of the fact—­which he felt deeply and keenly—­that a wide breach, a seemingly impassable chasm, existed between him and the girl.  That gap was the relation in which he stood toward Tyope, the girl’s father.  Or rather the relation in which he fancied himself to stand toward him.  For Tyope had hardly ever spoken to him, still less done him any wrong.  But Okoya’s mother had spoken of Tyope as a bad man, as a dangerous man, as one whom it was Okoya’s duty to avoid.  And so her son feared Tyope, and dared not think of the bad man’s daughter as his future companion through life.  Now everything was changed.

Mitsha’s mother had said that Tyope was a friend of his father, and that Tyope would not be angry if Okoya came to her house.  Then he was not, after all, the fiend that Say Koitza had pictured him.  On the contrary he appeared to Okoya, since the last interview, in the light of an important personage.  Okoya’s faith in his mother was shaken before; now he began to think that Tyope after all, while he was certainly to him an important man, was not as bad as represented.  The Koshare also appeared to him in a new and more favourable light.  The adroit suggestion made by the woman that he should join the society bore its fruits.  Okoya felt not only relieved but happy; he felt elated over his success.  He was well trained in the religious discipline of the Indians; and now that he saw hope before him, his next thought was one of gratitude toward that mother of all who, though dwelling at the bottom of the lagune of Shipapu at times, and then again in the silvery moon, was still watching over the destinies of her children on earth, and to whose loving guidance he felt his bright prospects due.

He had no prayer-plumes with him.  These painted sticks—­to which feathers or down of various birds, according to the nature of the prayer they are to signify, are attached—­the aborigine deposits wherever and whenever he feels like addressing himself to the higher powers, be it for a request, in adoration only, or for thanksgiving.  In a certain way the prayer-plume or plume-stick is a substitute for prayer, inasmuch as he who has not time may deposit it hurriedly as a votive offering.  The paint which covers the piece of stick to which the feather is attached becomes appropriately significant through its colours, the feather itself is the symbol of human thought, flitting as one set adrift in the air toward heaven, where dwell Those Above.  But as in the present instance, the Indian has not always a prayer-plume with him.  So he has recourse to an expedient, simple and primitive.

Two little sticks or twigs, placed crosswise and held to their place by a rock or stone, serve the same purpose in case of emergency.  Such accumulations of rocks, little stone-heaps, are plentiful around Indian villages; and they represent votive offerings, symbolizing as many prayers.  There were a number of them at the Rito around the big house, along the fields, and on the trails leading up to the mesa.  Okoya went to the nearest one and placed two twigs crosswise on it, poising them with a stone.  Then he scattered sacred meal, which he always carried with him in a small leather wallet, and thanked the Sanashtyaya, our mother, with an earnest ho-a-a, ho-a-a.