see the
snake dance from Canyon Diablo. "The Van Shaws are listed. You remember,
Miss Gray. Old friends of yours, aren't they?"

Miss Gray looked annoyed. The first time Bauer had ever seen such a look
on her face. She answered, however, cheerfully enough, "The Van Shaws
are relatives of mother's." Masters did not ask anything more and Bauer
did not dwell on the incident. That night he lay watching the stars
through the hogan door. Life was meaning so much to him now. But could
he bear to see too much of Helen Douglas in this desert land? He was
troubled over the question and its unsettled answer.

CHAPTER XIII

IT was an hour before sunrise at Tolchaco and Bauer had awakened from a
restful sleep and from the place where he lay in the Council Hogan he
noted with pure enjoyment the splendid colour of the sky framed in the
opening, the exquisite blending from the pearly grey into the
unpaintable, soft moving colours that he had looked at with growing awe
during many wonderful mornings in July. He could not remove the
impression that it was God's hand that moved over the sky, painting with
an art that man's cheap imitation could never approach even in the
faintest degree.

It was the morning of the day they were all to start for Oraibi to see
the snake dance which was to be given in three or four days according to
announcements sent out by the runners. The Douglases had come as they
had planned and had been visiting at the mission now for two weeks. Mr.
and Mrs. Douglas were delighted with what they saw and heard of the
mission work. Walter had made a horseback trip to the Grand Canyon
through the solemn dry pine forest from Flagstaff and had returned to
Tolchaco in time to join the party for Oraibi. Helen had been received
at once as a favourite by all the mission people, had renewed her
acquaintance with Miss Gray, and had shown herself friendly, yet not too
friendly, with Bauer, who had steadily gained in strength and was
looking forward with great anticipation, as they all were, to the Oraibi
trip.

He lay there contentedly musing in his deliberate way, for he mused as
slowly as he spoke, when he was roused by a voice that came with clear
accents across the 'dobe flats. He had heard it often in the early
morning, but the sound of it never ceased to create in him a wondering
awe and more or less bewilderment to reconcile his first thought of
Elijah Clifford with other impressions that came on later. For it was