“The Shiuana are good.”

“They are.  They are good also to the yaya, for they take her away to Shipapu, where there is no hunger as on the shore of the great stream.”

He sighed, and gazed to the west, where the San Francisco mountains stood.  Beyond them, along the northern base of the Sierra de Sandia, in the sandy bottom of the Rio Grande, uninhabited at this time, they had suffered from hunger and heat.  There misery had reached its climax.  It is terrible even in our days to be compelled to flee from house and home in time of war into the cold, strange world.  And yet nowadays one can flee to one’s kind; and where there are human beings there are hearts.  But in the days of old, and for Indians, it was not only distressing, it was ghastly to be obliged to fly.  Nature alone stared them in the face, and Nature has no heart, although it is said that we are one with her.  The Navajos had driven away the fugitives, had tracked and tormented them fearfully, and yet once relieved from the enemy’s clutches and thrust upon Nature alone, the wretched band regretted the days when the ruthless enemy swarmed about them.  The Moshome at least fed those whom they captured, and those whom they killed were happy forever.  Nature knows but law and force, and whoever depends upon her at a time when her laws will not tolerate the existence of man, falls a victim to the power of her forces.

Now all this was past.  It rained gifts about them, and with a sad smile Mitsha gathered them into a little pile.  Okoya looked on; he thought the girl was making provision for their future household.

The distribution stopped, for the dancers were resting.  They began to sit down along the walls of the houses to rest and to enjoy the needed recess, Mitsha took some of the fruit on her arm, and said to Okoya,—­

“Come, let us go down again.”

“What do you want to do with that?” asked he, designating her little burden.

“I give it to the Chayan for what the Shiuana are doing for our mother.”

Even in the state of most abject poverty, the Indian shows gratitude to Those Above.

The head of a man rises above the hatchway and signals the two young people gravely, sadly.  They descend hastily; Okoya remains standing in the middle of the room, and Mitsha goes over to him as soon as she has deposited her burden.  As nobody notices her she grasps his hand, and he presses it softly with his own.  Say Koitza remains in the same position as before, but she lies more extended, and her chest heaves no longer.  The bystanders are motionless like statues, expectant.  A last rattle sounds from the throat of the woman; a deep heavy effort, and all is over.  Light froth issues from her lips.  Say Koitza has breathed her last.

It has become very quiet outside, as if men there had guessed at what was going on within.  In the little apartment it is as still as the grave,—­a stillness which speaks louder to the heart than the mightiest sound, and which is appropriately designated by the popular saying, “There is an angel flitting through the room.”