been able to be up and about his
ordinary vocations the preposterous conduct of the weather must needs
have been restrained. The fields about Ioco had suffered especially, and
Tus-ka-sah, as the chief business man of that town, had manifested half
veiled suspicions that the art of the conjurer was incompetent; this
rendered Cheesto particularly solicitous to succeed when his magic had
been invoked to reduce the attractions of Amoyah in the eyes of Altsasti
and turn her heart toward Tus-ka-sah. For among the Indians the lives of
the weather-prophets were not safe from the aggrieved agriculturists,
and there are authentic cases in which the cheera-taghe suffered death
by tribal law as false conjurers. Cheesto fixed an anxious gaze upon his
interlocutor as Tus-ka-sah rehearsed, by way of illustrating how
worthless were the charms wrought, the unsubstantial fiction that had so
beguiled the fancy of Altsasti, and posed Amoyah in the splendid guise
of the representative of the great Eeon-a in the shadow-march of the
bears.

The fate of the over-wise is ever the sorrowful dispensation. The fool
may be merry and irresponsible. Cheesto was at his wit's end. With that
unlucky drought in June to confront him, and dealing with the sharp
business man of Ioco, who exacted his due in the exchange of the Fates
as rigorously as if in a merely mundane market, the jeopardy of the
magician was great and his discredit almost assured.

Old Cheesto set his jaw firmly. Somehow, somewhere, something must be
wrought that would place Amoyah at a disadvantage and bring ridicule
upon him. No great matter, it might be said, to compass the change of a
fickle woman's mind, to disconcert a giddy young man. But how? Cheesto
was aweary of his own incantations and his ineffectual spells. He would
fain lend Fate a muscular hand.

This thought was uppermost in his mind for several days, even when he
went with the other cheera-taghe of Ioco to share in the conjurations
and incantations of the preliminary ceremonials of the Ball-Play,
without which success would never be anticipated, for a great match
between the towns of Ioco and Niowee was impending.

This game was usually played in the mid-summer or fall, but it would
seem that the unseasonable cold weather was well suited for such violent
exercise and the severe physical training which preceded it, and
although Amoyah noticed ice in the river as he dashed in for the
ceremonial plunge which accompanies