e felt that he might see her again before the
Spirit People hid the body of beauty.

And then--as he ran, and turned where the trail circled a rugged
column of stone at the edge of the pinyon woods,--there a shadow
flitted as a bird past the great gray barrier. He turned from the
trail almost without volition of his own, and followed the flitting
shadow, and--the maid of the bluebird wing was again before him!

Not merging into the shadows as before. Against the grey wall of rock
she stood as a wild hunted thing at bay--breathless, panting--but with
head thrown back to look death in the face.

But death was not what she saw in his eyes--only a wonder great as her
own--and with the wonder fear,--and something else than fear.

Plainly she had been bound by thongs of rawhide, for one yet hung from
her wrist. Much of her body was bare, her greatest garment was a
deerskin robe held in her hand as she ran.

Because of this, could he see that her body and her arms were
decorated with ceremonial symbols in the sacred colors, and the
painting of them was not complete. It was evident she had been chosen
for the forest dance of the maidens who were young. It was plain also
that she had resisted, and had in some way broken from the people.

At the something other than fear in his eyes, she gained courage, and
at the bluebird's wing in his head band, she stared and touched the
one in her own braids, and then touched her own breast.

"Doli (Blue Bird)--me!" she said appealingly. "Navahu"--then she held
her hand out as though measuring the height of a child.--"Te-hua--me!"

"Te-hua!"--he caught her hand and knew that she was not a vision,
though he had first known of her in a vision. She was a living maid,
and twice on wilderness trails had she come to him!

"Te-hua--you?" he half whispered, but in Te-hua words she could not
answer him--only begged rapidly in Navahu for protection--and motioned
with fear towards the villages where the tombe was sounding.

To give help to an escaped captive of Te-gat-ha while on the trail to
ask friendship of Te-gat-ha, was an act not known in Indian
ethics--but as when he had been wakened by her in the canyon of the
high walls--so it was now--the outer world drifted far, and the
eyes of the girl--pleading--were the only real things. In his hours
on the trail through the forest he had thought the ever-present
picture of her in his heart might be strange new magic for his
undoing, but to hear