at 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!"

"Nothing at all?" asked the Navajo. A slight rustling noise was heard at
the same time.

"Nothing!" Tyope exclaimed hoarsely.

The savage thrust his arm out at the Pueblo with the rapidity of
lightning. A dull thud followed, his arm dropped, and something fell to
the ground. It was an arrow, whose head of flint falling on the ashes
caused the embers to glow for an instant. Both men sprang in opposite
directions, like snakes darting through the grass. Each one concealed
himself behind a bush. The branches rustled and cracked for a short
space. The place around the fire was vacant; nothing remained but a dim
streak of ruddy light.

Tyope, after repelling the assault upon him, had taken refuge behind a
low juniper-bush. When the Navajo thrust a pointed arrow at his chest he
had numbed the arm of the savage by a blow from his club, and then both
men, like true Indians, hurriedly placed themselves under cover, whence
each listened eagerly to discover the movements of his foe. Tyope could
have killed the Navajo while close to him, for he had the advantage in
weapons; but, although he really had no further use for the young man,
he was not so angry as to take his life.

Still, under the circumstances, the greater the caution displayed the
better. Intimately acquainted with the character of the Dinne Indians,
and that of Nacaytzusle in particular, Tyope had gone on this errand
well armed. Open hostility had resulted from the interview; it was
useless to make any attempt at conciliation. Speedy return to the Rito
was the only thing left. This return might become not only difficult,
but dangerous, with the young Navajo concealed on the mesa. 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 pinon tree. When the
corpse was discovered the scalp had been taken; and this, rather than
the killing, demanded speedy revenge. A number of able-bodied men of the
clan to which the grandmother bel