n demanded white blood in its victims--what a
triumph it would be for the Faith to add the sorcerer to the list! For
such a triumph would Gonzalvo have been willing to tread with bared
feet all the sands of the trail to Mexico.

With such pious intent did he question much of Yahn, who knew
little--and was indeed afraid when the medicine god woman was asked
of. She had seen that which had come to the outcast of Na-im-be who
would have told tribal things, and she had no wish to grow dumb, or
blind, or a trembling wreck in the time of one sun across the sky.

But she did go with him to the place of the well in the sand at
Shufinne at the time when the Twilight Woman went for water. He waited
there and drew for her the water, and watched closely her face as he
spoke a Castilian word of greeting. If he had hope that she had ever
before heard such words his hopes were fruitless. She was so
indifferent to his presence that not even once did she lift her eyes
from the water jar or look in his face, and the fragile figure turned
from him and walked away as if Castilian warriors were seen daily on
the path to that well.

Yahn knew that all the other women wished greatly to be let go down to
the village that they might see and be spoken to by the great
strangers, and she hid in the brush to watch the medicine god woman
and even won courage to ask of her who had filled the water jar so
quickly.

"Was it not then the stranger who is your lover, Yahn Tsyn-deh?" asked
the other, not as one who cares, but as one who states a fact--"the
man whom you give love to in these new days."

"Who says I give love?" demanded Yahn. "Saeh-pah the liar, or Koh-pe,
who knows not anything!"

"You walk together alone as lovers walk. The other women do not think
they lie."

"They are fools--the other women!" stated Yahn--"also they are liars.
They are glad if a man of the beard looks the way they are,--they
would make a trail to follow if the men of iron whistled them,--they
would be proud to make their own men ashamed--they!"

For the first time the older woman looked in the face of the girl with
intentness, as though suddenly aroused to interest in the human drama
about her, and the actors in it.

"Then you would not follow, Yahn Tsyn-deh?" she asked. "The others say
you laugh at the men of the tribe and give love to the strangers--they
say you pass Ka-yemo on the trail and your eyes never see him any more
because of the men of iron who gi