stand, to your hinting a moment ago at there being
any truth in the old Indian superstitions. I am not to suppose, am I,
that you actually give any credence to tales of supernatural influences
manifested hereabouts?'

Alan Howard stirred his coffee meditatively, and after so leisurely a
fashion that Longstreet began to fidget. The reply, when finally it
came, was sufficiently non-committal.

'I said "_Quien sabe_?" to the question just now,' he said, a twinkle
in the regard bestowed upon the scientist. 'They are two pretty good
little old words and fit in first-rate lots of times.'

'Spanish for "Who knows?" aren't they?'

Howard nodded. 'They used to be Spanish; I guess they're Mex by now.'

Longstreet frowned and returned to the issue.

'If you were merely jesting, as I supposed----'

'But was I?' demanded Howard. 'What do I know about it? I know horses
and cows; that's my business. I know a thing or two about men, since
that's my business at times, too; also something like half of that
about half-breeds and mules; I meet up with them sometimes in the run
of the day's work. You know something of what I think you call
auriferous geology. But what does either of us know of the nightly
custom of dead Indians and Indian gods?'

Helen wondered with her father whether there were a vein of seriousness
in the man's thought. Howard squatted on his heels, from which he had
removed his spurs; they were very high heels, but none the less he
seemed comfortably at home rocking on them. Longstreet noted with his
keen eyes, altered his own squatting position a fraction, and opened
his mouth for another question. But Howard forestalled him, saying
casually:

'I have known queer things to happen here, within a few hundred yards
of this place. I haven't had time to go finding out the why of them;
they didn't come into my day's work. I have listened to some
interesting yarns; truth or lies it didn't matter to me. They say that
ghosts haunt the Pool just yonder. I have never seen a ghost; there's
nothing in raising ghosts for market, and I'm the busiest man I know
trying to chew a chunk that I have bitten off. They tell you down at
San Juan and in Poco Poco, and all the way up to Tecolote, that if you
will come here a certain moonlight night of the year and will watch the
water of the pool, you'll see a vision sent up by the gods of the
Underworld. They'll even tell you how a nice little old god by the
name of