afternoon."

"They were there, I saw them," said Walter.

"I saw them on the other side of the plaza," said Bauer who had not lost
sight of Van Shaw during the afternoon and had wondered more than once
why he was avoiding Helen. He had had his talk with Mrs. Douglas and had
been tormented all through that ancient prayer for rain with questions
as to his wisdom in telling some things to Helen's mother. But he was
not given to doubt concerning his motives and in this particular
instance he had no hesitation over his own absolutely clean and
disinterested motive. He wanted Helen to escape the horror of a union
with a degenerate mind and heart as he knew they existed in Van Shaw's
character and his own feeling for her did not occupy a prominent place
in his motive. Of that much he was sure and it helped him somewhat to
get through one of the most trying experiences of his life.

Bauer went on to say to Mr. Douglas that he had seen Van Shaw and his
two friends go down the trail to their wagons and had not seen them come
back up the rock. So Paul and Walter, Clifford and Felix took Helen over
to the mission chapel towards which various groups could be seen moving
through the unlighted spaces of Oraibi's crooked and narrow windings.

The chapel had been built by a small missionary society ambitious to
signalise its existence by doing something desperately hard in a corner
of the world where no missionary work had ever been done. The missionary
in charge had laboured several years with that marvelous patience and
persistence which nothing but the history of missions in this old world
has ever recorded. And as a result of his work Talavenka had come into
the light. She had spent two winters at the mission in Tolchaco and
Masters had shaped and enlarged the faith that first had begun to glow
on the grey rock of Oraibi. And the missionary had been planning to have
Masters hold this special service and baptise Talavenka from the time he
heard of his coming up to the snake dance.

Masters found a place on one end of the little platform for Helen's cot
where she lay propped up in comfortable fashion. The room was very small
and it filled up rapidly. When it would hold no more it is doubtful if
any man with a message ever faced a more mixed or astonishing audience.

There were native Hopis, old men and women who did not understand a word
of English. Navajo visitors, men who never appeared at Oraibi except
once in two years. Pau