fter an interval of thoughtful
silence he said:--"You have crossed that river in the heart of the
world--I did not know that women went to the Love Dance."

"I can not tell you. I also do not know," said S[=aa]-hanh-que-ah
quietly, and the boy saw that the eyes of all the men were directed
strangely to his mother. "I do not belong to the Order from which the
people are sent to the Dance of Love or the Dance of Death. My eyes
have not seen the waters of the sunset sea."

"Then you did not go beyond the river in the heart of the rocks?"
asked the old man. "You did not cross over?"

"I did cross over. I have seen the sands of that far desert of which
you speak. I have seen the trees of which one leaf will cover a man
from the sun, and more leaves will make a cover for a dwelling. I have
seen the water run there at the roots of those trees as this water
runs in the shadow of this rock, and--ai!--ai-ah! I have seen it sink
in the sands when it was needed most--and have heard it gurgle its
ghost laugh beneath the hot trail where the desert lost one
wandered."

Her head bent forward and her hands covered her eyes. The boy wanted
to ask where this place was of which he was hearing so much for the
first time. What was there in the wonderful journey of the wise woman
to make the tears come and her voice tremble? But the old Shaman of
Ah-ko reached out his hand and touched her bent head.

"It is true, my daughter of the Te-hua, that the Snake priest of the
Hopitu told in council that high medicine was yours. Yet all he could
not tell me. You have lived much, oh woman! Yet your heart is not
hard, and your thoughts run clear as the snow water of the high hills.
It is well that you have come with us, and that you have talked with
us. When the hidden water mocks with laughter so far beneath the
desert sand that no man lives to reach it:--then it is that men die
beside the place their bleeding hands dig deep. You have heard that
laughter, and have lived, and have brought back your child out of the
sands of death. It has given you the medicine for your son that is
strong medicine. You have lived to walk with us and that is well."

"Yes, thanks this day, it is well," said the other men.

At Ah-ko, "the city of the white rock," the silent, shy Medicine-Woman
of the Twilight and her son were feasted like visiting rulers of a
land.

To his wonder they sang songs of thanks that the gods had let her come
to them once again, and they