In the mean time, one of the boys had left the room.  Shotaye was still eating when he returned in company with an elderly man of low stature, whose greeting was answered with the usual reply.

This man cowered down among the rest, and listened with the closest attention to a long speech of the governor.  At the close of it he sat for a while scrutinizing the woman’s appearance, but when she looked up at him he addressed her in her own dialect, and with the words,—­

“Where do you come from?”

A heavy load fell from Shotaye’s heart.  The ice was broken; henceforth she could explain herself in her own tongue, and inform the Tehuas of everything that was so important to them, so momentous to her.  But her first impression, on hearing her tongue spoken by one who was certainly not of her stock, was almost one of fright.  People who spoke more than one language were excessively rare at those times; and those who happened to learn the speech of another tribe kept it secret, as Tyope, for instance, concealed his knowledge of the Navajo language from the people of the Rito.  The knowledge of more than one tongue was a suspicious and therefore a dangerous gift.  The man who now conversed with Shotaye in the Queres dialect was not a native of the Puye.  He belonged to the linguistic group of the Tehuas, but to the southern branch, the Tanos, who inhabited several villages west of the Rio Grande and in the country where the city of Santa Fe now stands.  Between the Tanos and the Queres there was limited commercial intercourse, for the Tanos claimed the veins of turquoise that abound on the heights near some of their villages, and the Queres went thither at rare intervals to trade for the gems which they were unable to obtain by force.

Through this rare and limited traffic the Tano had become acquainted with some of the men of the Rito, and many years ago had even accompanied them to their home in the mountain gorge.  Such visits were literally great affairs at the time, and they lasted long.  Extensive formalities were required to ascertain first how far the Shiuana appeared favourable to the new-comer, and how he should make himself understood to them.  The medicine-men had to make strenuous efforts in behalf of the visitor.  Equally long formalities preceded his departure, and our Tano had in this manner, between reception, residence, and leave-taking, spent more than a year at the Rito de los Frijoles.  During that time he had acquired a knowledge of the Queres language, and spoke it therefore not fluently, but still intelligibly.