Ambrosio shut his lips tightly and waited for the young man’s answer.  And the young man stared back, his ruddy cheek paling under its sunburn, and spoke not.  A whirling panorama of visions was filling his brain as he realized what the old chief’s words meant.  He saw himself living the life of these people; renouncing everything that meant “the world” and “life” to him—­everything except Barbara; driving burros loaded with wood to town and tramping about its streets with a basket of pottery at his back; saw himself with painted face and nude, smeared body dancing the clownish antics of the Koshare; planting prayer sticks; sprinkling the sacred meal; taking part and pretending belief in all the heathen rites of the pueblo secret religion—­and then Barbara sprang out of the house, crying to her father in the Indian tongue, “Wait!  Wait!”

Both men turned toward her inquiringly.  She stood before them, hesitating, excited, her eyes on the ground, as if anxious but yet unwilling to speak.

“Father,” she began in Spanish, “it is useless for you and the senor to speak longer about this.  For since I have returned to my home I do not feel as I did before.”  She stopped an instant and then went on hurriedly, pouring out her words with now and then little, gasping stops for breath.  “Now I do not wish to marry him.  I wish to marry one of my own people.  He is not an Indian and never can become one.  I know now that I can never be anything but an Indian and so it is better for me to marry one of my own people.  I do not wish to marry the senor, even if he should become one of us.”

Wemple looked at her blankly, as if hardly comprehending her words, and then cried out, “Barbara!  You cannot mean this!”

“You see, senor,” said the old man, “there is nothing more to say.”

“Is there nothing more to say, Barbara?” Wemple appealed to her in a broken voice.

She did not look at him, but shook her head and went back into the house.

Lieutenant Wemple turned his horse and with head hanging on his breast rode slowly, very slowly, back toward the long declivity leading to the plain below.  If he had not ridden so slowly this tale might have had a different ending.

Ambrosio went into the house and began telling his wife what had happened.  Barbara took an empty tinaja and said she would go for more water.  When she stepped outside she could still see the forlorn figure of her lover riding slowly down the trail.  Her heart yearned after him as she bitterly thought: 

“He will believe it!  I made him believe it!  And I can never tell him that it is not true!”