an. You are the woman of the order of the Po-Ahtun--I
give you the guard to keep. Call the governor--but call your son
first. You shall be guard as So-hoah-tza was guard, but Tahn-te shall
be guard as I have been! Lean lower, and let your ear listen and your
heart keep sacred the word. I go to our Lost Others--but I leave you
to guard."

The governor came, and all were sad, but no one thought that the life
was over. K[=a]-ye-fah talked and smiled as one who goes to a feast.

But Tahn-te, standing tall and still by the couch said:--"It will be
over! This morning he wakened and said he would go with the sun
to-day. He has no other thought, and he will go!"

And the women wept, and made ready the things of burial for the high
priest of the highest order. If Tahn-te said he would go into the
shadows at that time--the women knew that it would be so. Tahn-te, as
they knew him, joyous in the dances of the seasons,--was never in
their minds apart from Tahn-te the prophet whose dreams even as a boy,
had been beyond the dreams of the others who sought visions.

And as the sun touched the black line of the pines on the western
mountain, the aged Ruler asked for his wand of office, and the
governor gave it to him, and with his own hand he gave it to Tahn-te,
that even when his own form was covered with the soil, his vote would
be on record in the minds of those who listened--and that vote gave
to his pupil in magic, the wand of power--The youngest qualified
member of the Order of Spiritual things was thus acclaimed as the
Po-Ahtun-ho, a Ruler of Things from the Beginning.

Twenty-four years he had lived--but the time of life with the white
men had counted more than double. In magic of many kinds he was more
wise than the men of years, and the heart of his mother was glad with
the almost perfect gladness when Tahn-te stood in the place of the
Ancient Wisdom and listened as the ear of the god listens to the
recitation of many tribal prayers.

The Po-Ahtun-ho also listens at times to the individual appeals of the
things of every day life--as a father listens to a child who seeks
advice. To the more ancient Rulers the younger people were often
afraid to go--various "uncles" of the village were appealed to
instead. But the youth of Tahn-te made all things different--even the
love of a man for a maid, was not so small a thing that the new Ruler
made the suppliant feel how little it was.

And one of the first who came to him thus-