r. His uncle
nodded.

"Are you a hunter?" he asked.

"Not yet, I am only learning."

"Why do you learn?"

"In order to know."

"When you once know, what can you do then?"

"I can--" Okoya was embarrassed. "I can make the Shiuana help me."

"That is it!" Hayoue exclaimed. "If the Shiuana do not help, you can do
nothing; no matter how swift you run, how far you see, and how sure your
aim is. But of the Shiuana there are many, as many as grains of sand on
the shore of the great river below here, and when we do not know them we
cannot speak to them and beg for assistance. Just as there are Shiuana
who assist the hunter, there are those who help us, that we may strike
the enemy and take away from him what makes him strong, that it may
strengthen us. Look at Tyame, the nashtio of Tzitz hanutsh; he is swift
and strong, but he knows not how to call to Those Above and around to
help him take the scalp of the Moshome. We must be wise, and listen to
what those speak who know how to address the Shiuana, and what to give
them. We must learn in order to act. I have learned, and thus I have
become uakanyi. And he who will soon be where in time we also shall find
rest,--he taught me many things. He was good and wise, very good, our
father the maseua," he added, sighing deeply.

"Will you help me to learn and become uakanyi?" Okoya turned to him now
with flashing eyes.

"I will, surely I will. You shall become one of us. But you know,
brother, that you must be silent and keep your tongue tied. You must not
say to this or that one, 'I am learning, I have learned such and such
things, for I am going to become uakanyi.'"

Okoya of course assented. Then he asked,--

"I am not uakanyi, and can the Hishtanyi Chayan tell me to go along too
with the men to strike the Tehuas?"

"Certainly, for there are not many of us, and in the Zaashtesh all must
stand up for each, and each for all. But when many go on the war-path
there are always some of us with them in order that the Shiuana be in
our favour."

"Do the Shiuana help the Tehuas also? For the Tehuas are people like
ourselves, are they not?"

"They are indeed Zaashtesh, like the Queres. But I do not know how the
Shiuana feel toward them. Old men who knew told me that the Moshome
Tehua prayed to Those Above and around us, and that they call them Ohua.
Whether they are the same as ours I cannot tell; but I cannot believe
them to be; for the kopishtai who dwell over there must b