rmance. Thus they have become in course of time hallowed; and the
shaman who causes lightning to flash through a dark room, or corn to
grow and mature in the course of one day, honestly believes in the
supernatural origin of the trick. Such men are often very punctilious,
and while they will go to the direst extremity in what they regard as
their duties and privileges, will with equal scruple avoid going a
single step beyond. Imbued with an idea that they are the mouth-pieces
of Those Above, they listen anxiously to everything that is striking and
strange, and attribute to inspiration forcible arguments as well as
their own speeches and actions. So it was with the Hishtanyi Chayan. The
refusal of Hayoue to accept an honourable charge struck him as being an
expression of the will of the Shiuana, against which it was his duty not
to protest. When the young man brought forward such strong arguments he
was still further confirmed in his belief, and bowed to the inevitable
in respectful silence.

At the close of the council the Koshare retired to the estufa, the
caciques followed their example, and the Chayan came next. But before he
withdrew into privacy, the great medicine-man had a long talk with
Hayoue, his object being to strengthen the tie which united the young
man with the people of the Rito, and to engage him not to forsake
altogether the abode of the spirits of his tribe. Hayoue made no
definite promise beyond what he had already pledged himself to at the
general meeting.

Hayoue and Zashue had taken leave of the invisible ones as well as of
the inhabitants of the Tyuonyi, and ascended to the brink of the
southern mesa above the Rito. Here they turned around to look back upon
the home to which neither of them was any longer strongly attached. The
sun was setting, and they wished to improve the night, for fear that
Navajos might still be prowling about on the mesas. At the bottom of the
gorge there was little life, compared with the bustle that prevailed in
former days. On the plateau the evening breeze fanned the trees; in the
east, distant lightning played about sombre clouds.

"The corn-plant is good," Zashue remarked to his brother; "the Zaashtesh
will not starve this winter. We have called loudly to Those Above."

"It is well," said the other in a tone of authority, which since his
achievements he was wont to assume toward his elder brother; "when the
Koshare perform their duty they are precious to the peopl