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They evidently guessed at the meaning of Hayoue's words, for one of them stepped up, and replied with the usual compliment in Tehua, "Senggerehu." Each grasped the other's hand. Hayoue uttered "Queres," and pointing to the west, "Tyuonyi."
The plan was to allow the Queres to come up undisturbed as far as the north side of the Cañada. As the men from the Rito advanced, the Tehua scouts were to close in from the rear and follow them cautiously, until the enemies were all gathered on the desired spot, with the woods to their left and rugged, barren cliffs and peaks to their right.
Yet it was wiser not to attempt a close examination of the sandal; such curiosity might still lead to fatal results. Like an old fox, Topanashka determined to circumvent the dangerous spot, by describing a wide arc around it. He would thus meet the trail farther north, and be able to judge from signs there whether or not the Tehua was close upon the Rito.
Her eyes sparkled; a gleam of intense satisfaction illumined her features, as with head erect and heedless of the plants she had come to gather, she penetrated deeper into the forest. She now went due east, in a direction opposite to the one the Tehua had taken. This had been a very remarkable meeting indeed. More than ever, Shotaye believed that she was invulnerable.
Okoya felt wildly excited and could barely restrain himself. Thirst for revenge joined the intense wish to become a warrior. But Hayoue's placed a damper on his enthusiasm, else he might have left that night alone, with bow and arrow and a stone knife, to hover about the Puye until some luckless Tehua fell into his hands.
Thus the Tehua Indians of the pueblo of Santa Clara assert that the artificial grottos of what they call the Puiye and the Shufinne, west of their present abodes, were the homes of their ancestors at one time.
For it was possible that the hellish plot had developed much further, and that the warriors from the north were lurking already near by to pounce upon the Queres at daybreak. It was not only from the instinct of the old warrior scout, it was out of a sense of duty as head war-chief that he determined at once upon following the Tehua.
The woman shook her head, whispering, "Nyo Shotaye, nyo Tema, 'not Shotaye, not Queres. Tehua quio." Then she grasped her hand and breathed into Shotaye's ear, "Aua P'ho Quio." Shotaye easily understood the meaning of this confidential communication. With her change of abode her name was to change also. Henceforth she was to be a Tehua woman, and Aua P'ho Quio was to be her name.
Nothing appears more suspicious to him than something which seems to have been accidentally dropped on a trail over which hostile Indians are retreating. He forthwith thinks of a decoy, and is careful not to approach. For Topanashka it was doubly significant, for had the object purposely been placed there, it led to the disagreeable inference that the Tehua was aware of his pursuit.
Barter and traffic took place at long intervals; but as not a soul at the Tyuonyi spoke Tehua, and no one at the Puye understood Queres, such attempts at commercial intercourse usually terminated in a fracas, in bloodshed even, and the party offended sought to make things even afterward by waylaying and murdering such of the other side as might chance to wander in the neighbourhood of their abodes.
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