But Tyope, cunning as he was, had underrated the firmness and perspicacity of Topanashka as much as he had overrated the abilities of Hoshkanyi.  As soon as the latter saw the rigidity of his colleague in a matter of duty, he felt completely at sea; he lost sight of everything that Tyope had recommended, tumbled from one mistake to another, and finally exposed himself to grave suspicions.  As the popular saying is, he let the cat out of the bag, and made an absolute, miserable fiasco.  All this he saw clearly, and he cursed Tyope, and cursed himself for having become his tool.  More than that, he trembled when he thought of what Tyope would say, and also what his own energetic wife would call him, and even perhaps do to him, if he went home.  For Koay was sure to exact a full report of what had occurred; and to save himself, nothing remained but to tell her lies.  This he finally determined upon.  But to Tyope he could not lie; to Tyope he must tell the truth; and then?  Hoshkanyi Tihua wended his way home wrapped in thoughts of a very unsatisfactory nature.

While the governor of the Queres was thus agitated by unpleasant forebodings, the mind of the war-chief was not less occupied by gloomy thoughts.  Of all the leading men of the tribe, Topanashka saw perhaps most clearly the sinister machinations of some of the Turquoise people.  Still he had not discovered, and could not even surmise, the real object of their intrigues.  Of an intention to divide the tribe he had no idea.  Personal ambition, greed, and thirst for influence was all he could think of; and he felt sure that they would not prevail, for to personal ambition the tribal system afforded little, if any, opportunity.  It was manifest however from what Hoshkanyi had involuntarily divulged, that the clan Shyuamo intended to press some claim against the small Water clan, which besides was so distantly located from the abodes and the lands of the Turquoise that he could see no just reason for a claim.  It was equally impossible for him to imagine the nature of the claim.  Quarrels between clans are always most dangerous for the existence of a tribe, for disruption and consequent weakening is likely to result from them.  The old man felt the gravest apprehensions; he saw imminent danger for his people; and still he could not arrive at any conclusion before the threatening storm had broken.  There was no possibility of averting the peril, for he could not even mention its approach to any one.

Topanashka was calm and absolutely brave.  His life was nothing to him except as indispensable for the performance of his duty.  He knew long ago that the leaders of the movement for which the Turquoise people were used as battering-rams hated him, that he was a thorn in their flesh, a stone in their crooked paths.  If the revelations of Hoshkanyi created deep apprehensions in him, it was out of no personal fear; in the present instance it was clear that a trap had been set for the purpose of decoying him