ad-pad on the trail to the swoons
where visions come.

A lone figure chanting breathless things:--not aloud now! The
utterance is only broken whispers--only a god could read the meaning
of them!

But he did not feel alone. All the Lost Others were back of him
looking on from the dusk of the pinyon boughs, and there to the right,
ever in shadow, was a Presence! It stood close to the rock wall. The
arms were folded, the line of the body strong and erect. The face was
a hidden face, but if he--Tahn-te, faltered in the lines of the
prayers,--or sank in the dance before the time--then he felt that the
phantom there would become real, and the face would be seen, and that
strong Thing would come forward--it would dance for jealous ghosts the
dance of triumph--it would wipe out in mockery the unfinished homage
to the gods!

The dawn came, and Tahn-te danced the stars of morning into the glow
of the sun. The prayers had been all said, and the Watcher no longer
stood by the rock!

Tahn-te saw nothing now but the glare of the sun on the rock wall--a
spot of light in the circle of black pinyon.

He no longer even whispered. His moving arms seemed no longer a
part of him--it was as if numbness was there. His feet moved
mechanically--not able to lift themselves more quickly--neither
able to cease by his own will.

The Trues were watching him now, waiting to help. There was the white
bear of the North and the mountain lion of the East. There was the
wildcat of the West, and the serpent of the South. There was the eagle
of the upper world, and the mystic creature of the earth home which
tells the weather wizards of the number of winter days.

They were all there--so the prayer had been a good prayer.

From some of them would come the medicine dreams!

The sun stood straight above,--then little by little reached towards
the mountain. It made shadows, and as the shadow of the sacred rock
touched the blinded dancer, he sank to the earth.

As he fell he strove to echo the prayer thought:--

"I find the light
I--master of spells!"

But he did not speak it. Only the eagle of his dream repeated it over
and over as it lifted him from the place where he had fallen, and bore
him swiftly to the highest point of the mountain of Tse-c[=o]me-u-pin.
It has been the Sacred Mountain since men first spoke words in the
land. When a man has climbed to the shrine of the summit there, it is
as