kill these few, and then sleep sound for a long time with no
trouble thoughts," suggested one, a patriarch from Ui-la-ua.

"That is true," said Tahn-te--"but if we do that way we would be no
better than these men of iron. Their god talks two ways for killing,
and their men live two ways. Our god when he taught our fathers, gave
them but one law for killing, it was this:--'Go not to battle. A time
will come for you to fight, and the stars in the sky will mark that
time. When the star of the ice land moves--then the battle time will
be here! Until then live as brothers and make houses--use the spear
only when the enemy comes to break your walls.' That is the world of
the Great Ruler. To kill these men only holds the matter for your sons
to decide some other year."

"What then is to do?" demanded a man of Naim-be--"they do not break
the walls, but they are beside the gates."

"When the Yutah and the Navahu traders come with skin robes, what is
it you do?" asked Tahn-te.

"We trade them our corn and our melons and we get the robes."

"And,"--added Tahn-te--"the governor of each village gives them room
outside the walls when the night comes, and the chief of war sees that
the gate is closed, and that a guard never goes down from the roof! If
these men are precious to you, make of them brothers, and send prayer
thoughts on their trail, but never forget that they are traders, and
never forget that the watchers must be on the roof so long as they
stay in your land! They come for that which they can carry away, and
once they have it you will be in their hearts only as the grass of
last year on the hills--a forgotten thing over which they ride to new
harvests!"

"You talk as one who has eaten always from the same bowl with the
strangers," spoke one man from Oj-ke--"yet you are young, and some of
these men are not young."

"Because--"--said Tahn-te catching the implied criticism of his youth
and his prominence--"because in the talking paper which their god
made, there is records of all their men since ancient days. They have
never changed. Their gods tell them to go out and kill and take all
that which the enemy will not give,--to take also the maids for
slaves,--that is their book of laws from the Beginning. Since I was a
boy I have studied all these laws. It was my work. By the god a man
has in his heart we can know the man! Their god is a good god for
traders, and a strong god for war. But the watchers of the night mus