“Of course,” retorted the boy, to whom this interrogatory seemed ludicrous.

“And Okoya your brother,” the old man persisted.

“Why do you ask all this?” inquired the child, laughingly.

A look, piercing and venomous, darted from the eyes of the questioning man.  He snarled angrily,—­

“Because I ask it.  I ask, and you shall answer me without inquiring why and wherefore.  Do you hear, uak?”

Shyuote hung his head; he felt afraid.

“I forbid you to say anything about what I say to you to your mother,” continued the other, grasping the left arm of the boy.

Shyuote shook off the grip, and also shook his head in token of refusal.  The old man seized the arm again and clutched it so firmly with his bony fingers that the lad screamed from pain.

“Let me go!” he cried.  “You hurt me, let me go!”

“Will you do as I bid you?” asked his tormentor.

“Yes,” sobbed the child.  “I will obey.  My mother shall not know anything.  Let me go, you hurt!”

The man loosened his grip slightly.

“To your father you shall say that I, the Koshare Naua,”—­the boy looked up at him at these words in astonishment,—­“send word to him through you to come to my house on the night after the one that will follow this day, when the new moon sets behind the mountains.  Do you hear me, boy?”

Shyuote stared at the interlocutor with mouth wide open, and with an expression of fear and surprise that evidently amused the other.  He gave him a last look, a sharp, threatening, penetrating glance; then his features became less stern.

“Have no fear,” he said in a milder tone.  “I will not do you any harm; but you must do as I say.  Go to your nashtio now, and tell him what I said.”  With this he wheeled about and left the boy as abruptly as he had appeared.  Shyuote stood gaping and perplexed.

He felt very much like crying.  His arm still ached from the grip of the old man, and while he was rubbing the sore spot his anger rose at the harsh and cruel treatment he had suffered.  He thought of rushing home to his mother forthwith and telling her all about the bad old man, and how he had forbidden him to say anything to her.  Still, the Koshare Naua was not to be trifled with, and Shyuote, young and childish as he was, had some misgivings about betraying his confidence.  His father had told him that the Naua, or chief leader of the Koshare, was a very wise and therefore a very powerful man.  Zashue, who as soon as Shyuote was born had pledged the child to become one of the Delight Makers, was educating the lad gradually in his duties; and Shyuote had already imbibed enough of that discipline to feel a tremendous respect for the leader of the society to which he was pledged to belong.  He suppressed the thoughts of rebellion that had arisen, and strolled on, crossing the creek and hunting for his father among the corn-patches on the other side.  But his good-humour had left him.  Instead of being triumphantly buoyant, he felt morose and humiliated.