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A runner was sent to the Rito, and the men waited and waited. Even the Hishtanyi Chayan became startled at the long delay. Tyope squatted at the foot of a tree; he was thinking of the reception that might be in reserve for him.
There were a number of them at the Rito around the big house, along the fields, and on the trails leading up to the mesa. Okoya went to the nearest one and placed two twigs crosswise on it, poising them with a stone. Then he scattered sacred meal, which he always carried with him in a small leather wallet, and thanked the Sanashtyaya, our mother, with an earnest ho-a-a, ho-a-a.
Do you remember the great dance at the Rito, and the painting on the wall of the estufa where the Koshare Naua sat and held communication with Those Above? Do you recollect that among these paintings there was one of a panther and another of a bear? The relation of the bear and panther of the estufa to the picture of the sun-father is here that of the two stone panthers to the sun himself.
Where the floor of the canon widened, the water of the Rito was led out in tiny dikes and ditches to water the garden patches. A bowshot on the opposite side rose the high south wall, wind and rain washed into tents and pinnacles, spotted with pale scrub and blood-red flowers of nopal.
If the youth had still been at the Rito he might have become a support for him. "Where is Okoya?" he anxiously inquired. "In the mountains or dead," was the reply. "When the women fled up to the mesa, Hayoue and Okoya ran to meet them. But the Moshome were too many, and the two became separated. Okoya killed the shuatyam, the Navajo boy.
People were of as little interest to her as the clouds. The latter could do her errand no harm, and that errand everybody might know if they chose to follow her. Wandering up the gorge of the Rito and along its northern limit, the woman soon reached the upper part, where the cliffs crowd the water's edge, where the southern slopes become more rugged and the valley terminates.
It would attract no undue attention, and he would have done according to the spirit of the shaman's instructions. After leaving the Rito he climbed to the northern mesa, and instead of resting on its brink as Shotaye had, he strolled into the timber perfectly at random, hardly conscious whither he directed his steps, and content to be for once alone with his dismal thoughts.
Rito told us that near the base of these cliffs there was a carving of a bull, and that the place was enchanted.
All at once the stranger stepped up to her, and extending his arms to the west, asked, "Uan save?" She shrugged her shoulders in silence. "Quio," he said now, and grasped her hand; "tupoge," pointing toward the Rito. "Quio," he beckoned her to go with him. "Puye," waving his hand to the north. Lastly he grinned and whispered, "cuinda?"
One more difficult stretch had to be overcome before Shotaye could reach the timber crowning the plateau on the northern cliffs of the Rito. Massive benches or ledges, abrupt and high, seemed to render farther ascent impracticable. But Shotaye kept on after a short stop without the slightest hesitation. The trail wound its way upward.
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