree. When the corpse was discovered the scalp had been taken; and this, rather than the killing, demanded speedy revenge.
Give me some token that you also will do what you have said when I have performed my part. Give me" he pointed to the alabaster tablet hanging on Tyope's necklace "that okpanyi on your neck." It was so dark that Nacaytzusle in extending his arm involuntarily touched the other's chest. Tyope drew back at the touch and replied, rather excitedly, "No, I will not give you any pledge!"
But his right hand played with the string of the bow that lay on the wolf's skin. "Nacaytzusle," the other began again, "I promised to assist you to obtain the girl against her will. Mind! Mitsha, my daughter, will never go to a home of the Dinne of her own accord, but I would have stolen her for your sake.
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