hich all the old men talked through the
night and the day. And while they talked, the rain poured in a flood
from the gray sky, until men said this might be magic, for the woman
might have brought witchcraft.

But the old chief said no evil craft could have brought the good
rain:--The wind and the rain had come from the south as the girl had
come from the south, and the light on the face of the child was a
symbol that it was sacred.

Then one man, who had been an Apache prisoner, and found his way back,
told of a strange thing;--that forty days to the south where the birds
of the green feathers were, a new people had come out of the Eastern
sea, and were white. The great kings made sacrifices for them, and
planted prayer plumes before them--for they were called the new gods
of the water and the sunrise.

And the girl had come from the south!

Yet another reminded the council that the words of the girl were
Te-hua words, and the Te-hua people lived East of Ci-bo-la and
Ah-ko--the farthest east of the stone house building people.

"Since these are her only words, the child shall be named in the way
of that people," said Ho-tiwa. "The sacred fire was lit at the birth,
and on the fourth morning my woman will give the name in the Te-hua
way, and throw the fire to burn all evil from his path, and the sacred
corn will guard his sleep. Some of you younger men never have heard of
the great Te-hau god. Tell it to them, Atoki, then they will know why
a Te-hua never sends away a poor stranger who comes to them."

The man who knew Te-hua words, and had seen the wonderful Te-hua
valley in his youth, sent smoke from his ceremonial pipe to the four
ways of the gods, and then to the upper and nether worlds, and spoke:

"_Aliksai!_ I will tell of the Te-hua god as it was told to me by the
old man of Kah-po in the time of starving when I went with the men for
the sacred corn of the seed planting:

"The thing I tell is the true thing!

"It was time for a god to walk on the earth, and one was born of the
pinyon tree and a virgin who rested under the shadow of its arms. The
girl was very poor, and her people were very poor; when the pinyon nut
fell in her bosom, and the winds told her a son was sent to her to
rest beneath her heart, she was very sad, for there was no food.

"But wonderful things happened. The Spirits of the Mountain brought to
her home new and strange food, and seeds to plant for harvest:--new
seeds of the melon,