“Shyuote is small, but he knows how to throw.”

“Fiend,” cried Sayap in reply.  She picked up a stone, raised it in the awkward manner in which most girls handle missiles, and running toward the boy hurled it at him.  It fell far short of its mark, of course, and Shyuote only laughed, danced, and grimaced so much the more.  As Sayap kept advancing and the other girls followed, he threw a second clod, which struck her squarely in the face, and so sharply that blood flowed from her nose and mouth.  At the same time the rogue shouted at the top of his voice,—­

“Come on!  All of you!  I am not afraid.  You will never catch me!”

And as the majority of his pursuers came on, while two or three remained behind soothing and consoling Sayap, who stood still, crying and bleeding, he thrust out his tongue at them its full length, performed a number of odious grimaces, and then nimbly clambered up between a group of erosive cones that lay in front of the cliff.  He turned around once more to yell defiance and scorn at his pursuers, and disappeared on the other side.  Farther pursuit being hopeless, the girls clustered around the weeping Sayap and held a council of war.  They vowed dire vengeance on the lad, and promised their injured sister to improve the first opportunity that should present itself.

Shyuote, on the other hand, felt proud of his success.  His revenge was, he felt, a glorious one.  Still he was careful not to forget the counsels of prudence, and instead of returning to the house by a direct route, which might have carried him too near the enraged damsels, he sauntered along, hugging the cliffs for some distance, and then cautiously sneaked into the fields below the new homes of the Maize clan.  Once in the corn he felt safe, and was about to cross the brook to the south side, when the willows bordering the streamlet rustled and tossed, and a voice called to him from the thicket,—­

“Where are you going, uak?”

Shyuote stopped, and looked around for the speaker; but nobody was visible.  Again the boughs rustled and shook, and there emerged from the willows an old man of low stature, with iron-gray hair and shrivelled features.  He wore no ornaments at all; his wrap was without belt and very dirty.  In his left hand he held a plant which he had pulled up by the roots.  He stepped up to Shyuote, stood close by his side, and growled at him rather than spoke.

“I asked you where you were going.  Why don’t you answer?”

Shyuote was frightened, and stammered in reply,—­

“To see my father.”

“Who is your father?”

“Zashue Tihua.”

The features of the interlocutor took on a singular expression.  It was not one of pleasure, neither did it betoken anger; if anything, it denoted a sort of grim satisfaction.

“If Zashue is your father,” continued he, and his eyes twinkled strangely, “Say Koitza must be your mother.”