could have divined all his secret moves and could have saved herself at the right moment filled him with astonishment and gradually with invincible dread.  She was no common witch!  Such wonderful insight, such clear perception of the means to save herself and at the same time destroy him, were not human.  Rage and passion disappeared; a chill went through his frame and his lower jaw hung down like that of a corpse, as he stared motionless, powerless to act and unable to move.

A change came over Tyope,—­a change so sudden and so complete that he was henceforth another man.  Hope, ambition, revenge, vanished from his thoughts, and with them all energy left him.  The appearance of that woman crushed him utterly.  Shotaye appeared to him by the side of the great war shaman of his enemies like some fiend, to be sure, but a fiend of so much higher rank than his own that it was futile to cope with her.  The Indian believes in evil spirits, but even they are subjected to the power of deities of a higher order beneficial to mankind.  As such a shuatyam the woman appeared to Tyope,—­as one whom the Shiuana had directed to accomplish his ruin.  Those Above, not Shotaye, not the Tehuas, had vanquished him; and against them it was useless to strive.

With a ghastly look of terror on his countenance, his eyes staring in uncontrollable fright, Tyope slowly receded.  Mentally crushed, shivering and shuddering, he at last turned about and fled.

The conviction that he was henceforth utterly powerless had seized upon him.  Like an utter coward, unmindful of his rank and duties, and bent only upon saving his life, Tyope ran and ran until he found himself in the midst of the slaughter.  He had mechanically warded off some arrows which the enemy had shot at his rapidly approaching figure; but he passed in among friends and foes, heedless of both, until his mad career was stayed by the brink of the Canada Ancha.  In the course of the massacre the Queres had succeeded in breaking partly through the enemy, and gathering on the south, thus securing a line of retreat, or at least escape from the bloody trap.  Tyope had reached that point without knowing well whither he was fleeing.  The sight of the ravine at his feet stopped him; he looked around absent-mindedly at first, then little by little self-control returned.

A man came up to him.  He was covered with blood.  A drum was suspended from his shoulder.  It was the Hishtanyi Chayan.

“How is everything?” Tyope gasped.

“Where have you been?” the shaman asked in a tone of stern reproach.

“I was cut off and had to hide,” Tyope flared up; the manner of the questioner irritated him, and with his anger a portion of his former energy seemed to return.

“Do you not know that the war-chief should carry the life of his men upon his own heart, and care for them more than for himself?  That he should not hunt for scalps in the rear of the enemy, as shutzuna follows a herd of buffaloes to eat a fallen calf?” the Chayan hissed.