sunlight from
the portal of the star to bough of the pinyon tree--and a brooding
silence rests over those high levels;--only the wind whispers in the
pines, and the old Indians point to the bird of azure and tell of a
Demon-maid who came once from the land of the Navahu, and wore such
wings, and sang a song of the blue bird, and enchanted a god-born one
with her promise to build a nest and wait for him--at the trail's
end!

An ancient teller of Te-hua legends will add that the trail of Tahn-te
was covered by the sands of the Four Ways and no living people ever
again looked on his face,--and that the Te-hua priests say the strong
god of the men of iron swept him into the Nothing because he alone
stood against the new faith in that time of trial.

[Illustration: ONLY A TRAIL ACROSS THE DESERT SANDS _Page 332_]

The teller of tales does not know if this be true or not--all gods can
be made strong by people, and it is not good to battle against the god
of a strong people:--they can send strange sorceries and wild
temptings, and the Navahu maid had such charm she was never forgotten
by men who looked upon her face. It is also well known that the
bluebird is a sacred bird for medicine, and does call at every dawn on
those heights, and the wings worn in the banda of Tahn-te might,
through strong love, have become a true charm;--and might have led him
at last to the nest of the witch maid in some wilderness of the Far
Away;--who can tell?

But all men know that the prophecies of Tahn-te are true to-day in the
valley of the Rio Grande--and that his vision was the vision of that
which was to be.

_Aliksai!_

GLOSSARY

"_Alikasai!_" = Hopi ceremonial word for a story
telling, equivalent to "Once upon
a time," or "Thus it was."
Alvarado, Hernando de = A lieutenant of Coronado, 1540.
Atoki = The Crane.
Ah-ko = Acoma, N. M., a village of the Queres
people.
Apache = A warrior tribe of Athapascan stock
in Arizona.
Awh-we = "Mountain Place."
By-otle (_see Py-otle_).
Chinig-Chinik = A Pacific coast tribe of Nature worshippers.
Chilan Balam = Indian priest and prophet. 16th Century.
Ci-bo-la = Zuni, N. M. The only surviving village
of the "Seven Cities of Cibola"
of t