Tyope’s head was swimming.  Everything he had prepared for the destruction of others and the security of his own tools had come about as he had schemed, but the results had been fatal to him and his.  The Shiuana allowed him to apparently succeed in everything, but they reserved for themselves the final results.  It was terrible; all was lost; he was forever undone.

Still if the Koshare had been at their estufa, they were out of harm’s way.

“Satyumishe,” he asked, faltering, “have many of my brethren perished?”

“Nearly all,” was the plain answer.  “When the Dinne came upon us, the Koshare rushed out after bows and arrows; but the Moshome met them before they could reach the houses, and killed many before they could get into the cave.”

The poor man had to cling to a tree for support; then he slipped down along its trunk to the ground.

“I am very tired,” he murmured.  It was not fatigue, however; it was the ghastly tidings which were poured on his head, so slowly, so surely, with such deadly effect.  Kauaitshe looked at him with genuine pity.  The Hishtanyi said nothing; he was in his thoughts with Those Above, and hardly listened to the conversation.  Kauaitshe extended his hand to Tyope.

“We are not far from the brink,” said he, kindly; “come, satyumishe, a few steps only, and you may rest, and I will tell you all,—­how the attack came, and how Hayoue saved the Zaashtesh from being all driven into the woods.  Hayoue is a mighty warrior; he is wise and very strong.  As soon as our mourning is over, the Hotshanyi will make him maseua in place of our father Topanashka.  The Shiuana have left us Hayoue; had he gone with you not one of us would be alive.”

Even that!  Hayoue!  Hayoue, whom Tyope had left behind in order to deprive him of all opportunity to distinguish himself!  Hayoue had reaped laurels, whereas he had harvested only shame, disgrace, destruction.  Hayoue was a great warrior.  He had averted a part at least of the disaster which Tyope had secretly prepared for the tribe.  The hand of Those Above weighed heavily upon him; all he cared for henceforth, all he could hope for, was not to suffer the rightful doom which he had intended for Shotaye.

That Kauaitshe, the poor simple man whom he so disdainfully rebuked at the council, had been selected to communicate to Tyope all this crushing news, the latter did not interpret as an intentional cruelty.  The Indian is not malicious.  He will insult and exult over the vanquished foe in the heat of passion; but he will take the scalp and keep it very carefully, respect it, and to a certain extent the memory of the slain.  But to sneer at and taunt a fallen adversary in the hour of sadness, and in the condition in which Tyope was, is not the Indian’s way.  That was not what made Tyope suffer.  What overpowered his faculties, darkened his mind, and deprived him of energy for all time to come, were the results that crowded upon him so wonderfully, so completely at variance with his own intentions.  And yet they were strictly the consequences of what he had schemed and done.  Everything he had thought of and planned had taken place, but the results did not coincide with his expectations.  Those Above alone could have directed the course of events; they were against his doings; he was a doomed man.