esumed the cutting. Number one touched his arm.

"Why do you do this?" he asked.

The other chuckled.

"Dost thou not see it, Nacaytzusle," said he; "the people of the houses
know that we only take a lock of the hair. If now they find the body and
see that this"--he pointed to the skin--"is gone, they will think it is
one of those up here"--waving his hand to the north--"that has done it."

Nacaytzusle, for he was indeed the second Navajo, nodded approvingly and
suffered the other to go on.

Cutting, scraping, tearing, and pulling, he at last succeeded in making
a deep incision around the skull. Blood flowed over his fingers and
hands. Then he grasped the gray hair, planted himself with both feet on
the neck, and pulled until the scalp was wrenched off and dangled in his
fist. Over the bare skull numberless fillets of blood began to trickle,
at once changing the face and neck of the dead into a red mass. Then he
turned to the other, nodded, and said,--

"It is well."

Nacaytzusle turned his eyes upon the dead, and replied in a hoarse
voice,--

"It is well."

He scanned the surroundings suspiciously.

"Thou hast done well, very well," he said to the murderer. "Thou art
strong and cunning. This one"--he touched the body with his toes--"was
strong and wise also, but now he is so no longer. Now," he hissed, "we
can go down into the Tu Atzissi and get what we want."

"What dost thou mean, Nacaytzusle?" inquired the victorious Navajo.

"Go thou back to the hogan," whispered Nacaytzusle to him, "and tell the
men to be there," pointing southwestward, "four days from now. I will be
there and will speak to them."

The other nodded.

"Let us go," said he.

They moved off in silence without casting another glance at the dead.
Their direction was southwest. They carefully avoided making the least
noise; they spied and peered cautiously in every direction, shy,
suspicious. Thus they vanished in the forest like wolves sneaking
through timber.

* * * * *

Evening had set in. Stronger blew the wind, and the top of the pines
shook occasionally with a solemn rushing sound that resembled distant
thunder. The breeze swayed the grass, the blades nodded and bowed beside
the remains of the brave man as if they were asking his forgiveness for
the bloody deed of which they had been the innocent witnesses. A crow
came up, flapping her wings, and alighted on a tree which stood near the
corpse,