asked at last.

"An old woman from Mokatsh. Look," and she took up the vessel again,
pointing to its outside, where near the base she had painted two horned
serpents encircling the foot of the bowl.

"Tzitz shruy," she laughed merrily. The youth laughed, so did the women,
all three enjoying themselves like big, happy children.

"For whom did you make this?" Okoya now inquired.

"For my father," Mitsha proudly replied.

"What may Tyope want with it?" asked the boy. "I have seen uashtanyi
like this, but they stood before the altar and there was meal in them.
It was when the Shiuana appeared on the wall. What may sa nashtio use
this for?"

"I don't know," Mitsha replied, and her eye turned to her mother timidly
askance and with an expression of doubt.

Hannay saw here an excellent pretext to put in a word of her own which
she had wished to say long before.

"I will tell you, sa uishe; I will speak to you as I would to my own
child." The artful flattery had its desired effect. Okoya became very
attentive; he moved closer apparently to the mother,--in reality, to the
daughter.

"You know Tyope is a Koshare, and I am Koshare too; and he is very wise,
a great man among those who create delight. Now it may be that you know
also what we have to do."

"You have to make rain," said the youth; for such was the common belief
among the younger people about the duties of the society.

Hannay and Mitsha looked at each other smiling, the simple-mindedness of
the boy amused them.

"You are right," the woman informed him. "After we have prayed, fasted,
and done penance, it ought to rain, in order that yamunyi may grow to
koatshit, and koatshit ripen to yakka." In these words she artfully
shrouded the true objects of the Koshare. It enhanced their importance
in the eyes of the uninitiated listener by making him believe that the
making of rain was also an attribute of theirs. "See, uak," she
proceeded, "on this bowl you see everything painted that produces rain."
One after the other she pointed out the various figures. "Here you see
the tadpole, here the frog, here the dragon-fly and the fish; they, as
they stand here, pray for rain; for some of them cry for it, when the
time comes others live in the water, which is fed from the clouds, or
they flit above the pools in summer. Here is the cloud and lightning,
and"--she turned the vessel bottom side up--"here are the Shiuana
themselves," pointing at the two horned serpents. "Th