the old man there is their
medicine man."

"So?" Sidney invited.

"I'm just supposing now, mind you," George went on. He rubbed his bald
pate again as though afraid of what thoughts were taking place under it.
"Maybe way back--a good many hundreds of years ago--this medicine man
decided to have a vision of the future. And it worked. And here he is
now with some of his people."

"Wait a minute," Sidney objected. "So he had this vision and transported
these people to this moment in time. But if it was hundreds of years ago
they're already dead, been dead for a long time, so how could they--"

"Don't you see, Sid? They can be dead, but their appearance in the
future--for them--couldn't occur until now because it's happened with us
and we weren't living and didn't come along here at the right time until
this minute."

Sidney swallowed. "Maybe," he muttered, "maybe."

"Another thing," George said. "If we can talk with them we can learn
everything we've tried to know in all our work and solve in a minute
what we're ready to spend the whole summer, even years, digging for."

Sidney brightened. "That's what we wanted to do."

George studied the Indians again. "I think they're just as surprised as
we are. When they discovered themselves here and saw us--and you must
remember we're the first white men they've ever seen--their immediate
instinct was to attack. Now that we don't fight back they're waiting for
us to make a move."

"What do we do?"

"Take it easy," advised George. "Don't look scared and don't look
belligerent. Look friendly and hope some of the modern Indian dialects
we know can make connection with them."

* * * * *

The two scientists began, at a gradual pace, to make their way toward
the old man, the young man, and the girl. As they approached, the girl
drew back slightly. The young man reached over his shoulder and from the
furred quiver slung on his back drew an atlatl lance and fitted it to
his throwing stick, holding it ready. The other warriors, all about,
followed suit.

The medicine man alone stepped forward. He held up a short colored stick
to which bright feathers were attached and shook it at the two white
men. They stopped.

"That's his aspergill," observed Sidney. "I'd like to have that one."

The medicine man spoke. At first the scientists were puzzled, then
George told Sidney, "That's Pima, or pretty close to it, just pronounced
differently. It prob