“Don’t you see why, satyumishe?  Don’t you understand it?  Say knows Tyope; she mistrusts him and is even afraid of him.  Mitsha is a good girl, and your mother has nothing against her; but she is her mother’s daughter, and that mother is Tyope’s wife.  If Mitsha becomes your wife you will go and live with her, until Tyame hanutsh has a house ready for Mitsha.  You will even have to stay at the home of Tyope’s wife.  Now I cannot say that Hannay, the wife of Tyope, is really bad; she is not nearly as bad as he, but then Hannay is silly and allows him to make her his tool.  Everything that concerns her clan—­things that he of course is not entitled to know—­she tattles to him; and she tells him everything else that she sees, hears, or imagines.  I know it to be so.  Now, your mother is afraid lest through Mitsha’s mother, first Mitsha, afterward through her you, might become entangled in the coils of that sand-viper Tyope.  For I tell you, mot[=a]tza,”—­his eyes flashed, and he shook his clenched fist toward the houses of the Eagle clan,—­“that man is a bad man; he is bad from head to foot, and he thinks of nothing but injury to others for the sake of his own benefit.”

“But what has Tyope done?  How do you know that he is such a bad man?”

“That’s just it.  He never acts openly.  Like the badger, after which he is named, he burrows and burrows in darkness and covers up his ways; and when the earth caves in beneath those who walk over his trap and they fall, he is already far away, and looks as innocent and bland as a badger on top of the ground.  But if you follow him, then he will turn around and snap at you, like a real tyope.  Your mother is right in fearing him; perhaps not so much on her account as for your sake.  You and Mitsha are both very young, and that man knows how to entrap such little rabbits.”

Okoya could not deny the truth of his uncle’s speech.  He felt that he had wronged his mother, had misinterpreted her motives; and now he was ashamed of himself.  Nevertheless Indian nature is exceedingly wary and suspicious in all important matters, and it struck him that Hayoue was trying to dissuade him from his project of union with Mitsha.  Knowing the propensities of his gallant uncle in the matter of women, he began to suspect that the latter might wish to estrange him from the girl or frighten him off in order to step into his shoes.  So he assumed an air of quiet indifference and said,—­

“I think it is better, after all, not to see Mitsha any more.”  With this he attempted to rise; but Hayoue held him back, and spoke very earnestly,—­

“No; it would not be well.  You are fit for each other, and you must come together.  I will help you all I can.”

“Can you help me?” Okoya exclaimed, delightfully surprised.

“Perhaps I can, perhaps not.  I will talk to your mother and get her to be in your favour; but there is one thing you must promise me faithfully, and that is to be very, very careful.  When you go to the house of Tyope’s wife and you are asked about anything, say nothing; reveal nothing in regard to matters of our clans but what you might shout over the housetops with perfect impunity.  Otherwise”—­and his voice sounded like an impressive warning—­“you may do great injury to the tribe.”