“Nacaytzusle,” the other began again, “I promised to assist you to obtain the girl against her will.  Mind!  Mitsha, my daughter, will never go to a home of the Dinne of her own accord, but I would have stolen her for your sake.  Now I say to you that I have promised you this child of mine, and I have promised your people all the green stones of my tribe.  The first promise I shall fulfil if you wish.  The other, you may tell your tribe, I will not hold to longer.”

The Navajo looked at him in a strange, doubtful way and replied,—­

“You have asked me to be around the Tyuonyi day after day, night after night, to watch every tree, every shrub, merely in order to find out what your former wife, Shotaye, was doing, and to kill her if I could.  You have demanded,” he continued, raising his voice, while he bent forward and darted at the Indian from the Rito a look of suppressed rage, “that the Dinne should come down upon the Tyuonyi at the time when the Koshare should fast and pray, and should kill Topanashka, the great warrior, so that you might become maseua in his place!  Now I tell you that I shall not do either!”

The eyes of the young savage flamed like living coals.

“Then you shall not have my child!” exclaimed Tyope.

“I will get her.  You may help me or not!”

“I dare you to do it,” Tyope hissed.

Nacaytzusle looked straight at him.

“Do you believe,” he hissed in turn, “that if I were to go down to the brook and tell the tapop what you have urged me and my people to do against your kin that he would not reward me?”

Tyope Tihua became very quiet; his features lost the threatening tension which they had displayed, his eyes opened, and he said in a softer tone,—­

“That is just what I want you to do.  But I want this from you alone.  Go and see the tapop.  Tell him not the small talk about this and that, but what you have seen with your own eyes about Shotaye, that witch, that snake,—­of her dark ways, how she sneaked through the brush on the mesa, and how she found and gathered the plumage of the accursed owl.  Tell him all, and I will carry Mitsha to your lodges, tied and gagged if needs be.”

“Why don’t you send the girl out alone?  I will wait for her wherever you say.”

“Do you think that I would be so silly?” the Pueblo retorted with a scornful laugh.  “Do you really believe I would do such a thing?  No, Dinne, you and your people may be much more cunning than mine in many ways, but we are not so stupid as that.  If I were to do that, you would rob me of my handsome maiden and that would be the last of it.  No, Dinne, I do not need you to such an extent, I am not obliged to have you.  But if you go to the Tyuonyi and accuse the witch, then you shall go out free, and Mitsha must follow you to the hogans of your people, whether she will or not.  Do what I tell you, and I will do as I promise.  If you will not neither will I, for mind, I do not need you any longer.”