YAHOYA (Part Two)

 

X

"GO TO your mistress!" Northrup commanded the two trembling girls. "And remember, goddess or maid, she is your mistress!"

He went outside. Yahoya must have time to think before he tried further to talk with her. And he himself wanted to think. Inaa, none too sweet-tempered an old rascal at the best, would be up to mischief now. His anger would include Northrup as well as Yahoya. It would be just as well to look for nearly anything now.

But he had not looked for what had already begun. His eyes, seeking Inaa, had gone naturally to the far edge of the cliff where the steps of stone led down to the cañon where the tribe was drinking. He did not see Inaa, but saw a head rising as a man climbed upward. At first he had no suspicion who the man was, as Strang had gone from his mind, and this was not the Strang he had known.

Strang's breast showed as he came up. Then, from the base of the cliff what had looked a shadow there resolved itself into a man's form, leaping out upon Strang. The moonlight fell upon the fellow and showed Northrup Tiyo's dark face, the teeth showing, the eyes gleaming murderously. The knife which already had threatened Northrup was flung up above Strang's head.

The two white men must have seen the Indian at the same moment. Simultaneously their quick cries shot through the stillness. Strang leaped up the last of the steps, throwing himself to the side as Tiyo came at him. He had had but the instant to decide and had decided upon taking the chance here upon the level rather than seeking to descend a hazardous way, leaving his enemy over him.

But Tiyo had had time to plan for all things. As Strang turned to the side the Indian sprang upon him. Northrup saw the moonlight gleam on the uplifted blade, heard the little grunt with which Tiyo brought it down, heard the thud of the impact and for the second thought that all of Strang's accounts were squared.

Then, gripping his automatic, having no chance to shoot from here, he ran to the two forms which were rolling close to the precipice. As he leaped forward, Yahoya, having heard the cries, came running by her maidens to stand in the doorway, watching them.

Tiyo's knife had drunk blood, but not from the body of the writhing man, having found a sheath only in the outflung forearm. Now Strang, a tall man, made into iron from his months on the desert, was fighting as a maddened animal fights for its life. His hand had grown into a steel band about Tiyo's wrist, was forcing the knife back from him. And still, like two great fighting cats, the two men now were almost at the edge of nothingness.

The Indian, seeing a chance, dropped his knife so that it fell against the rock floor at his left side. As quick as lightning he had swept it up again in his left hand, had whipped it up so that again it caught the moonlight. And then Northrup, throwing himself forward, was in time. His great fingers shut about the Indian's left wrist, gripping it as Strang gripped the other.

A moment of breathless struggle in which the muscles of the three men stood out mightily. Then the three bodies relaxed as the knife came away in Northrup's hand, and Strang and Tiyo, rolling over swiftly, got to their feet.

"Well done, Yellow Beard!"

Yahoya's young voice came ringing to them; Yahoya herself had come quickly to Northrup's side, looking up into his face. And again the man saw in the woman's face, unhidden, the admiration which looked out at him frankly.

Beyond the emotion which he had aroused in her she seemed unmoved by what she had seen. She was laughing softly when she said:

"It is in Yahoya's heart to make you love her, Saxnorthrup."

Strang whirled about suddenly. Until now his watchful eyes had been for Tiyo alone. The name, even as Yahoya pronounced it, brought him peering into Northrup's face.

"Northrup!" There was almost a gasp of fear in the voice. "You—you didn't die then?"

"I think not," Northrup assured him coolly. "Otherwise I should not have had the privilege of saving you a throat-cutting."

"—— him!" spat out Strang, his eyes again going to the Indian. "I'll get him for this."

Tiyo's face, a moment ago a picture of the hot rage and hatred within him, now showed nothing. With an elaborate assumption of nonchalance, he lifted his shoulders and turned to go down the steps. Northrup, watching him go, noted that not once had the man spoken, that now his lips were sealed. The suspicion came to him that Tiyo, like the rest of his simple people, had been tricked by the old priest into a certainty that Yahoya was a goddess and did not dare speak until she, singing the sacred song, had given the signal.

"So you are alive?" demanded Strang as if he could not be convinced. "And you have got here?"

He was frowning, his eyes deeply thoughtful. He seemed already to have forgotten Tiyo and that but for Northrup's coming Tiyo's knife would have drunk more deeply. There was no gratitude in his sharp glance; but there was displeasure and suspicion. As quick as a flash his eyes went from Northrup to Yahoya's face where a man must read what she did not seek to hide.

"Curse it!" cried Strang. "Haven't I got enough on my hands already? What the devil do you want here?"

Northrup grunted his disgust of the man.

"In the first place," he said coolly, "I want a talk with you. And I want it right now, before daybreak. If you've got a shred of decency in you, if you've got a drop of sporting blood, which I don't believe you have, I have a proposition to make you."

STRANG, gripping his wounded arm as he followed, they went back into Yahoya's house. For Northrup wanted what privacy there was to be had. And he wanted what light he might have upon Strang's face.

Yahoya, unbidden but frankly interested, went with them. As they began speaking in a language which was unknown to her, she frowned a little and watched them the more closely.

"Here's a girl who's in a nasty mess," Northrup began abruptly. "She's white and she's the plaything of a dirty old savage. We've got to get her out of this. It's a sight more than a one-man job or I wouldn't ask your help. The mere fact that there is no love between you and me doesn't cut any figure in a case like this. Will you tuck in and help me get her out?"

Strang's head was down as he sought to bind up his wound. When he looked up it was first at Yahoya. He studied her face intently, then turned to Northrup. Then of Northrup he demanded sharply:

"Have you talked with her? Do you understand their lingo?"

"Yes."

"What have you told her? Does she know that the goddess stuff is all bunk?"

"I have told her. But she doesn't believe me. Inaa told her and she thought that he was lying."

There was a gleam in Strang's eye which told Northrup what he might expect even before Strang's voice demanded bluntly:

"Well? If she wants to believe it, what's the difference?"

"What difference?" cried Northrup hotly. "We've got to get her out, I tell you. And it looks as if we'd have to go on the run. Unless she gets that fool notion out of her head, I've got my doubts if she'll be willing to go with us and leave what she looks upon as her people."

Strang's brows contracted into a quick frown.

"I know your sort pretty well, Sax Northrup," he said sharply. "You're the kind of man who likes to run things pretty much his own way and to with the other fellow. Here you butt in where I've been six months and at the jump are telling me what 'we' are going to do! Hasn't it entered your head that perhaps I've decided for myself what I am going to do? And what this girl is going to do? And, by Heaven! You can put it in your pipe and smoke it right now that she is going to do what I tell her to do!"

Northrup bit back the words which came to his lips. Now was no time to quarrel with Strang. And, since no human being is altogether vicious, he still hoped to find a hint of decency somewhere in Strang.

"Would you mind telling me what your plans are?" he asked quietly. "Things are going to happen pretty fast now, you know."

A little color came into Strang's bronzed cheeks, a quick bright light like a flame into his eyes.

"So you'll listen to reason, will you?" he demanded, making the mistake of thinking himself the bigger man at that moment. "You can just bet things are going to happen in a hurry. I'm going to get Tiyo's tag to begin with, the murderous young hound! And I'm going to put a crimp into Inaa's game that will make him dizzy. And, so that you won't make any mistakes, Northrup, I'll tell you right now who's runnin' the whole show here. It's Ed Strang! What I've got I'm going to hold on to; what I haven't got—I'm going to get. And I'm going to keep it—just as long as I want it!"

His eyes went swiftly to the splendid form of Yahoya, clung there a moment and then, defiantly, came back to Northrup.

"You are just one man against a whole tribe," Northrup reminded him, keeping the anger out of his voice though for an instant his eyes were on fire with it. "Has it occurred to you that they will let you go just as far as it pleases them? And that then they will know how to bring you up with a rather ugly jerk?"

Strang's air while he was speaking had subtly changed. Now, if in truth he were not the master of the situation, he thought that he was. From confidence he went to insolence.

"I've been here six months, you've been here a few hours, and so you advise and warn," he laughed impudently. "And, if you want to know, I am not one man against a tribe. The tribe is split square in two, and by ——! I'm the man that split it! Inaa is going down to make room for another man who's hungering after his job. Tiyo is going the same way to make place for a sort of tribal captain who belongs to me. Do you begin to see, Sax Northrup?"

Northrup saw, knew that Strang was telling him the truth, and understood that in sober truth Strang might have made himself the power to reckon with here. Then Yahoya . . .

"It won't work," he said quietly. "You can't get away with it, Strang, and you ought to know it. You might put it over for a while, but the bottom will drop out of the whole thing sooner or later. And I think it will be sooner."

"It will, will it? You wouldn't mind explaining how and why?"

"Because where one white man has gone another follows. Where two have been many will come. If I don't take this girl out with me I'll come back for her. And I won't come alone."

Again Strang's assurance rang in his laugh.

"Has the thought occurred to you that maybe you won't go out at all?"

Northrup stared at him incredulously. Strang had risen, or fallen, to levels Northrup had not thought open to him.

"Frankly, it hadn't. I generally go where I want to go. While we are threshing things out you might tell me what you are driving at."

"I'm driving at this: I've stumbled on to something here which, if I work it the one right way, will put me in a place where I can make the Astors and Morgans shine my shoes. If I let you go your way out of here to blab, I stand to lose the whole thing. So you are not going to get out! Is that plain enough?"

"You're taking over a pretty big contract, aren't you?" asked Northrup steadily. "I don't see how you're going to prevent me going out, unless you get some of your friends to stick a knife into me. And you won't do that."

"How do you know I won't?" snapped Strang.

"Because you haven't got the nerve," retorted Northrup. "I know your kind, too. You'd go off and leave a man to die alone in the desert, because you're an infernal coward! Too much of a coward to kill a man or to make somebody else do it. You're short on nerve, Strang."

Strang's lips twitched a little, but his eyes held hard to Northrup's, and the cool dare in them. After a brief, hesitant moment he whirled about and went to the door. Yahoya, who had guessed what she might of the conversation, flashed a quick glance at Northrup and smiled.

Almost immediately Strang came back. He pointed outside. Northrup, looking, saw six men, one after the other, come silently up from. the cañon. He noted that all, excepting ohe only, were tall, sinewy young men of superb physiques, and that they were fully armed, each carrying two great-bladed knives at his belt, and in his hand a short thrusting-spear. The one man who had passed the prime of life looked a patriarch. Hair and beard were snow white; he was great-framed and erect; his eyes flashed as if with youth.

"Inaa's successor," said Strang, taking on again his marked manner of one supreme in power. "And the first of the young men is Muyingwa who is hungering after Tiyo's job. They are friends of mine, as you call them, Northrup. Don't forget that. And there are more of them coming."

"And I can drop the whole gang in their tracks if need be before they can get within knifing distance," answered Northrup, understanding what lay back of Strang's air of authority.

"And in the end get a two-edged knife through you," came the swift answer. "You know that. You wouldn't have a chance in the world. If you did getaway for the minute, what would you do? Run out into the desert without taking time to get a drink of water, eh?"

"Go ahead, Strang. You haven't entirely outlined your plan."

"So you're ready to walk easy and talk easier, are you?" sneered Strang.

Still standing at the door he flung out his hand a trifle theatrically. The six men stopped dead in their tracks. He turned a smile upon Northrup.

"You see? Now maybe you'll listen. I haven't got anything against you, Northrup, and I'd let you go and be glad of it if I could. But I tell you I can't work this game in a day. It's too big; the stakes—I tell you I can make the big men on Wall Street look sick! If I took a chance on you and you squealed when you got out, then what? I can't do it."

"That's about enough sop to your conscience," cut in Northrup. "What do you think you are going to do with me?"

"I'm going to keep you here until I can get out. I need a man like you. There are mines here, gold-mines—it makes me dizzy to think about it—which these fool Indians have never worked beyond scratching the top like a flock of clucking hens! You are going into the mines; you are going to drive the men I give you and drive them hard. You are going to clean up more money for me than you ever saw. And when I get away and it goes with me, then you can do as you —— please!"

"Many thanks," said Northrup dryly. "It doesn't sound good to me, Strang."

Before Strang could answer, the young Indian whom he had made known as Muyingwa came on, leaving his fellows. He raised his hand in salute twice, first to Strang, second to Yahoya.

His eyes ran by them all, flashed a greeting which was filled with triumph at the girl Nayangap, standing in the anteroom door. Then, his eyes upon Strang, he lifted his hand and pointed toward the east.

It was the first light of the dawn.

Northrup swung about toward Yahoya.

"Yahoya," he said quickly, "you must listen to me."

"I listen, Yellow Beard," she said, looking at him curiously.

"What do you want to talk to her about?" demanded Strang in sharp suspicion. "Keep your hands off, Sax Northrup. She's mine, and you will do well to keep it in mind."

"Yours? You contemptible coward!" Northrup flung at him, his anger at last snapping its leash. "You would trade on her superstition and ignorance and then throw her away when you got tired, would you? Now I am going to talk with her and you are going outside while I do it."

"Am I?" jeered Strang. "So you've got a notion to the pretty innocent yourself, have you? If you think I've kept my hands off her this long just so you can have her——"

Northrup shut Strang's mouth with a blow which brought the blood and sent Strang reeling out through the door.

"Come in and I'll kill you," he said, his voice dropped low and grown husky. "I mean that, Strang."

Strang hesitated, then went swiftly to Muyingwa and the others who had come closer. Northrup paid no further attention to him save always to keep him in sight.

"Yahoya," he said as gently as he could with the emotions riding him. "You must believe me. You are a girl, a Bahana like me. Inaa has tricked you. Strang knows it. Strang is a bad man in a good many ways, Yahoya. I'd rather see you marry Tiyo than him. Tiyo at least loves you, I think. Strang plans on getting rid of Tiyo and Inaa, on putting two other men in their places—that old man out there and Muyingwa. Then Strang will be chief man here and he will do what he pleases with you. Do you understand, Yahoya?"

"I understand," she said curiously, "that you say I am no true goddess but a mere girl, like Nayangap and Tocha there, but white. Why do you lie to me, Yellow Beard?"

"Lie to you?" he cried. "Can't you see it's the truth. Cut your hand and it will bleed; put it in the fire and the fire will burn it; go without food and water and you will die like the rest of us! Can't you see? You're just a God-blessed girl, Yahoya, and no goddess."

She shook her head, the odd smile still in her eyes.

"The dawn is coming, Yellow Beard," she said softly. "I must go. The people wait for Yahoya."

"But," he cried after her, "you must not marry Strang——"

"The Goddess Yahoya promised," she told him steadily. "A goddess must not lie."

XI

NOT the most patient of men, Northrup was tempted to express himself in very strong words and to inform Miss Yahoya that from now on she could do as she pleased for all of him, either go to Strang or the devil and be done with it. Nor did the smile which she turned on Strang as she went by him soften Northrup's mood.

"I have broken the sacred silence, O Yahoya, goddess!" Strang was scarcely more than whispering and yet Northrup's eager ears caught the words clearly enough. "But it was because harm was threatened you and I feared for you. Am I forgiven?"

"Am I true goddess, then, Eddie?" she asked softly.

"The white man in yonder says you are not," he answered quickly, his eyes watchful of her slightest change of expression. "He is a liar. Inaa says you are not; he is a false priest, bewitched. They shall both suffer for it, Yahoya. Tiyo denies your godliness. He too shall suffer. Shall they not, Yahoya?"

"Take them when you will!" she said, her eyes flaming; and so she passed on.

Northrup shrugged his shoulders. He told himself that he had done his best and that he were a mad fool to attempt anything further in the face of what confronted him. But since madness had the way of galloping down his blood when crises came, he was by no means sure what the ending might be. He knew that he would watch; that if Strang or his crowd sought to lay hands on one Sax Northrup, there was going to be a fight worth a man's while.

As Yahoya, walking erect and swiftly across the level space, came to the cliff's edge, Strang, followed by the old patriarchal figure, Muyingwa and the other young men, went close behind her. Northrup noted the glance which passed between Muyingwa and the girl, Nayangap, a glance easily understood since there was not much difference between it and the glance which might pass between two young people in a box at the opera. Then Northrup strode out after the others.

If there was to be a fight it was well to plan a bit while there was time. He forced his mind to this now and away from Yahoya.

He saw that the Indians, heavily armed as they were, might be held off by a man with an automatic and plenty of ammunition. He saw that if Strang carried a gun it was hidden about his clothes. He did not believe that Strang had any sort of firearm upon him. It would have been the natural thing for the man's hand to have gone its way to his hip when Northrup had struck him in the mouth; and he had made no such gesture. There were a thousand ways in which a man, out on the desert for months, might have lost his weapon.

"If I'm the only man here with a gun," pondered Northrup, "they'll have their work cut out for them if they start anything."

He could withdraw toward the other steps, up which he had come from the first cañon. In the narrow passageway he could hold them back while he swept up the jug of water. After that, what was to be would be.

The dawn had come at last. Yahoya, standing upon the brink of the precipice, stood very still, her head thrown back a little, her eyes upon the pale moon, her arms lifted. Northrup came closer to the edge and looked down.

The dark forms there were quiet, had grown as motionless as Yahoya's own. The whole tribe gathered there stood with lifted arms, with faces turned up. Now and then when a form stirred Northrup could see that it was a stagger of drunkenness, could guess that the stuff which they had been drinking was the terribly intoxicating juice of the agave, which, fermented in rawhide bags, puts frenzy into men.

Suddenly through the silence floated Yahoya's voice, singing softly. She was chanting the sacred song, the song which people said she was singing when she appeared before Inaa out of the night. She gave the words strange little twists of mispronunciation—but the words were English! There was no doubting that they were English, or rather that they had been English when Yahoya's baby voice had sung them for the first time into Inaa's ears.

It struck Northrup as an odd little thing that this song alone should have remained to the girl of the tongue which had been her mother's, this song which she could not understand, but whose sounds had been kept fresh through frequent repetition.

And, somehow, the whole thing struck him as more pitiful than amusing, although both elements mixed into it. Here was Yahoya, who had called him liar for saying she was no true goddess, singing in all seriousness her sacred song; down there, far below, was a tribe of Indians listening to her sacred song with a sort of reverence. And the song itself was a nursery jingle!

Buzzfuzz was a jolly fly,
Very blithe and gay!
He began his lively dance
With the break of day.
Up and down the window-pane
With a dainty tread,
Sometimes on his tiptoes slides,
Sometimes on his head!

Northrup caught a grin on Strang's face and could have kicked him for it. In his own eyes he felt a sting of salt mist. He no longer had a desire to laugh at Yahoya or at the face-lifted crowd below. He no longer felt resentment toward the girl. He did feel a quick impulse to sweep her up into his arms, to hold her tightly, as one might hold a very little, motherless child; to carry her away from here and make life over for her.

THE song died away and the stillness of the Festival of Silence went with it. A thunder of voices crashed through the night. Wild yells, until now pent up in riotous breasts, broke out everywhere. And though the voices seemed crying all things in the world, from everywhere rose the shout:

"Yahoya! Yahoya! Yahoya!"

Down yonder the forms were circling drunkenly now—men, women and children stopping only that they might drink, reeling more and more, shouting, lifting their voices in shrill, finely drawn notes, like the yapping of a thousand coyotes.

But from the seething mess came out several forms, walking swiftly and straight. From here there was no need to look twice to see that it was the old priest, Inaa, who led them. Close behind him came Tiyo and after him a score of young men, all armed as were the followers of Strang. They were now coming up the steps. Northrup looked quickly to see what Strang was doing.

He had gathered about him the half-dozen men who had come with him and was giving sharp orders. Northrup marveled a little to see them, one after the other, withdraw until they had lost themselves in the shadows under the overhanging cliffs.

"If he means business," wondered Northrup, "why doesn't he make the fight as they come up the cliffs? The way Tiyo went for him? Or has his nerve left him, after all?"

Now, standing upon the cliff's edge where all above and below might see them, were three forms, that of a white-clad maiden, her face radiant, a strange brightness in her eyes, the form of Strang close to her at her left, Northrup upon her right, a dozen steps away. Then there was old Inaa, standing between Northrup and Yahoya, then Tiyo a little back, his eyes like hard, cold stones upon Strang. The others who had followed until now remained a score of steps from the precipice where they were not to be seen from below.

"Now the show-down," grunted Northrup to himself. "It's Strang against Tiyo. Who wins?"

Inaa slowly lifted his hand. The shouting ceased below; again the leaping forms grew still save for a little swaying. It seemed to Northrup, however, that they were vaguely restless, eager for the happening of something at which he could only guess. Was it merely the marriage ceremony? Or were there many men down there waiting a signal to take sides, some with Strang, some with Inaa and Tiyo?

"Look, People of the Hidden Spring!" cried Inaa suddenly, his voice floating out wildly, his two arms wide-flung. "See how Inaa has kept you from under the heel of the world of Bahanas! How many have come here in the memory of grown men? Two—no more. How many have gone away again, to tell of what they have seen here? None! Has not Inaa guarded you well? Look before the light comes; see where, across the desert, the eyes of Inaa are watching!"

Then Northrup, looking out the way the old man pointed across the wide sweep of desert to the south, saw a great pillar of flame standing red against the pale sky. It shot upward from the distant mountain-peaks, and he knew that at the least those peaks were fifty miles away!

He looked to the eastward and saw again a pillar of red fire lapping at the skies and knew that it was little closer than the first. He looked to the west and saw the third. And suddenly, as he remembered the old Indian woman who had kept him alive, he thought that there was less madness than sanity in the things she had told him.

Was she one of the outposts of this strange people, after all? Had her fires shot their swift messages here that Inaa might know if all were well? Had the blaze his own hands had kindled before her dying eyes spoken to Inaa, too? Were there seven cities of Chebo, as she had told; was this people but the first of them? Had the old Spanish adventurers but told the truth after all of the wonderful cities of Cibola; and had they remained all these years hidden from the white man? He felt his blood tingling through him.

He looked to the north. Here the cliffs stood up so that one might not look far out as in the other directions. But here, clearly outlined against the sky, was the form of a man. And the man was shouting, his voice coming down clearly:

"In the north all is well, Father! The fire burns red!"

Again the people below shouted, crying:

"The red fires burn! It is well!"

And again they fell silent abruptly.

"Inaa has guarded his children well," went on the priest solemnly. "For fifty years has he not been Inguu and Inaa (mother and father) to you? Because the gods were pleased did they not send one of their kind, the Goddess Yahoya, to live with you? Did they not send the Bahana whom you call the Man of Wisdom to cure the sick and teach you how to make better things from gold—beautiful things for you to wear, cups from which to drink? And has not Inaa kept the Bahana here so that he might not go out to tell of what he has seen and so bring the cursed white men here, as they have gone everywhere else over the world?"

A moment he was silent. Then, his voice lowered a little, he continued:

"Inaa is old, his years weigh him down. Yahoya this night, her heart opened to the future, has said that already is the Skeleton House made ready for the coming of Inaa. But he does not go and leave his people without a thought for their welfare. He leaves behind him one to step into his place, the biggest man among you, the mightiest with his hands, the swiftest runner across the desert, the most tireless, Tiyo, the head captain of your young men!"

A great shout swept up from below:

"Tiyo! Tiyo! Tiyo!"

And then, as silence was settling, a loud voice boomed out:

"Tiyo for our Head Man; Yahoya for our Goddess! Tiyo and Yahoya!" And again many voices arose crying, "Tiyo and Yahoya!"

Tiyo himself, at a sharp glance from the old man, came forward another step, swiftly, standing very close to Yahoya, so close that her gown brushed him. The cheering rose more windily from below. Strang's eyes and Tiyo's met then. To Northrup it was a sheer wonder that the two men could hold themselves back from flying at each other's throats.

While they shouted down there Inaa was speaking swiftly with Yahoya. Northrup could not catch the words, but words were not needed now to tell what Inaa was saying. He was commanding, urging, threatening. And when Yahoya answered, it seemed that she had given him an answer that pleased him.

"Listen, my children," cried Inaa, his voice ringing with the triumph in it. "The White Goddess is pleased with you this dawning. Her heart is yours. It is not her wish to journey back up through the skies down which she came; it is not her wish to move on down into the underworld where the abode of the gods is. She will linger here with you, she will wed Tiyo and you shall be their children, blessed of the gods!"

Northrup could see that Yahoya was smiling. She leaned out over the abyss until he was afraid for her, thinking that madness had come upon her and that she was going to fall. She lifted her hand and there fell the great silence again, seeming now more breathless than ever. And then, when everything was still, when they waited and wondered why she did not speak, suddenly she broke the silence. And not with a spoken word, but with a clear burst of laughter leaping out over them from her red lips.

Inaa frowned and plucked at his beard; Tiyo shifted his feet, looking uncertainly from his father to Yahoya; Strang stared at her much as Northrup was staring. And still, until she had done, Yahoya gave free vent to her tinkling laughter.

"You have heard Inaa," she cried at last, her voice clear and steady, confident and imperious. "Now hear Yahoya! Do I look to you like one afraid? Do I tremble as if with fear? Does my body shake as men's bodies do when they look on death? And yet have I been threatened tonight! Aliksai. Listen.

"It is the dawning and Yahoya, the Goddess, has said that she would wed. Whom would you have her take for husband, my People of the Hidden Spring? Shall it be Tiyo here? He is hungry for me; he is shaking with the desire for me; Inaa bids me marry him! Shall it be the Man of Wisdom? He is covetous of beautiful things and he wants Yahoya! His eyes burn me with the greed in them. Shall I take him for husband?

"Are you not my people, O People of the Hidden Spring? Shall not your wish enter the heart of the White Goddess? Cry out in a loud voice and say whom shall Yahoya wed?"

Northrup moved closer without knowing that he did so, thrilled with the girl's fearlessness. He had heard her words to Strang, he had seen her seem to agree with Inaa. What was she going to do?

She herself had given the sign for division. In the shouting which answered her there were many voices clamoring for Tiyo, many for Strang. And as by magic the throng about the fires was shaken into its two factions, women drawing back, men grouping here and yonder about their leaders.

"Wait!" Yahoya's clear young voice cut through the din like a bell through a roll of thunder. "Wait and listen! The Man of Wisdom has said to me: 'Will you wed me?' And Yahoya, the Goddess, promised! Inaa has said to me, 'Will you wed Tiyo my son?' And Yahoya told him, 'I have promised and a goddess may not break her word!' What is the answer, my people?"

Only a murmur crept up to her in answer. Men looked at her wonderingly, waiting and listening as she had commanded. And again she laughed.

"Yahoya will tell you," she cried lightly, her rising voice seeming to soar upward upon wings of happiness. "Yahoya, the goddess, may not lie. But what maiden among you would not lie for her lover? Yahoya, who is no goddess but a white maid, will not wed with Tiyo. And she will not wed with Strang, who is a coward. She chooses her own lover, and if it be death—why then, she chooses death with him."

Like a flash she had fled along the cliff-edge, sweeping by Tiyo, avoiding Inaa's clutching fingers. She had sped to Northrup's side and her arms flashed upward and about his shoulders.

"Save me from them, Saxnorthrup!" she whispered. "I am only a maid—and I am afraid!"

As Northrup stared down at the face at his breast, he felt the wild flutter of her heart against him and heard her whispering:

"Of you only am I not afraid—because I love you, Saxnorthrup!"

XII

ONLY a little while ago Northrup himself had said: "Love does not come like this, in a hurry!" And now he knew in a flash that then he had known nothing of it: that love comes as it wills, without man's bidding or consent. And, madness though it might be, it had come to him.

As his arms shut about her, hurting her in that first embrace, his heart was beating as wildly as hers. He wanted her; she belonged to him; and he was going to have her!

He wanted to get her away from here and to make her happy; he wanted to show her a world which would be like fairyland to her; he wanted to teach her his language, her own forgotten tongue; he wanted to mother her and father her and lover her. She was at once to him both an incomparable maiden and a little, frightened, hunted wild thing.

But while something deep within him, until now unawakened, talked to his soul of these things, his eyes and brain were keenly alive to what lay about him. The thing which he read in Strang's eyes was little different from the thing he saw in the eyes of Tiyo and Inaa. Amazement first, then incredulity which was still half stupefaction, then baffled rage and open threat.

Northrup's thought just then was that it was going to end with him and Yahoya going over the cliff together. And yet, in that first wild moment, it was only elation which beat through his heart. She lifted her head a little, looking straight up into his eyes. And there before them all, not to be robbed of what life seemed to be bringing them at its close, he kissed her.

"You love me, Saxnorthrup?" the girl whispered.

"I love you, Yahoya," he told her.

It was Inaa who took the first step forward. Yahoya, seeing him coming, slipped quickly from Northrup's arms. She alone had been in a position to plan for all things since she alone knew what Yahoya was going to do. She cried out clearly, sending her voice downward, calling:

"Will you hear Yahoya speak, my people? Will you bid Inaa stand back while Yahoya speaks?"

There came quick answer to her, many voices shouting:

"Yahoya! Listen to Yahoya!"

Down below, the two distinct factions now stood fully separated, grouped upon opposite sides of the fires. Clearly they were nearly equal in numbers; clearly then half of the men down there hungered to see Inaa and Tiyo fail in their wishes; while the other half clung to the old order and stood ready to oppose Strang's party in all things.

"There is our one chance," muttered Northrup, ready for whatever might happen; and he waited anxiously for Yahoya to speak.

Inaa, too, waited, and Tiyo and Strang, each for the moment uncertain. Yahoya, with a swift glance at them, turned again toward the expectant tribe.

"Among you," she cried, "are many young men and maidens. What man of you will stand aside and see another take his mana? What maiden of you will let Inaa or another tell her which lover she must love? You can look into Yahoya's heart and into Yellow Beard's heart and understand!

"But listen further! Many of you, drawn off there against the cliffs, have your hearts filled with hatred of Inaa and Tiyo! Over there stand you others, and your hearts are filled with hatred of the Man of Wisdom. Across the space between you your eyes run like the eyes of wolves hungering.

"The People of the Hidden Spring love their cornfields and their homes and their quiet lives of security. And yet, even now, they are about to spring upon one another to send many souls down to the Skeleton House, to tear themselves in two. Is it wise? Or has magic fallen upon you? Magic from the Man of Wisdom or from Inaa himself?

"If I wed Tiyo there will be war. If I wed the Man of Wisdom there will be war. What say you, my people, if Yahoya weds neither of them, but the man of her own choice, the great Yellow Beard? Then to-night you will not spill your blood and your brother's, but instead you will drink deep, feast full and sleep in peace! Now you can command Inaa to wed me to Yellow Beard and so, those of you who hate Tiyo can laugh at him; those of you who hate the Man of Wisdom can laugh at him!

"Aliksai! Listen. One way you shall have Yahoya's death and Yellow Beard's, for they will go down over the cliffs together; you will have Inaa's death and Tiyo's and Strang's and Muyingwa's, and the deaths of many young men, the strongest in the tribe, for they will fall! Another way and you will have peace. And tomorrow you can have your election if you like, keeping Inaa where he is or putting another in his place. What say you, my people?"

She drew back a little, not so far as to be lost from their sight, just so that she could stretch out her hand and slip it into Northrup's. Inaa began shouting; Tiyo's voice joined his angrily; Strang, stepping forward, called with them. And from below, out of a little silence, came a great shout of laughter!

"Let us drink, brothers!" cried a loud voice. "We were bewitched. The maid is right. Why should we fight when it is easier to drink and eat, to dance and sleep? Inaa had promised us a wedding; let him marry the maid to Yellow Beard!"

Now many shouted one thing, many another. But again and again a grumble of dissatisfaction was drowned in a shout of laughter. In the main the faction hating Tiyo was satisfied to see him thrust aside for another; those hating Strang were satisfied in his discomfiture.

The Hopi are at heart peace-loving people; a dance and a feast appeal to them far more than an orgy of blood. Here was at once a compromise and a huge joke on their head men. And perhaps many lovers below felt their rude sympathy for the lovers above.

Tiyo's twenty men, drawing closer now, looked at one another a trifle uncertainly. They began speaking in low tones and Northrup heard one of them laugh. The half-dozen men Strang had left in the shadows had been joined secretly by several others; they too had drawn closer and were speaking among themselves.

Looking to them Northrup saw a quick figure flit out of Yahoya's stone building and run toward them. It was the girl, Nayangap. She went hastily to the side of the young man, Muyingwa, and began speaking to him earnestly. And Muyingwa, nodding, came on until he stood close to Yahoya's side. Strang stared at him anxiously.

"Aliksai. Listen!" he cried loudly, until the din below grew still. "It is I, Muyingwa, who speak. Inaa has said that it is Tiyo who is the strongest of us, the swiftest runner. He lies! Even now will I run out across the desert with Tiyo, as many miles as he will and come back ahead of him! The men who are my men know this and have no love for liars! So they would not see Yahoya wedded to one of them. But with Yellow Beard it is different. Let Inaa wed them and we shall throw down our arms and feast. Then I will race with Tiyo, and the man who is strongest and swiftest will be your head captain. Then you will vote for Inaa or the other as your head priest. What say you? Is not Yahoya right? What man of us loves Tiyo or the Man of Wisdom better than his own life?"

While those bent upon strife murmured everywhere, those who had gone into the division half-heartedly or not at all, outnumbered them many to one. When, after that, Inaa sought to make himself heard, no one would listen; when Tiyo shouted, his words were lost to the ears of those standing close to him; when Strang shot out a sharp word and an evil glance at Muyingwa, it was met with a hard stare. Muyingwa had gone back to his mana, and the two of them were standing like Northrup and Yahoya, hand in hand.

It was perhaps Muyingwa's offer to race with Tiyo as much as anything which settled the matter. There are no runners in the world like the runners of the southwestern desert; they are men who can run an unbelievable number of miles out across blazing sands in the morning to dig in their fields and run back the same evening. With them running is at once a necessary thing, a part of their religious training, and a way of settling just such debates as the one that had arisen now.

They began sweeping up along the steep steps now, the men of the two factions mingling, jostling one another, each eager to be the first to come to the top. Northrup pressed Yahoya's hand mightily.

"You are a God-blessed wonder, Yahoya," he whispered. "We are going to pull through."

"You hurt my hand, Saxnorthrup!" she smiled up at him. "But—do it again!"

SOON they were in the center of a great ring, they with Inaa, Strang and Tiyo. Men were laughing openly everywhere. And their eyes, when they had finished with Yahoya and Northrup, had already measured Tiyo and were seeking to measure Muyingwa that they might lay their wagers upon the endurance run.

A man is not head priest of such a people as this for fifty years without learning something. There was not a cooler, craftier mind among them than Inaa's. He knew full well that in time of storm the reed that bends is better off than the stubborn tree. He frowned warningly at Tiyo, then, making his face over into its habitual mask, turned to Yahoya.

"Yahoya has been pleased," he said steadily, "to test her people. She has declared herself no true goddess but a mere maid to see if in our hearts' fear of the goddess were greater than love of Yahoya! Her will is the will of her people. The dawn has come and a wedding is promised. Let Yahoya and the great Bahana come forward."

Northrup, looking down quickly at Yahoya saw that her dimples had come back, that her eyes were shining softly, that a happy flush had run up into her cheeks. What wonderful thing was this? Had it been just a few hours since he had come here, dying of thirst? Or had it been years? Was he, Sax Northrup, about to be joined to this radiant girl in matrimony, none the less holy to him because of the heathen rites with which it was to be celebrated? Or was he dreaming the whole mad thing?

Slowly, his hand holding hers, he and Yahoya stepped forward. And then a sudden dread came upon him. If it had come to open fight it would have been one thing, a thing Northrup knew. But now that no knife-blade caught the early light he knew that none the less there were knives hungering for him, perhaps for Yahoya. He felt that all about him was menace, the more terrible because it was glossed over with smiles—a concealed, masked danger.

But these things he promptly forgot. Inaa, fighting hard for the mastery of himself, and getting it wonderfully, gave the people what they demanded, a wedding. Northrup, looking down at Yahoya's upturned face, saw a great, unfeigned gladness there. Her lips moved silently with Inaa's, as if she knew each word of the ceremony and were saying it within her heart.

Northrup did not know if he were doing a good or a bad thing in letting this go on; he only knew that he loved Yahoya and that she thought that she loved him. And there was no time for thought. Already he heard Inaa's words, saw Yahoya forming them silently.

"The Spider Woman and the Great Earth Woman, the goddess who weaves the colors of sunrise and sunset, the goddess to whom belongs the world, the god who makes green things grow and the God of Rain, the great gods and the small gods bless you, Yahoya and Yellow Beard! You are a mana and his woman. The woman's house is open to the man, to none but him. It is done!"

And between two long lines, instantly formed, of shouting, laughing men, Sax Northrup and his wife, given to him by her own will and by the head priest of the People of the Hidden Spring, passed into the stone house.

XIII

"WE ARE married, Saxnorthrup! Is it not nice to be married to Yahoya?"

She came into his arms like a bird to its nest, fluttering a little, eager to be there.

"You are my man!" she whispered. "And I am your mana! Oh, but I am proud of you, Saxnorthrup! There is no other man like you in the world! Did I not see you lift up Tiyo and cast him down so that his bones ached? Did I not see you strike Eddie mightily so that he reeled back afraid? I am glad you are no god, but a man, Saxnorthrup. Glad that I am no goddess, but a maid to love as other maids love—but harder!"

Outside, the last of the procession had passed by, the shouting forms had gone down the stairway; men were forgetting them in their eagerness for a test of strength and speed between Tiyo and Muyingwa.

Northrup drew the girl tenderly to him, a little sense of awe upon him now that they were alone together, a little sense of pity for her, a feeling that though Inaa had given her to him, and the tribe had cheered, all was not well. They were forgotten for the moment. But Northrup had not missed the look in Strang's eyes, in Inaa's, in Tiyo's, as they had passed the open door and gone on.

"Yahoya," he said gently, "I love you. Things have a way of happening which I had not expected. I didn't know just what love was, and now I know. I didn't believe in it overmuch, I suppose; and now I know that there is nothing else in the world this morning that counts. If a man looks at you I want to murder him. I am going to try to take you away with me, Yahoya, where you will see other men, better men to look upon than I am. I am going to play square, if I can. And if you find you don't love me after all, that you do love some other man, then——"

"Then, Saxnorthrup?" she asked softly.

"I think I'd kill the brute!" said Northrup savagely.

Whereupon Yahoya was vastly delighted.

"You do love me," she told him sagely. "For I feel like that! And," eagerly, "you'll take me into the world of the Bahanas? So that I shall see the wagons running uphill without horses? And great houses that float on the water? And many, many wonderful things?"

Could he do these things? Could he one day take Yahoya to her first opera? Could he take her to marvel at the great spectacular shows of the great cities? Could he be the first to initiate her into a life which would be a veritable wonderland to her? Had his destiny saved this one glorious thing for him to do? Would ever any one in all the world have been so equipped as was Yahoya for enjoyment, for marveling from day to day, from night to night?

He could imagine her little cry of ecstasy when they drove down Broadway the first night, when she saw the lights, the many-colored electric displays above. To her it would be magic. The train upon which they traveled, the women's gowns, the porters in their uniforms, books and pictures and music; dainty things to eat—why, an ice-cream would be a thing of wonder to her. Could he, Sax Northrup, take this maid by the hand and lead her out into the new world?

He remembered Strang's look, Tiyo's and Inaa's, and his brows contracted. Yahoya looked at him wonderingly.

"What is it, Saxnorthrup?" she asked uncertainly. "I have displeased you?"

He laughed at her, drew her even closer to him, kissing the alarmed look out of her eyes.

"I was just thinking, my little wild girl," he told her gaily. "Thinking makes a man's face look like that. I won't do it any more."

So much, loverwise. Then, man-like, he began thinking seriously again. Here was the situation:

He had come here, led by the lure of gold. If he got out at all it seemed that he would go as empty-pocketed as he had come. He thought disparagingly of the thousand dollars he had outside in a bank. He didn't know much about the cost of women's garments, but he had the hazy idea that the sort of gown he wanted Yahoya to wear would cost the greater part of his thousand. And then, how was he going to take her everywhere in the world, give her everything she would be sure to want? She'd be asking for a hundred things every minute at first.

So much for the money end of it. There was still left the greater question—

"Can we get out at all?"

It was almost as if she had read some of his thoughts. She had slipped away from him, running to the door of one of the ante-rooms. Holding aside the curtain there, she said happily,

"This is Yahoya's sleeping-room. Will you see how pretty it is, Saxnorthrup? And the pretty things her people gave her as gifts to the goddess?"

He hesitated at the door a moment, uncertain if he should profane it with his presence. It drew from him a little gasp of admiration and amazement.

There was a couch made cozy with the skins thrown over it. A table, cunningly made of wood so precious here, stood out in the center of the little room, a square of snow-white buckskin thrown over it. Upon the table was a vase with pale-blue flowers. And the vase itself was of solid gold, skilfully hammered.

Upon the floor, arranged about the walls, were countless cups and vases, tiny jugs, belts, forehead bands, moccasin ornaments, jeweled bracelets—all of solid gold, many set with flawless turquoises.

"All presents to Yahoya," she smiled at him. "You see, Saxnorthrup, Yahoya was a goddess and a great lady before she gave herself away to you! And presently, after Tiyo and Muyingwa race, there will be more presents. For me, the bride, and for you, the bridegroom, Saxnorthrup."

She made herself comfortable upon one end of her couch, drew up her feet under her, gathered her knees into her arms and dimpled over them at Northrup.

"No wonder Strang counts himself a millionaire," thought Northrup. "And small chance that he will let us get away if he knows the way to stop us."

And to Yahoya he said slowly:

"Do you know—Mrs. Sax Northrup—" she laughed delightedly and blushed becomingly at the new name which she interrupted him by saying over softly to herself—"you are a disgracefully rich young woman?"

"Oh," she laughed, "this is nothing! In each of the Seven Cities Yahoya has a house——"

"Seven Cities!" broke in Northrup quickly. "What Seven Cities, Yahoya?"

She lifted her brows at him in surprise.

"You do not know then? This is but one of the Seven Cities of Chebo, the smallest, where Yahoya has come but seldom for the Festival of Silence. The others have many people and big houses in the cliffs, with wide stairways up and down, and hundreds of rooms. And in each is a great house with five, six, nine rooms, all belonging to Yahoya. Here I bring but two maids; there I have many to dress my hair, to bathe me, to do little things for me that I do not wish to do. There I have many golden things: a table all of gold, with many turquoises; a little bed with golden feet; white furs to walk on; a chair to ride in, heavy with gold, that strong men carry. You shall see, Saxnorthrup! And you shall know that Yahoya does not come to her lover with empty hands!"

Nayangap and Tocha came in to serve them a breakfast of milk and little corn-meal cakes in Yahoya's room, and until they had gone, taking their trays away with them, Northrup listened eagerly to what Yahoya had to tell him. And, in brief, this is what he learned:

The Seven Cities of Chebo controlled a district, perhaps two hundred miles across. There were rich valleys, hidden in the mountains, where they grew their melons and corn and cotton. There were mines from which they took vast quantities of gold and silver, fashioning ornaments and table service for the rich.

A young man was overlord of the Seven Cities, having been elected to hold office for life. He had turned his eyes upon Yahoya, but since he had already two wives, the priests, very powerful throughout the district, had forbidden him wedding her.

In order that white men might not come into a country which nature had so cunningly hidden from them, there were stationed out through the desert, upon any of the water-trails, sentinels who signaled by fire or smoke when a man came into sight. Generally these were the older folk, men and women, useless to the state for other purposes, who believed that thus they would be pleasing their gods, and who considered it a high honor to be chosen for so responsible a task.

So if a white man had turned toward the Seven Cities, he might not come within fifty miles of the nearest of them when he was met by runners sent out to intercept him. A friendly greeting, a sharp knife from the back, and one more name stricken from the list of adventurers. Or, if men were needed in the mines, a living death. Besides the outposts, there were lookouts upon the cliff-tops, alert, keen-eyed men, who did not miss the slinking form of a gray coyote upon the gray sands.

Northrup thought swiftly of the sandstorm, of his lying so long blotted out from sight against the drifting sand; of how when he had at last come on, it was night, and the lookouts had perhaps come down to take part in the Festival of Silence.

"If you did not know of the Seven Cities," Yahoya asked him, "how is it that you came journeying this way, Saxnorthrup?"

He began telling her of the Indian in Santa Fé, only to be interrupted by Yahoya saying quickly—

"You were with Eddie then, when the runner died?"

"Yes. Strang has told you about that?"

"No," she answered. "He always lied to me, not knowing that I knew he lied. He said that in his heart he dreamed a dream of me, and that that brought him across the sands, hurrying!"

Northrup grunted. Then, moved to curiosity he demanded—

"If Strang didn't tell you of it, how do you know?"

"Tiyo told me," she answered, puzzling him still more.

"Tiyo? Who told Tiyo?"

"He was there. It was Tiyo who shot the poisoned arrow in at the window."

"Tiyo went way down to Santa Fé, killed his man, and came back here?"

She nodded.

"The other was Chiwakala, son of the old man that Strang would make head priest in the place of Inaa. Chiwakala was a friend of Kish-taka, the Hawk Man, who is overlord of the Seven Cities, and not without power himself. Between him and Tiyo there has always been rivalry and hatred. Kish-taka sought to make him head captain of the youths of the Hidden Spring. But even Kish-taka's power was less in this matter than Inaa's, and so Tiyo was elected.

"Chiwakala was bad in his heart, nukpana. People said he was a Powaka, who casts evil and sickness into men. It was Tiyo's doing that Chiwakala was condemned to spend all his life down in a mine where bad men and women are put, and those that Kish-taka or the priests do not like. Then Chiwakala, who was a great runner like Tiyo and Muyingwa, fled, having in his heart to go out among the Bahana and, because he hated Tiyo and others, to send certain of the Bahanas into our land, telling them of riches to be had.

"Chiwakala went swiftly, but Tiyo went after him, also swiftly. Chiwakala, coming first among the Bahanas, had told his story, and men laughed at him, calling him liar. Then, in Santa Fé, he was to tell a man who is known among the Bahanas as a hardy adventurer. There Tiyo came up with him, and, shooting quickly through the open window a little blue-winged arrow with poison tip, killed him. Then Tiyo came back, and even Kish-taka, who had befriended Chiwakala, said that he had been nukpana, and that Tiyo had done well for the people of the Seven Cities."

From Santa Fé, Northrup estimated roughly that he had traversed some four hundred miles in coming here. A round trip of eight hundred miles! And yet Yahoya spoke of the matter lightly, as if Tiyo had run but a little way.

"How long was Tiyo gone?" he asked curiously.

"From the moonrise when he departed until the dawning when he dropped down before me," she answered, "twenty days had passed!"

"Twenty days!" gasped Northrup.

"Oh," she said quickly, misunderstanding his thought, "it was because he lost time in seeking out Chiwakala among the white men. Tiyo would have come back sooner but for that."

Eight hundred miles in twenty days! And Yahoya was apologizing for Tiyo's slowness! A clip of over forty miles a day, day in and day out, over such country as Northrup knew stretched between these people and Santa Fé! It was incredible—and yet it was the sober truth. For here are a people not like other men, a people with a strange, seemingly tireless power and swiftness, that is the result of desert training, inheritance, evolution, all aided by the religious ceremonies calling for an abnormally developed physique. The desert had made creatures like the coyote, the snake, the jackrabbit that knew how to live a very long time without water. The desert had made its own plant life to exist and flourish where water was not. The desert had made its men.

Even now that a great issue held in balance, that issue was to be decided by such a race as perhaps no white man had ever seen. Tiyo and Muyingwa, down in the cañon were ready.

"Shall we go out upon the cliff edge and watch them?" said Northrup. "I think that very much depends on this race—for you and me, Yahoya!"

XIV

TIYO and Muyingwa showed an equal eagerness to be off. They stood side by side, stripped, the sun already beating hot upon their naked bodies. As he looked down, Northrup marveled how the desert had made her children into what they must be to wrest nourishment and draw life from her barren breasts.

The men were alike, as he looked upon them from the back. Their shoulders were not wide, though they were tall men, both of them. Their bodies were slender, almost reed-like in smooth symmetry and pliant toughness. There was no hint of a useless ounce of flesh, nothing but hard muscle.

But while bigness of body was nowhere evident in the torsos, which were none the less magnificent, the hips were thicker than the hips of white men, the thighs bulged out with endurance in every knotted sinew; the calves were the swelling, powerful calves of Marathon men.

The desert Indian in his heart is a born gambler, his love for hazard no whit less than the Mongolian's. Already were the onlookers caught in a fever of excitement as they cried out for their favorites and eagerly sought takers for their wagers. From the voices coming up to him Northrup knew that one man was seeking to bet his whole year's yield of corn that Tiyo would come in the victor; that another staked many gold cups on Muyingwa; that even the women were wagering personal ornaments.

"Where will they run?" he asked of Yahoya.

"Yonder," she pointed, "to the foot of that peak, without water on the way. There grow red flowers that are found nowhere else. The one who brings the first flower back wins. It is the custom."

Northrup judged that to the base of the cliff it was at the least fifteen miles. A race of thirty miles through the hot sun, and without water!

"Who will win?"

She shook her head thoughtfully.

"It lies with the gods, Saxnorthrup. There are in the world no two runners like them since Chiwakala is dead. No man could beat them—except you, Saxnorthrup!" she ended loyally.

"Good Lord!" grunted Northrup. "I'd shrivel up in about ten minutes!" But he spoke in English.

Inaa made his way through the throng which drew back for him. From a cup in his hand he sprinkled water upon both men.

"The gods watch you, my sons," he said loudly. "Run!"

They broke away from the throng which watched them silently and went down the gentle slope from the cañon mouth at a trot, their elbows rubbing. Northrup noted how Tiyo held his arms drawn up a little so that the relaxed hands were close to his stomach; how Muyingwa ran with his arms at his sides, the hands dangling.

And in their action he saw no other difference. There was the same free stride, the same way of bending the body slightly forward with the head held up a little, the same easy play of muscles and rhythmic swing.

"If I had to bet on either of them," was his thought, "I'd toss a coin for it."

And then, mindful of what the result of the race might mean to Yahoya and to him, he cried sharply:

"Go to it, Muyingwa! I'm backing you!"

Like two great, gaunt greyhounds, Tiyo and Muyingwa were already slipping out into the desert, their bare feet seeming scarcely to touch the loose sand. Each had hit his stride, and Northrup saw that now Muyingwa was setting the pace, forging a step ahead, and that Tiyo seemed quite content to drop the step behind. He frowned as he asked of Yahoya—

"Which man has won the most races in his life?"

And she answered—

"Tiyo."

Steadily, each keeping to his stride, the two passed out into the gray expanse, Muyingwa increasing the distance lying between him and his rival, Tiyo never seeming to see Muyingwa. Now, more than ever before, did the desert seem like a mighty ocean, with these men, two bold swimmers, striking straight out into it, and the thought must arise in the mind of a white man who watched them: "Is their strength so mighty a thing that it will not forsake them before they can get back?"

But they would be back soon enough, and then there would be a settling of scores.

Northrup drew his eyes away from the two forms growing smaller in the distance, beginning to blend into the monotone of desert, and stared down at the throng below him. He found Strang in a center of a group of silent, attentive men. Beyond him was Inaa, the priest, also with his group around him.

"They are like a crowd of schoolboys," thought Northrup. "Ready to break off in the middle of a fight to watch a race; ready to get into mischief again the next minute."

"Yahoya," he said gently, "do you know what it will mean for us if Tiyo wins this race?"

"Yes." She spoke quite steadily, slipping her hand into his, and smiling a little. "But we are not afraid to die, you and I, Saxnorthrup."

"So it would be death then?"

"For you," she told him, "it would be a laborer's work down in the mines. For me it would mean bride to Tiyo, or my own knife in my heart. We would not wait, Saxnorthrup, you and I."

"What would we do?" he asked curiously, wondering at the girl's calmness.

"When we saw Tiyo running home before Muyingwa we would leap out to meet him, Saxnorthrup. Hand in hand, as lovers should."

"You love me like that, Yahoya?"

She pressed his hand hard in her own.

"That is the only way Yahoya knows how to love, my husband. But I am praying to Haruing Wuhti and Kokang Wuhti that it may be Muyingwa who races home first."

"In either case there is going to be trouble," he said thoughtfully. "Those men down there are not to be cheated of their fight. While they are watching the race, should we try to leave by the way which I came?"

"Where you go I go with you," she answered. "But if they wished they could come up with us out in the desert, and there are no cliffs out there for us to leap from, Saxnorthrup."

MEN were already coming up from the cañon, seeking the heights from which they might watch the race until Tiyo and Muyingwa were lost to even their piercing eyes. In a little the level space would be crowded.

"Let us go back into the house, Yahoya," suggested Northrup. "There we can be alone for a little. And there we can have certain men come presently whom we shall want to talk with."

Before they could gain the wide doorway Northrup saw many hard, frowning eyes turned upon him, and knew that a little while ago these same eyes had looked on laughingly at his wedding with Yahoya. The Indians had enjoyed the moment, had found perhaps a pleasure in piquing at once Strang and Tiyo and Inaa, had yielded to the impulse of the moment and Yahoya's influence over them. But now stood out their eternal hatred of a white man.

Quickly the level space about the pool and the spires of rock uplifted into the air were covered with men seeking to find the two little moving dots in the wide sweep of sand. Early among them came the girl, Nayangap. With no glance at Northrup now, stooping swiftly, she caught up the hem of Yahoya's gown and lifted it to her lips.

"Yahoya," she said softly, her voice troubled, as were her eyes, "goddess or maid, it is all the same to the heart of Nayangap. In her heart Nayangap loves you and worships."

"You are a good girl," said Yahoya, with a little touch of her old air of a young queen. "Look. I give you this."

She caught up one of the many jeweled cups from the floor. Nayangap shook her head, saying quickly:

"Nayangap does not come for presents. She brings you word from Muyingwa."

Northrup looked at the girl eagerly. For the first time now, Nayangap looked at him. And it was to him rather than to Yahoya that she spoke.

"Muyingwa will win the race, because he is the better man, and because the gods love him best! Then his followers—and they are many—will name him head captain of the young men, in Tiyo's place. Then, too, the good men who are fair in their hearts will name him head captain because they have said the man who wins will be their chief. But there are others and they are many, too, who are nukpana. They will break their promises as if they were the shells of humming-birds' eggs. Then, because Muyingwa is no coward, there may be a great spilling of blood."

"Go on," said Northrup impatiently, seeing that the girl was stopping.

Her eyes had been very hard. Now, suddenly, they grew soft, and into her dusky cheeks a tide of red surged up.

"Muyingwa loves power and gold!" she cried passionately. "Muyingwa loves to strive with other men. But most of all Muyingwa loves a mana, and that mana is Nayangap! His heart sings like a thrush and makes music in Nayangap's heart when he comes to her.

"Nayangap loves gold, too, and she loves power for Muyingwa, and pretty gowns for herself. But most of all she loves Muyingwa's self. And after Muyingwa she loves Yahoya! This Muyingwa knows. His heart is big; he would give to his mana all things. So he has called me aside before the race and told me what I must do for Yahoya's sake."

"If Yahoya were in truth goddess," cried Yahoya, her eyes bright, "she would make Muyingwa this day overlord of all the Seven Cities! Since she is but a maid like you, Nayangap, she prays to the gods for him."

"This is the word of Muyingwa," went on Nayangap swiftly. "There will be a great struggle and many men will go down to Maski. But Muyingwa will win because he will have the stronger party, and because the gods are with him. He has no love for the Man of Wisdom, who has tricked him, saying that Yahoya would be left free to do what she wished.

"Muyingwa says that if the fight comes Yahoya is to stay in her kiva, where harm can not come to her; and that her lover, Yellow Beard, shall come out to stand at Muyingwa's right hand and fight the fight with him."

"Askwali. I thank you," said Yahoya gently. "You will bring us water and food, Nayangap. Yellow Beard shall rest here and sleep, so that when the time comes he shall fight a man's fight. That is best."

Nayangap withdrew upon her errand, going swiftly. Yahoya came to Northrup, then, putting up her arms, looking up into his face:

"My man," she said softly. "Kiss me!" And when he had kissed her: "I love you. I am proud of you. You are such a man as never before came into the world. If you fall to-day I shall run out and throw myself upon your body and die with you. If you live I shall live always with you in paradise. Kiss me again. And now sleep, Saxnorthrup."

The wonder is that Northrup did sleep. He awoke from a dream of sitting in a box at the theater with Yahoya, watching her while she watched the actors. Yahoya was bending over him, her hand laid lightly upon his shoulder.

"The lookout has called out that he can see them returning, Muyingwa and Tiyo," she said gravely. "Shall we go out and watch them, you and I?"

XV

PASSING with Yahoya through I the curtained doorway into the larger room, Northrup saw that at the wider entrance there were two young men standing, their backs turned toward him.

"Two of Muyingwa's men," said Yahoya. "He sent them to stand guard here."

Northrup stopped to offer his hand to each.

"If there is a fight," he said, "we fight together? That is good."

Their eyes upon his were hard and expressionless.

"We are Muyingwa's men," said one bluntly. "We obey our orders." Again there were many men upon the ledge, all looking out toward the desert where their eyes had found the forms of the racers. Before Northrup and Yahoya had come to where they too could see, Strang had moved out of a knot of men and had come swiftly to meet them. A good deal of the bluster of a few hours ago had oozed out of him; he was looking anxious.

"Look here, Northrup," he said hurriedly, "it strikes me that there's going to be an almighty row in no time. You and I have had our troubles and there's no denying it. But at a time like this I guess we've got to remember we're white men stacked up against a bunch of damned Indians. You chip in on my side, and I'll see you through if we come out of this alive."

Strang was armed like the Indians; now Northrup was certain that the man had either lost his gun out in the desert or had had it taken away from him here.

"I'll chip in on your side," returned Northrup coldly, "not because I am fool enough to believe a man like you, Strang, but just because I see my one chance with your crowd."

He saw in Strang's eyes a quick light of eagerness. Then the light died down, the eyes grew anxious again. Plainly Strang was afraid. He sought to speak further, but Northrup and Yahoya passed on.

Everywhere were black looks turned upon them, many men sneering openly at Yahoya, who was no longer goddess, but mere maid; many of them speaking of him in ugly voices, which they did not seek to keep from his ears. Northrup looked at Yahoya swiftly; it was if she had neither seen nor heard.

But again men forgot them for the moment. Tiyo and Muyingwa from being mere slow, drifting dots grew into two men, striving mightily. From afar it was clear that they had fought their way, mile after mile, with skill and cunning and muscle. They were now two staggering, dust-covered forms, and no man yet could tell which was Muyingwa, which Tiyo.

On they came, plunging across the loose sand which caught at the feet that no longer might spurn it lightly, their lean bodies crouching, their arms dangling, their knees rising and falling only because stubborn wills drove them. On they staggered, neither man looking up, their hearts near bursting, their dry, dusty tongues lolling, their bodies rocking as in agony. On through a reeling world, with only a scant two or three yards between them.

And only silence greeting them, as men strove to see which of those dark, tortured forms grasping a wilted flower in a dangling hand, was Tiyo, which Muyingwa. Then, at last, they had come so close to the base of the cliffs that they were recognizable human beings, no longer merely exhausted machines. A great crowd rumbled out to greet them then, many voices shouting together—

"Tiyo!"

For it was Tiyo in the lead. Even Northrup saw that now, and realized swiftly that Tiyo's winning would strengthen Tiyo's hand, so that there would be little hope for Muyingwa and those whom he stood ready to befriend.

At the shout the two men jerked up their heads. Their faces were twisted and haggard; their mouths dropped open; their eyes were wild, telling mutely of the anguish-racked bodies upon which so terrible a tax had been levied.

Then the heads dropped, the gaunt forms staggered on, feet sinking deep into the sand, being caught there, dragged out with effort more and more obvious. And still, no great distance between them and the end of the long run, Tiyo held his place in the lead.

Now many voices called out, "Muyingwa! Muyingwa!" but they called half-heartedly. Through the bedlam rose the shrill cry of a woman, a wail of grief; Nayangap, hurrying down the stairway to meet her defeated lover, carried to him a face scarcely less tortured than his own. Yahoya slipped her hand into Northrup's.

"Look," she whispered. "If to-day you fall, my husband, Yahoya will fall with you!"

The sun flashed a moment upon the keen blade she had slipped from her gown. Then, as quickly as it had come, the knife was gone, and she was pressing his hand hard.

On came Tiyo, staggering more drunkenly than ever, fighting for every step. On came Muyingwa just behind him, head down and dogged. Cheer after cheer broke out to greet the victor; cheer after cheer drummed into the ears of the man who had challenged and who was losing.

Inaa, his eyes seeming on fire, was drawing with a sacred baho a small circle at the head of the slope. Already were Tiyo's feet upon the harder ground, already was he plunging, reeling up the first of the hundred yards of incline. He swung up one arm with a visible effort, showing the fingers gripping the stem of the red flower. Inaa's voice, until now stilled, called out triumphantly:

"On, Tiyo, my son! The victor's circle, wherein is room for one man only, awaits you! On, Tiyo!"

Then Tiyo turned a little for the first time and saw Muyingwa's bowed, reeling form behind him. Tiyo's staring eyes and panting mouth grew into a twisted smile. Then Tiyo did not turn again.

As they ran the two men stumbled now, their numb feet striking against the stones in their path, each seeming ever upon the verge of falling. If Tiyo should indeed fall—if Muyingwa fell—then before either man could get upon his feet the race would be lost.

It seemed to Northrup that Muyingwa was driving some last ounce of reserve strength into his lagging limbs. It seemed while a man could not be certain, that he had shaved off a fraction of the half-dozen feet stretching between him and Tiyo. But if he had cut off an inch, what of it? There were but seventy-five yards now, and Tiyo was a man's height in advance.

Northrup caught a glimpse of a face thrust close up to his own, Strang's face. The blood had drawn out of it, leaving a strange pallor over the sunburned skin.

"The —— quitter!" groaned Strang. "He said he could beat Tiyo!"

"You talk about a quitter!" snapped Northrup. "Shut up!"

It seemed now that nothing less than miracle could save the day for Muyingwa, unless Tiyo should fall. And why should one fall rather than the other?

There was a flutter of white close by Inaa's side. Nayangap stood there, her arms thrown out toward the men racing so slowly up the broken slope.

"Muyingwa!" she called. "Muyingwa!"

He did not lift his head as he struggled on; he gave no sign that he had heard. And yet, in the silence which had fallen, a silence of breathless, intense eagerness, he could not but have heard.

"Tiyo!" thundered Inaa. "Tiyo! Ti-yo!"

"Muyingwa!" cried Nayangap. "Muyingwa!"

The eyes of those who watched, drawn for an instant to the forms of the old man and the young mana, came back quickly to the runners. Was it in the seeming only, or had Muyingwa crept a little closer? With hard ground underfoot, with Nayangap's voice ringing in his ears, had he added a little swiftness to his slow plodding? Had he, in fact, held a little reserve force for the final dash? Was Tiyo, already so close to the victor's circle, and with his rival in his rear, already the victor?

It was ending as a distance run so rarely ends, with the end in doubt until the very close of endeavor. Muyingwa was gaining. Tiyo was driving his muscles harder and harder at every lagging step to make them bend to his will. But they were only twenty-five yards from the goal, and Tiyo still led the way.

"Tiyo!" shouted Inaa.

"Muyingwa!" cried the girl, her voice throbbing in its appeal.

Then all were still, their bodies tense, their breathing hushed, their hearts beating thickly. Northrup's hand, gripping Yahoya's, grew into a vise, which at another time would have hurt her cruelly. Yahoya did not feel it.

There was no sound now save the rattle of stones set rolling, the thud, thud, thud of bare bleeding feet dropping heavily, the gasping breathing of Tiyo and Muyingwa. One might fancy that he heard the hammering of their hearts, despair in one not untinged with wild hope, victory in the other touched with dread. For Tiyo could hear Muyingwa's whistling breath close upon his right, a step behind.

So they came to the worst of the broken ground not a dozen yards from the circle Inaa had drawn. Here an exhausted man might fall if he were not wary. In each of the bursting hearts was the same thought: if a man fall now he sees his rival win.

Tiyo, having everything to lose, feeling himself already crowned with green leaves and yellow flowers, swerved a step to the left. Muyingwa, feeling the game all but lost already, kept straight ahead. His thudding feet struck among the jagged stones, which cut at them and tore them with cruel knife-edges. Muyingwa felt nothing, but flung himself forward, staggering, falling, catching himself, staggering on.

Tiyo saw him from the corner of his eye, abreast now, and, gathering his last strength, reeled on, gaining a little. Muyingwa saw a white, fluttering gown just there in front of him, saw Tiyo at his side, and made the supreme call upon his quivering muscles. He struck a stone in his way, pitching over it, close to falling for the hundredth time.

"Muyingwa!" Hardly more than a maid's whisper, but many men heard it. "My man!"

Tiyo had run his race, and was tottering almost at the rim of the circle his dizzy eyes could not see. Muyingwa was like a spent ball, plowing on with its own momentum. Tiyo's foot struck a little mound of loose dirt and he fell. As he went down he threw out his hand, and Muyingwa, striking it, fell with him. Both men down, and the goal just there, where it seemed either man might reach it!

Then men shouted as they had not shouted until now, so that Inaa's voice and Nayangap's were lost in the thunderous roar. The cañon echoes went mad with the word, "Tiyo, Tiyo, Tiyo!"

The cañon walls themselves seemed to have awakened, moved at last from their cold slumber, and to be shouting, "Muyingwa!" Northrup heard men yelling about him, and did not know that his own voice was lending its volume to theirs.

Would the men never get to their feet? Did they not know what hung upon them? Were they loitering now at the very end?

But they were up now. They were going on, both of them. It seemed as if they were seeking to drive men mad, lifting their feet so slowly, holding them so long suspended in air, taking such puny, baby steps ahead. Even their faces were drawn into grotesque grins, as if they were mocking those who clamored for them, jeering at the world. Who was ahead now? Their elbows struck.

But now men saw that at each slow step it was Tiyo who held longest balanced upon his spreading toes; it was Tiyo's leg which held longest suspended in air.

Muyingwa threw high up above his head the hand gripping the broken flower. Swaying terribly, Muyingwa set his foot over the circle.

Muyingwa stood first in the narrow circle wherein there is room for only one man. Then, staring stupidly at Nayangap he half turned, seeing through a blur another man coming on falteringly. Then Muyingwa, not hearing the roar of voices, dropped his arm, stooped a little, a little more, sought to lift his hand and could not, rocked blindly back and forth, and then, strength and consciousness going out of him, fell heavily. And as he fell, Tiyo's body pitched forward and fell across him.

XVI

"QUICK!" cried Northrup sharply. Into your house, Yahoya. We must be ready now for what comes!"

Drawing her after him he hurried through the clamoring throng. He realized that now for a moment, men would not be thinking of him and Yahoya. Now was the time for him to get her where she would be safest. He would not have been afraid for Yahoya had it not been for the look he had seen in Inaa's eyes so few hours ago. The old man's temper would have hardly been sweetened by Tiyo's defeat, nor his anger at Yahoya lessened.

The two men Muyingwa had deputed to stand guard at the kiva's entrance had quite naturally forsaken their posts, but were back now as Yahoya and Northrup went in.

That day Northrup and Yahoya sat long alone together in her little room, waiting. Nor did time drag for them, there was so much in each heart which must be told to the other.

As the man looked into the clear gray eyes, fearless, and filled with the love she had given him so generously, he sought to close his thoughts to what might lie in the future for them both. One of the rare moments of a man's life had come to him when past and future are hazy and unimportant, when he lives richly and to the full in the glowing present. He no longer marveled at the love which had come to them. It seemed as natural a thing as the sunshine outside.

A third man joined the two at the door, spoke with them in quick, sharp tones, and went away. The two remained, keeping their silent watch, calm, seeming untouched by thought of a near crisis. Tocha came and brought food, saying that Nayangap was with Muyingwa, and that both her lover and Tiyo were like men whose souls had gone down to Maski.

All forms had disappeared from the ledge where the pool was. Yahoya's parrot swayed upon his branch, admired his gay plumage in the water's clear mirror, and flew to the kiva seeking his mistress. From the cañon where the men of the tribe were assembled came a voice only now and then at long intervals. Then, at last, came Nayangap, her eyes bright, her face suffused with happiness, a strange elation in her manner.

"Listen!" she cried to Yahoya, running to her mistress. "In a moment you will hear the shouting. Down there they proclaim Muyingwa head captain in Tiyo's place!"

"And Tiyo?" demanded Northrup eagerly. "What does he say about it?"

"Is not Muyingwa the greater man, the better?" the girl flashed at him. "Did not Muyingwa beat Tiyo so that all men might laugh?"

Northrup had not noted that Tiyo's defeat was so marked as that, but he said nothing. Yahoya smiled a little at her maid's loyal enthusiasm.

"Men who are wise and men who are good," ran on Nayangap, "will draw to Muyingwa's side, calling him their chief. Men whose hearts are black and who listen to the words of Inaa will stand with Tiyo. Then will Muyingwa lead his men out and strike down the men of Tiyo!"

Before she had finished Strang came hurriedly into the kiva, brushing by her rudely.

"Both of them are on their feet again," he said quickly. "They have eaten and drunk, and though they have been already through hell today, both of them are as fit right now as an ordinary man! What are the devils made of? And trouble is coming, coming quick!"

"Why then are you not with your men?" cried Yahoya swiftly. "It is you who have stirred them up to this madness, you with your whisperings! And now you come here—you coward!"

"Coward, am I?" he snarled at her. "What about the man you keep here with you?"

He broke off sharply. From the cañon came the mighty shout, "Muyingwa!" And, as had already so many times happened, an answering shout arose, "Tiyo!"

It had come. Until strength had crept back into the two exhausted bodies of their principals, the tribe had waited. Now, moved everywhere by Muyingwa's ringing words and Inaa's, fierce fire had flashed out of smoldering restlessness. There came other cries, sharper cries, the shriek of a man with a knife driven into his body.

Northrup, gathering Yahoya passionately into his arms, held her there a long moment. Then he pushed by Strang, and ran out to the edge of the cliffs.

{{dhr} BELOW, the men of the tribe had drawn into two compact masses, fronting each other ominously, their short stabbing spears lifted. Between them lay a man, writhing, slowly growing still. Northrup's first thought was that it might be Muyingwa or Tiyo. But another glance showed both of them in front of their factions.

Suddenly, Muyingwa shouted out something, and his men, following him, ran toward the long stairway. Tiyo saw, understood, and shouting bore down upon them. Northrup, seeing that both factions strove now for the higher ground, ran to the head of the stairway, his automatic gripped, ready for use.

The fighting began at the foot of the stairway. Already the two sides had mixed, for, although Muyingwa's men came first to the stair, its narrow steepness held them back a little. Northrup saw Muyingwa's form surrounded by his men, saw Tiyo and Inaa, and the great spare form of the man Strang had selected for head priest to replace Inaa. He saw the whole body of men bristling with short spears and great knives, the sun glittering upon them brightly, seething back and forth, struggling for the stair.

One by one Muyingwa's men in the fore were passing up; in the rear they were striking now, dealing death, and often enough being dragged down to the death.

And in the strange silence which fell over them, all the struggle down there looked some weird play, scarcely real. It was hard for him to convince himself that this was not a mock battle, that the distorted faces, the writhing of fallen bodies, was not all sham and skilful acting. About them the mountains were so serene, above, the skies so deep a blue, the whole atmosphere so charged with quiet peacefulness. High in air a vulture hung on motionless wings, watching with sharp eyes.

But when men fell stricken by those great knives and two-edged spears, they did not move from where they had fallen; or at best but dragged their wounded bodies a little way to fall and lie still. Tiyo's men pressed forward; Muyingwa's men held back, and many were swiftly mounting the stairs.

At that Northrup wondered. For certainly Muyingwa's force was larger than the one that attacked him, and as certainly Muyingwa was no coward. But now he drew his men back, ever back, until they had gained the stairway, while Tiyo's sinister crowd charged stubbornly.

Now men were contending everywhere, upon the floor of the cañon, along the cliff sides, even at the top of the stairway, close to where Northrup stood. He saw them go down under vicious thrusts, saw two of them, their arms locked about each other, their skins red with many wounds, reel outward and drop fifty feet. And as yet the gun in his hand was cold, for there was no way for him to determine which man was Muyingwa's man, which Tiyo's. And to chance a shot at Tiyo or at Inaa in that packed mass would be to waste lead, or perhaps to kill a friend of Muyingwa.

Now he saw something which he could not understand. He figured roughly that the tribe numbered between two and three hundred men. Muyingwa and the men with him now pressing up the steep way which led to the ledge were not over twenty-five in number; the party at Tiyo's heels could have numbered only about that. And down in the cañon the rest of the men, a great mass of them, had drawn aside, and were merely watching.

At last Muyingwa had come to the top. He stood there, shouting out his short commands, then stepped back, his men following him, leaving the way open for such men as might wish to come up after them. This again seemed madness to Northrup, who, grumbling, gave way with the others. It was Muyingwa's voice in his ear that explained.

"Let them come, Yellow Beard! We shall fight them here in the open, man to man!"

"But the others, down there?" demanded Northrup.

"It is my fight and Tiyo's. Each of us has chosen twenty-five of his young men. The rest watch. And I have chosen the Man of Wisdom and you to be of my number."

"Then," cried Northrup hotly, "why do you wait for them to come up with you? You have the advantage now; strike as they climb up!"

An odd smile touched Muyingwa's stern lips.

"It is in my heart to fight fair, Yellow Beard. It is not Muyingwa's wish to be named the 'Fox.' Men already speak of him as the Eagle Chief! Let them come!"

"Then," demanded Northrup, "why didn't you fight your fight down there? You had the chance."

Muyingwa shook his head.

"I will tell you, Yellow Beard, but time has passed for long words. I am the better man, and Tiyo knew that when he raced with me. But for trickery on his part I should have come into the circle an hour before him. Look!"

He threw up his arm, and for the first time Northrup saw a long gash in the man's side.

"When we were far out, where men could not see us," he said, his face black with his anger, "Tiyo, who was behind, ran like a madman that he might come up with me. I saved my strength, thinking he had lost his senses. Then, when he was upon me, I saw that he had carried a knife with him, concealing it cunningly under his arm. He would have killed me then had I not been the greater man! Even so—you saw it—I won over him."

All of Muyingwa's men were upon the ledge now. At their head man's command they had drawn back and were watching those with Tiyo come up.

"I have sworn an oath to the great gods," Muyingwa ended briefly. "I have promised them that if they let me triumph over Tiyo in the race, I should kill Tiyo with my own hands in a way that all men might see."

Up the stairway, after the last of Tiyo's men, came surging many others who were eager to stand back and see. Northrup, glancing about, saw that many others were climbing swiftly to the cliffs upon the opposite side of the cañon. After that he had little enough time or opportunity to see anything but the steely menace before him.

Tiyo's men, mistaken in the reason for Muyingwa's retreat, thinking that they had to do with men whose hearts were already failing them, bore on at a run, lifting their voices in a hideous charging shout. Each man carried his stabbing spear drawn a little back at his hip, so that when the moment came a quick thrust outward would drive the keen edges through a man's body. It came to Northrup, even at the moment before the running line struck, that Tiyo's was the better generalship, that Muyingwa's men, waiting, must go down before the force of the wild attack.

The spit of Northrup's gun was lost in the storm of shouting. But a man had thrown wide his arms and had gone down in a heap. They were twenty feet away, every running leap cutting the distance down so that Northrup must fire as fast as he could to empty the first clip. And he realized, and his lips tightened grimly, that he would have no chance for a second. And still Muyingwa's men were standing erect, waiting.

But they were men trained under Muyingwa's own eye, cool to the last, mindful of orders. Suddenly came Muyingwa's shout, and suddenly the spears in his men's hands were lifted. Lifted, balanced high overhead, and, when the eyes of the men charging them glared redly not three-spear lengths away, the short spears were hurled outward.

Then many of Tiyo's men went down on both sides of Tiyo himself, who came on, untouched.

The two lines met, Tiyo's men that were left wielding their spears mightily, Muyingwa's men driving home their broad-bladed knives with little coughing grunts. Northrup did not know that his gun was empty, that he had cast it down, that somewhere his hands had closed about a fallen spear. He only knew that about him surged a mad carnage, that men were shouting, cursing, shrieking; that a man drove at him with uplifted spear, only to graze his shoulder and to stop dead in his tracks with Northrup's spear driven fairly through his body.

Tiyo and Muyingwa had met at last. Northrup saw that dimly, as if through a fog, saw and forgot as again he was breast to breast with a great-bodied man, who was red with blood, and who held high above his head a dripping knife.

The knife swept downward, and Northrup felt it like a burning iron in his neck and shoulder. A wild rage came upon him; a burning hatred, and from then on nothing was clear to him, no emotion rode him, but the one unleased primitive desire to kill, kill, kill! He struck out savagely, and the man who had cut at him went down and did not move.

Tiyo and Muyingwa were still struggling; yonder two of Tiyo's men drove their spears through one man so that the steel heads struck together; yonder Strang, his face ashen, hurled his spear at a man who rushed down upon him and, missing, shrieked wildly; close to the edge of the precipice three men drove two back, fighting for every step of the way.

Then bigness of body and strength of limb stood Sax Northrup in such stead as never until now. Where the fray was thickest there was his great form, his clothes splotched red, his eyes spitting blue fire, his hair and beard wet with blood. When he struck, a man must give back; when he thrust, a man must go down; when a thirsting blade drank of his own blood, his roar was like the cry of a wounded lion.

Now it seemed that the struggle had swept like great whirlpools about two centers. Tiyo and Muyingwa had been swept apart, both wounded, both standing grimly up to their bloody work. A surging knot of men contended near the edge of the cliffs. Close to Yahoya's kiva, Muyingwa was in the center of a ring of glittering blades seeking him.

Through this ring of men came Northrup, like a mad bull breaking through a flimsy fence. Two men went down before him, and but one rose again.

He stumbled over a prone man, and did not know that it was Strang's body his foot had struck. Muyingwa was here, one man against a half dozen, and it was unfair fighting. That was the one thing perfectly plain to him.

But now no longer was Muyingwa one against six. Back to back stood Northrup and Muyingwa, the two biggest men upon the ledge. Muyingwa, striking swiftly, sent a shouting laugh out by way of greeting.

"Well done, Yellow Beard!" he shouted, and shouting, thrust. "Well done, brother!"

A man went reeling back from his thrust, another stepped into his place. Northrup struck out, and a man went down. But before he could jerk back his spear another menacing figure had leaped upon him.

Northrup saw and swung his body to the right, seeking to avoid the glittering death leaping out at him. Again he felt a pain like the searing of white-hot iron, this time in his shoulder, and he went down upon one knee, his teeth set hard, the thought upon him that soon or late a man must die, and it was well to die like a man. He had lived to the uttermost, his lips had touched the lips of Yahoya; he would not cry out at taking the bitter with the sweet.

But Muyingwa, hard pressed as he was, had seen, and the knife he was wielding now drove between Northrup and instant death, buried to the hilt in the body of the man over him. Northrup jerked himself to his feet, his groping hand sweeping up his fallen spear, blacker rage than ever before in his heart that he had seemed a lesser man than Muyingwa. And before his berserk rush men fell back, muttering.

There was a great shout from the men at the cliff's edge. Northrup, pursuing a man who fled nimbly before him, saw a dozen forms racing to meet him and braced himself against them. But he saw that they divided and swept about him, that they must be Muyingwa's men come at last to the aid of their chief.

And then Northrup felt suddenly weary, and crouched down close to the precipice. It seemed that it was all over. Men stood about and did nothing. Northrup was alive, so he supposed that his side had won in the bloody game of brutes. It had all begun so suddenly, seeming merely a hideous dream. It was ending so absurdly suddenly, still like some frenzied nightmare, with the broken men lying about him.

His eyes passed by the little knot of idle men, and he saw that it had not yet ended. Muyingwa still lived, Tiyo lived, and they alone fought on. Northrup watched them curiously.

They moved back and forth, spear opposing spear, the bright points leaping forward, jerking back, thrusting skilfully, guarding jealously where death might pay forfeit for the wink of an eyelid. But it seemed to Northrup that always they drew a little near to him, that it was Muyingwa who was forcing the fight, that steadily, but oh, so slowly, he was driving Tiyo back.

Northrup ran his hand across his dimming eyes and the hand came away wet. There was a cut across his forehead which puzzled him; he had felt no wound there.

Some one came running to him. He saw that it was Yahoya. He marveled at the look in her eyes. She dropped down beside him, her arms about him.

"Watch them, Yahoya," he said thickly. "It is Muyingwa against Tiyo now."

Yes, they were drawing closer. Now there could be no doubt of that. Both men were wounded, one could not guess how badly. But both fought savagely, desperately, knowing that only in death for one if not for both, could the blood feud end.

"It's Muyingwa's fight!" said Northrup slowly. "Can't you see it, Yahoya?"

Yahoya saw nothing in all the world but her lover, crouching at her feet, her lover wounded in a dozen places. She sought to answer, but her voice broke.

"Look at their eyes," Northrup insisted. "You can guess the end in a man's eyes at a time like this, Yahoya. Tiyo is just desperate, seeking to postpone the end. Muyingwa is filled with elation. He has made a promise to his gods! Can't you see the difference?"

Yahoya sobbed and knelt, drawing her arms tighter about him. On they came, Tiyo lunging heavily, but always on the guard; Muyingwa, lighter of foot, his eyes bright with hard laughter and steely with hatred. On, until they were so close that Yahoya and Northrup must move a little to the side; on until Tiyo dared take no further step backward for fear of a plunge to death on the rocks below.

Then Muyingwa, calling out loudly, struck such a blow as he had not yet struck The haft of his spear broke against Tiyo's right wrist, and his shattered weapon and Tiyo's fallen one struck the ground together.

While men looked on, their mouths agape, Muyingwa sprang forward, only his hands lifted against the knife which Tiyo had whipped from his belt with his left hand. As Tiyo's hand went up, Muyingwa's rose with it. As Tiyo's sought to drive downward, Muyingwa's fingers shut hard about his wrist.

Now they struggled man to man, body to body, their muscles cracking, the sweat running from them like water, red sweat across deep cuts. Slowly Tiyo's hand came down, the pointed blade finding its sheath only in the empty air. Down and down, though Tiyo strove wildly to wrest it away from the fingers which shut like iron talons about his wrist. And slowly Muyingwa forced Tiyo back toward the cliff's edge.

"I have sworn, Tiyo," panted Muyingwa, "with my two hands, to cast you straight down into Maski! See how I keep my promise!"

Men gasped out at what they saw. The skin upon Muyingwa's bowed back seemed splitting asunder with the bunching of the muscles under it; the veins in his arms and forehead threatened to burst. But the fierce flames in his eyes were undimmed by thought of failing power.

For an instant the two struggling forms grew still, only the slow swelling of a muscle, the hard breathing, telling that they lived and strove. But it seemed that strength was flowing out of Tiyo, fresh strength flowing into Muyingwa.

Slowly one man bent under the other's iron hands. Slowly Tiyo's body twisted as Muyingwa's fingers commanded; slowly Muyingwa forced him down to his knees.

Then—there was no slowness now, Muyingwa's movement being like a flash of light—Tiyo was swept upward in the other's grasp as he had before been swung aloft in Northrup's. Their shadows fell across Northrup. Looking up he saw Tiyo's wildly beating arms above him.

An instant he thought they were both going together. Then he saw that with a last mighty effort Muyingwa had broken Tiyo's clutch upon him, and, as a great roar rose up from the hundreds who watched, Tiyo was flung far out.

Then Northrup gave up to the sickness upon him and was quite content to sink back into Yahoya's arms.

XVII

"IT WAS a good fight, my brother!" Northrup, lying upon the couch in Yahoya's little room, Yahoya's hand held in his, looked up to see the tall, gaunt form of Muyingwa in the doorway.

"Now," went on Muyingwa slowly, "am I a great man among my people! Now am I head captain of the People of the Hidden Spring. There is no man among all in the Seven Cities who will not have Muyingwa's name upon his lips. Time may come—who can look into the darkness of unborn tomorrow?—when Muyingwa may step up to be Overlord of all the cities of Chebo! And, my brother, there was a time when we fought yonder, when Muyingwa was close to his death, and Yellow Beard came to fight the fight with Muyingwa, forcing through spearmen like a hungry wolf through little rabbits! Askwali! You are my brother, Yellow Beard! Muyingwa, thirsting on the desert, would share his last cup of water with you."

"As for that," answered Northrup, "we are even. You saved my life for me——"

"It was nothing," cut in Muyingwa. "I struck down one man who threatened you. You hurled yourself upon many. You shall see that I am no man to forget. We wait here until your wounds are whole; then we move on to Chebo. There already has Inaa run to tell his lies; but men shall know them for lies. I shall enter the city as a great man; Nayangap shall go at my side, a great lady for great ladies to wait upon. And you, at my right, shall go, not as the other Bahana who died like a coward, but as Muyingwa's brother. As Muyingwa rises, you shall rise, Yellow Beard!"

Had one spoken thus to the old Sax Northrup, saying, "I will lead you to rich cities unknown to white men, where perhaps there is wealth to be got and power!" there would have been only eagerness in his heart. But now—he shook his head.

"Muyingwa," he said slowly, "it seems to me that it is only a little thing I have done for you, no greater than the thing you have done for me. So let us put it aside. You are a man as I am a man, Muyingwa, and you have called me brother. We may speak plainly with each other.

"It is not in my heart to go with you to Chebo to become a great man under your hand. It is my wish to be what I have always been, a man free to follow what trail he wishes. The trail I must follow leads away from you, and back to the world of the Bahanas. You must let us go, Yahoya and me."

Muyingwa stared at him frowning. Northrup, looking into the man's hard eyes, felt his heart sink. Yahoya pressed his hand softly.

"We shall be happy even here, Saxnorthrup!" she whispered.

Muyingwa silently lifted his hand. A dozen of his men came into the main room of the kiva.

"Tell Yellow Beard," said Muyingwa to the man who stood at their head, "what are the vows the soldier must take when he is no longer a boy, but a man, when the Chief Priest and the Overlord of the Seven Cities put spear and knife into his hands."

The man looked at him curiously as he answered:

"The young soldier swears that in all things he will obey blindly the command of the captain above him; that he will die before he break one of the Five Priestly Orders; that torture will not drive him to forget what is the chief cause of his people."

"Tell him," went on Muyingwa, "what is the oath a soldier must take when he becomes such as I, a head man."

"That he will, in all things, obey the command of the Overlord; that the Five Priestly Orders are supreme in his heart; that though the gods themselves commanded he would not forget the chief cause of his people."

"Tell him," said Muyingwa, "what is this chief cause of our people."

"It is this," answered the man: "There shall come among us no Bahana to despoil our empire. If a Bahana come he shall be as a prisoner among us; and above all things, no Bahana shall go forth from us to talk of what he has seen."

"You hear, Yellow Beard?" demanded Muyingwa, his tone seeming suddenly to have grown savage.

"I hear," answered Northrup.

"Then," cried Muyingwa, so that the sound of his voice reverberated strangely in the stone room, "hear what Muyingwa says to you! Before Muyingwa there may be great riches and honor, or there may be death. Today you saved Muyingwa's life, and he used great words of his gratitude to you. He called you brother. Now it is in your heart to go back to your own people. What is my answer? You are a man as I am a man. You love a maiden as I love a maiden. I have said 'Brother' to you! Here is my word:

"You are no liar as was the Man of Wisdom. Tell me that you will tell no living man the way to come upon the people of the Seven Cities, and I will believe you. I will go with you, you and Yahoya, across the desert, leaving Inaa to spin what lies he likes in the ear of the Overlord. I will bring my men with us, bearing in their hands things of gold, to make a great lord of you in your own land. And then I will leave you and come back to what awaits me in Chebo. When Muyingwa says 'Brother,' it is with his heart."

Northrup stepped forward swiftly, his breast swelling deeply to the emotion bursting from his heart, his eyes shining, his hand shutting hard, hard upon the hand of Muyingwa.

"What you ask, I promise," he said simply. "I give you my word—Brother!"

For a moment these two strong men, who in verity had come from the ends of the earth, stood, hands locked, looking deeply into each other's eyes. And as the two hands fell away, through the stillness of the room could be heard Northrup's sigh and Muyingwa's as one.

"It is better," whispered little Nayangap, "to be a man than a god!"

Yahoya slipped swiftly to her feet, came to Muyingwa's side, and lifted his hand to her lips. Her eyes were bright, and there was the glitter of tears in them.

"You are a man of a great heart," she cried softly. "For does not Yahoya know that in Chebo you will have to stand trial before the Overlord for the thing which you have done? That Inaa, whose power is great, will cry loudly for your death? That only if Muyingwa's power has grown in the night and he has the secret ear of Kish-Taka will death be averted?"

"Muyingwa is not without power," was the calm answer. "Not without favor in the eyes of Kish-Taka, the Overlord. And Muyingwa is not a coward."

THERE came a star-filled night when Muyingwa's tall form, leading his men, was turned away from them as he slowly moved back into the desert toward the hidden cities. Northrup and Yahoya, standing side by side, watched him until at last the night swallowed him.

At the foot of a great mesquite were buried in the sand the things which Muyingwa's men had brought from the place of the People of the Hidden Spring, many things of heavy gold. To-morrow Northrup would come back here for them. Now they had passed out of his thought.

"For there is a thing greater than gold!" he whispered, as he opened his arms for her. "And we have found it, Yahoya."

So as Muyingwa turned back to seek that which lay in the future for him, Sax Northrup and Yahoya turned their eyes toward the shadowy outlines of their own dreamings.

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article  Metasyntactic variable, which is released under the  Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.