aspect.
A heavy shower in the mountains of New Mexico is often followed by
illuminations of peculiar beauty. So it happened then. The west, where
the sun had already descended behind the mountains, was crossed by a
series of arches displaying successively from below upward the most
resplendent gold, bright orange, green, and finally deep blue colours.
In the eastern skies the storm-king hovered still in a mass of inky
clouds above the horizon, but these clouds had receded beyond the
graceful cone of the Tetilla, which stood out in front of the dark mass
of the storm sharply defined, with a rosy hue cast over every detail of
its slopes. The air was of wonderful transparency, and every tint of the
brilliant heavens above and in the west seemed to reproduce itself with
increased intensity, on the dark, cloudy bank in the east, in the
dazzling arch of a magnificent rainbow. The rays of the setting sun no
longer penetrated the depths of the vale, they only grazed the
moisture-dripping tops of the tallest pines, changing them into pyramids
of sparkling light.

Okoya looked at the scenery before him, but its beauty was not what
caused him to gaze and to smile. The Indian is quite indifferent to the
sights of nature, except from the standpoint of strictest and plainest
utilitarianism. The rainbow fascinated the boy, not through its
brilliancy and the perfection of the arch, but because the rainbow was
in his conception Shiuana, and a messenger from Those Above.[10] Where
the ends of the luminous arch appear to rest, a message from heaven is
said to be deposited. No more favourable token could have greeted him,
for although the message was not for him, since the brilliant bow
seemed to stand far off from the Rito, still the Shiuana, the spirits,
graced the sky with their presence. They appeared clad in the brightest
hues, and what is bright and handsome is to the Indian a harbinger of
good.

No wonder, therefore, that the boy greeted his mother with a happy face
and a pleasant smile. He had passed Shotaye in the entrance, and his
salutation to her was widely different from the gruff notice he had
taken of her in the morning. When, afterward, he met his mother's gaze
and saw how kindly she looked at him, how warm her invitation to come in
sounded, his heart bounded with delight, and he obeyed her summons with
a deep sigh of relief. His appearance was not very prepossessing, for
between the caves and the big house a number of ne