s into the western mountains, where the Navajos lurk,--the
bad men who frightened his wife and children away from their homes, or
who perhaps captured or killed them. Or he may have gone to the south,
where the black cloud is hanging, and where it thunders, and the
rain-streaks hang like long black veils of mourning. He has perchance
tramped down the Rio Grande valley, through sand, by groves of
poplar-trees, and where the sand-storms howl and wail. Now he comes
back, unrequited for all his labour and sufferings, for those whom he
sought are not with him!

His gaze was not directed to the north when the wolf espied him, but to
the east. He may be on the homeward stretch, but he has not given up all
hope. His eyes look for those whom he has lost; he is loath to give up
the search, loath to return alone to the home which the enemy has soiled
with the lifeblood of his youngest child. He is changed in appearance,
lean, and with hollow burning eyes he gazes at the clouds as if there he
might find his missing wife and children.

As he kneels and gazes, another Indian rises from amidst the shaggy
blocks of lava a short distance off, stands up, and then sits down upon
a rock. He turns his head to the east. He too is gaunt and thin, his
features are pale, and his eyes lie deep in their sockets. On his back
hangs a shield; but it is soiled, beaten, and perforated. To his arm is
fastened a war-club, and the quiver on his back is half-filled with
newly made arrows. As this Indian turns his face to the north we
recognize him also. It is Hayoue, Hayoue as emaciated and careworn as
his brother Zashue. They are alone. Neither has found anything yet.

Zashue rises to go where his brother is sitting. As the latter perceives
him he points with his arm to the east. There at the farthest end of the
plain, at the foot of the high cloud-veiled mountains, a long row of
foot-hills recedes in an angle. To this angle Hayoue is pointing. An
untrained eye would have seen nothing but cedar-clad hills and the lower
end of slopes dark and frowning, above which seething clouds
occasionally disclose higher folds of mountains whose tops are shrouded
in mist. But Zashue has no untrained eye; he gazes and gazes; at last he
turns around to his brother with an approving nod and says,--

"Fire."

"Puyatye Zaashtesh," Hayoue replies; and each looks at the other
inquiringly.

Where we might have seen but the usual dim haze veiling distant objects,
they h