e
succeeded in laying himself flat on his stomach. He had noticed that not
far behind him there was another and much taller bush. Toward this bush
he crept, but like a crawfish, feet foremost. Had his enemy stood
otherwise than in a line with the first shelter which Topanashka had
made use of, he would surely have sent an arrow during this retrograde
performance. He continued to crawfish until the tall bush was between
him and the smaller one. Once covered by the former, he raised his head
and looked around.

A peculiar stillness reigned. Not a breeze stirred, the sun was blazing
hot, notwithstanding the long, trailing clouds that traversed the sky.

"Kuawk, kuawk, kuawk!" sounded the cries of several crows, as they flew
from a neighbouring tree. They went in the very direction where
Topanashka suspected the Tehua to be, and alighted on a pinon in that
neighbourhood. The old man glanced, not at the birds, but at the trunk
above which the crows were sitting. It was not thick enough to conceal
the body of a man, and about it the ground was bare. If there had been
anybody hiding there, the cunning and mistrustful birds would never have
alighted. The maseua took this into consideration, and began to doubt
the correctness of his former conclusions. 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. First he would have to crawl backward until he
was at a sufficient distance to be out of sight altogether.

This movement he began to execute in his usual slow and deliberate
manner, crawfishing until he felt sure that he could not be seen from
the point where the crows had taken their position. Once during his
retreat the birds fluttered upward, croaking, but alighted again on the
same spot. Something must have disturbed them.

Topanashka arose, straightened himself, and moved ahead as noiselessly
as possible. He maintained a course parallel to the trail.

The old man considered himself now as being in the country of the enemy
and on hostile ground. For whereas he was in reality not far from the
Rito, still, possibly, he had an enemy in his rear. It is the custom of
a warrior of high rank in the esoteric cluster of the wa