Topanashka also was pleased with the suitor.  In due course of time Zashue Tihua and Say Koitza, therefore, became man and wife.

[Illustration:  Rito de los Frijoles

A cliff estufa of the Snake-Clan]

Zashue proved to be a good husband, according to Indian ideas.  He worked and hunted dutifully, providing the storerooms of Tanyi Hanutsh with supplies of which his wife, and through her he also, enjoyed the benefit.  He spun cotton and wove it into wraps, scarfs, and sashes.  Furthermore, he was always good-natured and merry.  He did not spend too many nights out of his wife’s home, either.  They had three children, Okoya, Shyuote, and a little girl.  Of these Shyuote became the father’s favourite, for when the child was yet small it happened that his father made a vow to make a Koshare of him.  Zashue was a Delight Maker himself, and one of the merriest of that singular crew.  Among them he was perhaps the most popular; for while good-looking, his strength and agility enabled him to perform in a conspicuous manner, and his ready wit and quick conception of everything ludicrous caused him to shine as a great light among that society of official jesters.

So the two lived in quiet and sober content.  Zashue was pleased with his spouse.  She kept her looks well with advancing years, and while there is never among Indians that complete intimacy between man and wife which engenders fidelity under all circumstances, while a certain freedom of action is always permitted to the man toward the other sex, Say had natural tact enough to never pry into such matters.  She, in turn, did her duty.  Always at home, she faithfully fulfilled her obligations as head of the house, and naturally shrank from all society but that of her own sex and such men as were allied to her by near ties of relationship.  When she told her father in that sad interview that she was faithful to her husband, Say had told the truth.  And yet there was something that caused her to plead guilty.

The family had lived contentedly, and no cloud appeared to hang over them until, a few years previous to the date of our story, Say Koitza fell ill from want of proper care.  Mountain fever is not infrequently fatal, and it was mountain fever that had seized upon the delicate frame of the little woman.  This fever is often tenacious and intermittent; sometimes it is congestive.  Indian medicine may cure a slight attack, and prevent too frequent returns of more violent ones; but if the case is a serious one, Indian remedies are of no avail.  Say suffered from a slight attack at first, and recovered from it.  A primitive cold-water treatment was effective for the time being; but in the year ensuing fever set in again, and no sudorific was of any use.  She tried a decoction of willow bark, but it did her no good.  She took the root of the yucca, or soapweed, and drank the froth produced by whipping water with it, but gained no relief.  The poor woman did not know that these remedies are not employed by the Indians in a case like hers, but only for toothache and, in the case of soapweed, for consumption.