ld free grace, and strode down the path swift
and lithe as an Indian. Once she turned to wave a hand.

Shefford watched her with a torture of pride, love, hope, and fear
contending within him.

XIV. THE NAVAJO

That morning a Piute rode into the valley.

Shefford recognized him as the brave who had been in love with Glen
Naspa. The moment Nas Ta Bega saw this visitor he made a singular motion
with his hands--a motion that somehow to Shefford suggested despair--and
then he waited, somber and statuesque, for the messenger to come to him.
It was the Piute who did all the talking, and that was brief. Then
the Navajo stood motionless, with his hands crossed over his breast.
Shefford drew near and waited.

"Bi Nai," said the Navajo, "Nas Ta Bega said his sister would come home
some day.... Glen Naspa is in the hogan of her grandfather."

He spoke in his usual slow, guttural voice, and he might have been
bronze for all the emotion he expressed; yet Shefford instinctively
felt the despair that had been hinted to him, and he put his hand on the
Indian's shoulder.

"If I am the Navajo's brother, then I am brother to Glen Naspa," he
said. "I will go with you to the hogan of Hosteen Doetin."

Nas Ta Bega went away into the valley for the horses. Shefford hurried
to the village, made his excuses at the school, and then called to
explain to Fay that trouble of some kind had come to the Indian.

Soon afterward he was riding Nack-yal on the rough and winding trail up
through the broken country of cliffs and canyon to the great league-long
sage and cedar slope of the mountain. It was weeks since he had ridden
the mustang. Nack-yal was fat and lazy. He loved his master, but he did
not like the climb, and so fell far behind the lean and wiry pony that
carried Nas Ta Bega. The sage levels were as purple as the haze of the
distance, and there was a bitter-sweet tang on the strong, cool wind.
The sun was gold behind the dark line of fringe on the mountain-top. A
flock of sheep swept down one of the sage levels, looking like a narrow
stream of white and black and brown. It was always amazing for Shefford
to see how swiftly these Navajo sheep grazed along. Wild mustangs
plunged out of the cedar clumps and stood upon the ridges, whistling
defiance or curiosity, and their manes and tails waved in the wind.

Shefford mounted slowly to the cedar bench in the midst of which were
hidden the few hogans. And he halted at the edge to