More than a week has elapsed since the return of the discomfited war-party to their desolate and ravished homes.  It is August, and the rains have fallen abundantly.  What little was left of the growing crops, what the torrent has not destroyed and the Navajos did not lay waste, looks promising.  But this remainder is slight, and there is anxiety lest the surviving inhabitants may starve in the dreary winter.  The formalities of mourning have therefore been performed hastily and superficially.  The remaining Koshare have retired into the round grotto, there to fast and to pray for the safe maturity of the scanty crops.  But Tyope is not among them.  His accomplice, the Naua, has forsaken him.  He, too, has become convinced that everything is lost for them, and he has thrown away Tyope like a blunt and useless tool.  Hereafter the Naua attends strictly to his official duties, and to nothing beyond his duties.  For the Shkuy Chayan is dead, the Shikama Chayan has no love for him, and the old Hishtanyi, who has seen more of the real nature of events than any on the Rito, went over to the cave of the old sinner and spake to him a few words.  The “old sinner” comprehended; he has gone back to his duties and attends to them exclusively.

Afterward the Chayan called upon the chief penitent, or Hotshanyi, and spoke to him long and earnestly; after him to the shaykatze and the uishtyaka; lastly with all three yaya together.  Then the yaya went into retirement, all three in the same place.  They are fasting, doing penance, mercilessly mortifying themselves, in order that Those Above may forgive the tribe and suffer it to prosper again.

All this has taken place in silence and secret, and nothing has come to the surface.  The only thing that has become public is a general council, not merely of the delegates of clans with the yaya, but of the tribe.  Hayoue assisted, with Zashue his brother.  Tyope was present also, but he said nothing, and nobody requested him to speak.  He was not outlawed; no punishment was dealt to him; he was simply suffered to remain on that lower level to which he had naturally dropped.

The principal question agitating the council was the nomination of a maseua, or head war-chief.  The caciques intimated that Hayoue would be their choice, and all concurred in the selection.  But Hayoue positively declined, insisting that his clan had virtually ceased to exist on the Rito, and that it was his duty to follow his people in their distress.  Zashue also spoke to the same effect.  His wife Say Koitza and his children had disappeared, even to the little girl, whose brains were still clinging to the walls of the big house, against which the enemy had dashed her head.  However much the people insisted, Hayoue remained firm in his resolve to go after the fugitives and to save them if possible.  Most of the people thought them lost, dead, or captives; but both young men were of the opinion that there were too many of them, and that at least some must have escaped.  It was consequently the duty of the two youngest survivors to trace them if possible.