On the mesa above the Rito a fresh wind was blowing.  The shrubbery was gently moved by the breeze.  A faint rushing sound was heard, like distant waves surging back and forth.  In the gorge a zephyr only fanned the tops of the tallest pines; a quietness reigned, a stillness, like that which the poets of old ascribe to the Elysian fields.

There is not much bustle about the big house on the Tyuonyi.  The men are out and at work, and the children have retired to the court-yard, A group of girls alone enlivens the space between the main building and the new home of the Corn people.  They are gathered in a throng while they talk, laugh, and chatter, pointing at the fresh coat of clay which they have finished applying to the outside of the new building.  Their hands are yet filled with the liquid material used for plastering, and they taunt each other as to the relative merits of their work.

One of the maidens, a plump little thing with a pair of lively eyes, calls out to another, pointing at a spot where the plaster appears less smooth and even,—­

“See there, Aistshie, you did that!  You were too lazy to go over it again.  Look at my work; how even it is compared with yours!”

The other girl shrugged her shoulders and retorted,—­

“It may be, but it is not my fault, it is yours, Sayap.  You did it yesterday when we beat off the boys.  You pushed Shyuote against the wall and he thumped his head here.  See, this is the mark where he struck the clay.  You did this, Sayap, not I.”

Sayap laughed, and her buxom form shook.

“You are right; I did it, I served the urchin right.  It was good, was it not, Aistshie?  How I punished the brat, and how he looked afterward with his face all one mud-patch!”

“Yes,” Aistshie objected, “but I did more.  I faced Okoya, despite his bow and arrows.  That was more than you did.”

The other girls interrupted the scornful reply which Sayap was on the point of giving.  They crowded around the two with a number of eager questions.

“What was it?” queried one.

“What happened yesterday?” another.

“Did you have a quarrel with boys,” a third; and so on.  All pressed around begging and coaxing them to tell the story of yesterday’s adventure.  The heroines themselves looked at each other in embarrassment.  At last Aistshie broke out,—­

“You tell it, Sayap.”

“Well,” began the latter, “it was yesterday afternoon and we were just putting on the last touches of the coating, when Okoya and little Shyuote his brother—­”

A clod, skilfully hurled, struck her right ear, filling it with sand and cutting off the thread of her narrative rather abruptly.  Sayap wheeled around to see whence the blow had come.  The other girls all laughed, but she was angry.  Her wrath was raised to the highest pitch however, when she discovered that Shyuote was the aggressor.  On a little eminence near by stood the scamp, dancing, cutting capers, and yelling triumphantly.