f Tahn-te did not make him dream false
things and think them true. It was scarcely to be believed that one
people would fight because another people found the Great Mystery--and
prayed to It for strength to live well--and to live long--but called
It by another Prayer Name!

They knew that in things of sacred magic Tahn-te was more wise than
any other;--other youth were trained only in their own societies--but
the son of the Woman of the Twilight reached out for the Thought back
of the outer thought in all orders, and in different tribes.

Yet--they doubted him now and for the first time! They did not think
that Tahn-te spoke with a crooked tongue, but some one had lied to him
in the days when he crossed the land with the man Coronado;--or maybe
the talking leaves had lied on some dark night of magic!

But however that might be, the Great Mystery had never sent the word
to kill a people because of their prayers. The men of the council knew
that could not be. But they were respectful to the young Po-Ahtun-ho,
and they did not say so. That he had put aside his dignity of office,
and come himself to Tegat-ha for council, was a great honor for
Te-gat-ha.

And they smoked in silence, and did not say the thing they thought.

But Tahn-te the Ruler, read their hearts in their silence, and for the
first time his own heart grew sick. In Povi-whah there was the
jealousy of the war chief--and of the governor as well, and that, he
thought, made them blind to much. But these men had only honor in
their hearts for him and no jealousy. Yet to make them see motives of
the strangers, as he saw them, was not possible; and to tell them that
the men of iron gave worship to a jealous god was to brand himself for
always as foolish in their eyes! They had thought him wise--but not
again could they think him wise as to the foreign men, or the reading
of their books!

The early stars were alight in the sky when the men came up from the
council. In the house of the governor the evening meal was long
ready.

From the place of the dance in the forest, men and maids were
coming:--under the branches of the great trees they were coming, but
among them was not the maid of the thong and the unfinished paintings.
Tahn-te, seeing that it was so, ate with his hosts the rolls of
paper-like bread, and the roasted meat of the deer.

It was a silent meal, for it was his first day of failure. All other
things he had won--but to win his brothers to brot