Tyope glanced at the stars with an air of the utmost indifference.  Nacaytzusle had listened quietly.  Now he said without raising his eyes,—­

“Tyope, you ask me to do all this, and do not even give me a pledge.  You are wise, Tyope, much wiser than we people of the hogans.  Give me some token that you also will do what you have said when I have performed my part.  Give me”—­he pointed to the alabaster tablet hanging on Tyope’s necklace—­“that okpanyi on your neck.”

It was so dark that Nacaytzusle in extending his arm involuntarily touched the other’s chest.  Tyope drew back at the touch and replied, rather excitedly,—­

“No, I will not give you any pledge!”

“Nothing at all?” asked the Navajo.  A slight rustling noise was heard at the same time.

“Nothing!” Tyope exclaimed hoarsely.

The savage thrust his arm out at the Pueblo with the rapidity of lightning.  A dull thud followed, his arm dropped, and something fell to the ground.  It was an arrow, whose head of flint falling on the ashes caused the embers to glow for an instant.  Both men sprang in opposite directions, like snakes darting through the grass.  Each one concealed himself behind a bush.  The branches rustled and cracked for a short space.  The place around the fire was vacant; nothing remained but a dim streak of ruddy light.

Tyope, after repelling the assault upon him, had taken refuge behind a low juniper-bush.  When the Navajo thrust a pointed arrow at his chest he had numbed the arm of the savage by a blow from his club, and then both men, like true Indians, hurriedly placed themselves under cover, whence each listened eagerly to discover the movements of his foe.  Tyope could have killed the Navajo while close to him, for he had the advantage in weapons; but, although he really had no further use for the young man, he was not so angry as to take his life.

Still, under the circumstances, the greater the caution displayed the better.  Intimately acquainted with the character of the Dinne Indians, and that of Nacaytzusle in particular, Tyope had gone on this errand well armed.  Open hostility had resulted from the interview; it was useless to make any attempt at conciliation.  Speedy return to the Rito was the only thing left.  This return might become not only difficult, but dangerous, with the young Navajo concealed on the mesa.  Tyope had known Nacaytzusle thoroughly from childhood.

Twenty years before, the Dinne had killed an old woman from the Tyuonyi.  The murder took place near the gorge, on the mesa north of it, whither she had gone to collect the edible fruit of the pinon tree.  When the corpse was discovered the scalp had been taken; and this, rather than the killing, demanded speedy revenge.  A number of able-bodied men of the clan to which the grandmother belonged gathered in order to fast and make the usual sacrifices preliminary to the formation of a war party.  On the last