subject."

"Isn't there some religious meaning connected with it," asked Ralph.

"I do not think so. Here is Suros; let us question him."

As Suros approached the Professor said: "I notice that one has been put
underground and the other not; why do they observe this difference?"

"We cannot honor the dead by allowing them to go back to the earth."

"Why will it do any good to honor the dead?"

"If we did not honor them, no one would want to be great. No one would
like to be a great warrior."

"Is that the only reward a man has, to be honored after he is dead?"

"What other reward has a man?"

"Do you not think man will live hereafter?"

"When? After he dies?"

"No; how can man live after he dies, and his body is given to the winds
or to the earth?"

"The white man believes he will live again?"

"Does the white man believe the yak will live again?"

"No."

"Well the yak is stronger than a man, and if the yak cannot live again,
then how can man, who is not so strong, expect to do so?"

This was a bit of philosophy which sounded curiously to the boys, and
the Professor, noticing it, said: "Singularly, this is the same answer
which Sir Samuel Baker obtained from certain African tribes, when he
questioned them in like manner."

But the Professor was interested in Suros' statement that they would not
permit the body of the honored dead to go back to the earth, and he
continued:

"You said that you did not want the honored dead to go back to the
earth. When you give his body to the air, does it not go back to the
earth?"

"No; the earth and the air are entirely different, The Great Spirit is
in the air; not in the earth."

"Then you give him to the Great Spirit?"

"Yes; the Great Spirit takes his body."

"Don't you believe that man has a spirit also?"

"No; because we have never seen it."

"But you have never seen the Great Spirit, and yet you say there is
one."

"We have seen the Great Spirit. He comes when it rains, and we can see
him and hear him. We can feel the wind that he blows, and we can see the
great light which he makes every day, and the smaller lights at his
villages every night."

Two things were thus impressed on the boys--namely, that they considered
the air entirely distinct from the earth, and that the Great Spirit made
the thunder and lightning, and that the sun was the Spirit's light by
day, and the moon and stars the lights of his villages by night.

Notwithstanding Sur