he echo of his own.--He knew evil spirits did lurk along his
trail--no mortal could escape their shadows. Even the god who had
lived in the sun had been hurled to earth by them when the earth was
new, and the first trees--the pines, had begun to grow at the edges of
the ice. Since that time the Sun God only lived in the sky one half
the time. In the night he went to the Underworld, and the strands of
his dark hair covered his face. He must not let himself think that the
adverse spirits were less than men in strength--for man needed all the
medicine of the gods to war against evil!

Thus he thought--and muttered and stumbled blindly towards the north.
Into the stream of Po-eh-hin-cha he crept and drank,--then up--up to
Po-pe-kan-eh--the Place where the Water is Born, and from there to the
shrine of the Sacred Mountain, though his hands reached for help from
every tree and rock past which he staggered or crept.

[Illustration: AND REACHED HIS HANDS TO HIS BROTHERS--THE STARS _Page
129_]

Only water and the smoke of the medicine pipe had been his portion.
One may not eat the food of man, yet commune with Those Above.

The first stars were above the hills as he fell, bleeding from many
hurts--and breathless--at the shrine.

Far above one lone eagle soared, and the weariness was forgotten in
the joy of Tahn-te. The sacred spark came quickly to the twigs crossed
ceremonially for the fire on the shrine, and into the blue above, the
slender trail of smoke led undeviatingly up where the great bird
drifted as if awaiting to witness his offering of fire. Had any other
found medicine like that? He knew now that his magic was to be strong
magic, for his faith had been great--and he had followed the faith,
and found the bird of the strong gods waiting his coming!

Time was lost to him in the trance of that which he had lived through.
The day was gone, and he stood alone on the heights and reached his
hands in ecstasy to his brothers the stars. He felt the exultant
strength of the mortal with whom the gods have worked!

And when the last mountain prayer had been whispered, a reeling,
staggering, nude figure walked, and sometimes ran and often fell down
the steep sides of Tse-c[=o]me-u-pin, and when the great dark pines
and the slender aspens were reached, he used his hands as well as his
feet in making his way, reeling from tree to tree, but holding with
instinctive steadiness to the trail of the Navahu--the ancient way of
the