sat down.
There he spent the night, muttering incantations and prayers, shaking
his rattle, and striking the drum softly from time to time.

The sounds that proceeded from his discordant music were so faint that
they could be heard only in close proximity. They were besides the only
human sound in this wilderness. Animal voices occasionally disturbed the
quietness of the night. Nobody would have supposed that between the Rito
and the mesas opposite San Ildefonso of to-day several hundred Indian
warriors were hidden, patiently waiting or slowly moving forward. It was
a quiet, still night, cool, as the nights mostly are in the rainy
season, and dark. The sky was partly overcast; but the clouds did not
drift, they formed and dissolved overhead; and the stars appeared and
disappeared alternately as the nebulous fleeces disclosed or shrouded
them. Behind the mountain, thunderclouds rested, and occasional flashes
of lightning illuminated the crests, and faint thunder muttered in the
distance. It had no threatening sound, and the lightning did not seem
like prophetic writing on the sombre clouds. It was a pleasant night and
an excellent one for Indian warfare.

The scouts of the Tehuas had reported in the last instance that the bulk
of the war-party from the Rito must now be on the move, for no fresh
additions were coming up from the gorge. So careless and unconcerned
were the Queres, so absolutely sure of the enemy's ignorance of their
designs, that they never thought of sending scouts to the upper end of
the northern mesa. From there a few Tehuas had comfortably observed
everything that happened in the gorge during the day, and as evening
came they could report even the numbers of the warriors who took part in
the campaign. As soon as these warriors were all on the Ziro kauash, the
Tehua spies, after warning those behind them, crept cautiously into the
rear of the advancing foe.

All the able-bodied men from the Tyuonyi had not been permitted to join
the expedition. Hayoue was not among them, neither was Okoya. It was a
sad disappointment to the boy, and yet was he not staying at home in
defence of his mother and of Mitsha? Say Koitza had ceased to weep, but
the persistent neglect which she thought she suffered from Shotaye
grieved her. At last she asked Okoya whether he had seen anything of the
cave-woman. His reply, that he thought she had gone, explained
everything. She recollected the confident words that Shotaye had