f this wise woman says is to be well thought
of;--it may be precious to us in days not yet born of the sun. You who
listen know that we are living now in a day that was told of by Ki-pah
in the years of our Lost Others, and Ki-pah spoke as the god
Po-se-yemo spoke:--he was given great magic to see the years ahead of
the years he lived."

"It is true," assented the governor--"It was when the people yet lived
in the caves, and the water went into the sands in that highland--that
is when he came to our Lost Others--Ki-pah--the great wisdom. He came
from the south, and taught them to come down from the caves and build
houses by the great river, and to turn the water to the fields here.
All things worked with him--and Kah-po--and Oj-ke and P[=o]-ho-ge were
built and stand to this day where he said they must be built. He knew
all speech, and could tell magic things from a bowl of clear water. It
was in the water he saw men who were white, and who would cover the
land if we were not strong. These men are the men he saw in the water.
I think it is so, and that this is the time to be strong."

CHAPTER V

TAHN-TE AMONG STRANGERS

The one thing to which the boy gave awed attention was that when the
time came for the villages to fight--a leader would be born to
them--if the people of the valley were true to their gods they would
be strong always, Ki-pah the prophet told them to remember always the
war star in the sky--the star Po-se-yemo had told them of, when it
moved, the time to make war would be here.

And when the time came to fight, a leader would come to them, as he,
Ki-pah had come! Because of this thought was the heart of the boy
thrilled that he had been called a reed by the river--a reed through
which music of the desert gods might speak.

He was filled with wild fancies of mystic things born of these
prophecies. And the old men said that perhaps this was the time of
which Po-se-yemo, the god, and Ki-pah, the prophet, had told!

The vote of a Te-hua council has to be the agreement of every man, and
the star of the morning brought dawn to the valley before the last
reluctant decided it was well to send a messenger to learn of the
strange gods.

But as the sun rose Tahn-te bathed in the running water of the river,
and his prayer was of joy:--for he was to go!

In joy, and with the light of exaltation in his face he said farewell
to boy thoughts, and walked lightly over the highlands and the valleys
to U