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Besides, once acquainted with the spot whence she had to start, it mattered little whether there was any path or not. The Indian needs only two points to guide himself, the place of departure and the spot where he wants to arrive. Moreover, for her flight it was better not to follow the trail at all. She felt sure of meeting some one of the Tehuas in the vicinity of the Puye.
If the Tehuas were informed of his approach they would either prepare for his coming at the Puye and the result of an open attack would be to say the least extremely doubtful, or they would come out in force, and desultory fighting would ensue. In this those who were nearest water and supplies always had the advantage.
She cared little for this; her main object was to rest and to think. What she now undertook was a step preliminary to the last act. A trail almost indistinguishable, so little was it used of late, led from the Rito to the north, where the Tehuas dwelt in caves in the rock which they name Puye. This trail was the object of Shotaye's search.
Furthermore, he enjoyed the material advantage that the latter could not have noticed him. Everything depended on ascertaining unseen as much as possible about the enemy's movements. From some of Shotaye's gesticulations the maseua had concluded that the Tehua would proceed on the old trail leading from the Rito to the Puye, or at least keep himself very near that trail.
He did not reply; and as she came nearer, the regular breathing and the heaving of his chest showed the cause of his silence; the great warrior from the Puye was fast asleep! Under different circumstances she would have left him and quietly retired, but now she could not; the opportunity was too favourable, matters too threatening for her.
The castle-like rock of the Puye, along whose base the numerous cave-dwellings are burrowed out of a very friable and almost snow-white tufa, is situated about ten miles west of the Rio Grande, and not two miles south of the picturesque cañon of Santa Clara. The cliff is over one half mile long, and it dominates the mesa on which it stands.
The war-chief sent a messenger to the Puye, and after midnight the great medicine-man of war appeared in person. The shaman was, like all the others, painted black; a tall plume taken from an eagle rose behind each ear; the left hand carried a rattle; and a little drum was suspended from his shoulder.
The knowledge of more than one tongue was a suspicious and therefore a dangerous gift. The man who now conversed with Shotaye in the Queres dialect was not a native of the Puye. He belonged to the linguistic group of the Tehuas, but to the southern branch, the Tanos, who inhabited several villages west of the Rio Grande and in the country where the city of Santa Fé now stands.
Teanyi had informed the tuyo that he had met a woman from the Rito de los Frijoles and had taken her to his home, or rather to that of his wife; that the woman was gesticulating in an unintelligible manner; and that all he could surmise was that there might be Queres approaching the Puye with hostile intentions.
He knew from the talk of old men that the Tanos inhabited villages farther south, and it was possible that the fugitives, afraid of the dispositions of the Puyatye that lived closer to the Tehuas, had avoided them in order to take refuge at a greater distance from the people of the Puye.
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