Читать книгу Blue Feather and Other Stories - Zane Grey - Страница 4

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In the midst of the great desert rose a tremendous wall of stone, upon the ramparts of which stood the citadel of Taneen, chief of the Rock Clan.

Under the gold-banded, black-fringed table mountain, to the north and east, yawned an abyss of gorges, the unknown, the place of cliffs and shadows, through which rolled and thundered the red river of the gods. To the south stretched the wasteland—the long weathered slope leading down to bare ridges and colored buttes, out over the gray flats, and onto the dunes of clay and the white-shrouded distance. On the west side lay a shallow valley where patches of bleached grass and sere fields of corn stood out starkly from the green cedars.

Taneen paced to and fro on his stone-fenced terrace. A dry hot wind fanned his troubled face. It blew from the west. It bore evil tidings—that the rains would not come. The preceding year had been dry; the winter snows had been scant; and now the springs were failing, the streams running low, and the waterfall Oljato trickled like thin wind-swept grasses over the ledge.

These omens haunted Taneen. They recalled the beginning of the twelve-year drought, which in the end had dispersed the starving clans of the Sheboyahs to the four winds. The rains had come again with fruitful seasons, bringing back prosperity and happiness to the little people of the rocks. Taneen could look afar, with eagle gaze, to see on a distant craggy height the citadel of the Wolf Clan; and farther still, dim in the purple haze, a dark spur that marked the home of the Antelope Clan. Other clans were scattered far to the westward.

That summer no brave runner had yet crossed the hot, waterless sands and rocks with messages to Taneen. All was not well with the neighboring clans.

Taneen turned to gaze from his terrace down the many-stepped descent over the little brown dwellings with their dark, eyelike windows, down to the center of the stronghold, where the domed granaries and circular cisterns stood under the protecting arch of the great wall, and still farther down to the faded green squares and gray ovals of the playgrounds.

But the young braves of the Sheboyahs were not indulging in games this hot day. They lolled in the shade of the walls, or lay asleep inside the cool houses. Naked children swarmed like lazy ants on the courts and terraces. Only the squaws and the maidens were at work, grinding, baking, weaving, carrying, moving in and out of sun and shade. Taneen’s Rock Clan had grown populous again, for which gift of the gods he was grateful and proud. But there seemed to be a shadow creeping over them.

He went below to the council chamber where his medicine men convened much of late, obsessed with their interpretations of the signs of the times, with their incantations to their guardian spirits.

A sacred fire of cedar fagots was burning on the east side of the chamber, where the door looked toward the sunrise. In the center of the floor a fine covering of wind-blown sand had been laid, and upon this space Declis, the painter, was sifting colored sands of white and copper, of blue and green and ocher. Old Benei, the star-gazer, was chanting. Clodothie, the chief medicine man of the clan, leaned on his staff with gaze of doubt and fear fixed upon the fourth inmate of the chamber. This was Dageel, the idiot of the tribe, a pink-eyed, red-haired, deformed young brave hideous to behold. He was hated and feared by all the Sheboyahs.

“What is he doing now?” demanded Taneen, aghast.

“Listen,” replied Clodothie impressively.

Dageel, bending over the sand painting, was jabbering wild and whirling sounds, meaningless and fearsome to the chief. He made strange and violent gestures; he expelled a puffing breath, such as would be emitted by a watching deer.

“He tells of the First People, who came from animals,” translated the medicine man. “Of the time when it was always night, of the coming of the sun, and then of water over all the land.”

Taneen silenced the priest with a gesture of impatience. “What of this hot west wind?” he queried darkly.

“O Chief! It is the herald of more dry years,” replied the medicine man sonorously, with a slow spreading of his clawlike hands. “Our corn did not ripen. Our melons parched on the vines.”

“Give orders that my people conserve their grain and water. We shall not starve. Meanwhile you priests shall invoke the rain gods. You will seek council from your spirits, to learn what sacrifices we must make, what ceremonies will appease.”

“O Chief, it is written! Return Nashta to her outcast clan!” thundered the priest.

Taneen shrank as from an inward stab.

“Wise man, you should know it is also written that my child Nashta, Daughter of the Moon, remains hidden from daylight with the Rock Clan forever,” intoned Taneen imperiously.

“Your sin will be visited upon your people,” said the priest.

“Be it so. She is my blood, my pride. Nashta is innocent, as is her mother. The fierce Antelope Clan would destroy her, the daughter of their queen.”

“Then the devouring drought will come as before, like a swarm of grasshoppers that denude the land.”

Taneen stood silent, watching the sandpainter.

“The ice will creep back upon us ... or the land will be dark again ... or the water will rise to the tallest treetop.”

“No. Taneen does not believe. The ice and night and flood belonged to the time of the First People.”

“Aye.... But O Chief! If there were a first people so there shall be a last. A race that will make us slaves. Clodothie sees them in the shadows. Their voice is as the thunder of the red river.”

Taneen believed this prophecy to be true. He had heard it in the whispers of the wind through the cedars. Even the rock walls waited for the echo of the footfalls of the future. The earth, the sky and the stars remained in eternal fixity, but all living creatures changed. Each clan of the Sheboyahs lived on their rocky height in mortal dread of the unknown. Their old sages squatted beside the fires in the kivas and handed down to the younger generations the legends of the tribe—how the fathers of their fathers fought and overcame the First People, and how their progenitors battled with man before he was man. There were stealthy steps on the trail of the Sheboyahs. The time was not far distant when there would be justification for the old chiefs’ custom of building their dwellings on the unscalable cliffs. Had not the Badger Clan vanished strangely off the far escarpment to the south?

Taneen left the chamber of the priests and repaired to his terrace where once more he leaned on the parapet to gaze with clouded vision over the lowlands.

The searing wind brought hot fragrance of the dry earth, the sand and cactus and cedar, the endless area of stone. On all sides, only that one to the west gave any hope of life. He could not endure that smoky northern abyss from whence at intervals rose a sullen roar. And the white-palled wasteland of shifting sands on the south only augmented his dread. Yet these regions seemed indeed to be insurmountable barriers for those vague hosts that threatened his people. Gray and lonely and monotonous sheered away the cedared valley to the west, solemn and stark under the noonday sun, a wide path to the other clans of the Sheboyahs, yet weirdly formidable at this hour.

The chieftain’s gaze shifted to the shadow under the grand arch of the wall that flanked the end of the citadel below. Here, deep in a recess of the rocks, lay the kiva that hid Nashta, Daughter of the Moon. The light of day had never fallen upon this maiden’s beautiful face. The secret of that kiva was held inviolate by the Rock Clan. Only the medicine men, and old women of the tribe, and the maiden attendants bound to secrecy, knew of the presence there of Taneen’s child, by the queen of the outcast Antelope Clan. Nashta, Daughter of the Moon, whose skin was white as snow! Taneen’s hold upon his tribe was no stronger than that precarious secret. There was catastrophe in the air. Whispers of the departed Sheboyahs came with the swallow’s rustling flight. The chief’s great love for the outcast queen was greater than that for his people. He would cherish Nashta, her daughter, even though through that bond he brought about the doom presaged by the priests.

Taneen liked not the desolate surroundings, nor the significance of the elements. Grieved and tortured, he sought the cool shade of his thick-walled house.

At sunset the medicine men brought to Taneen a runner from the Wolf Clan. Caked with dust and sweat, this brave carried strange tidings. The Antelope Clan was no more. The angry gods had destroyed them. Clouds of smoke rose above their citadel, and long rows of carrion birds sat upon the walls. The approach to their fastness had been broken away by powers beyond the ken of the sages of the Wolf Clan.

“Taneen, take heed,” cried Clodothie, his voice filled with foreboding, “lest your people suffer the same accursed fate.”

The chief did not hear. Between deliverance from mortal foes and the death of a woman still beloved, he stood racked to the very soul. Seeking the darkness, he lay wide-eyed and afraid. But the torture was for earthly loss of the dusky-eyed woman who had outlawed her people for love of him.

A low, sand-shifting wind moaned in the clefts of the rocks. Taneen heard and felt that he was not alone. Then soft, moccasined footfalls on the terrace attested to mortal activity, the tryst of braves and maidens who dared forbidden love, even as he had dared in the days of his youth. A nighthawk shrilled a bitter cry. At last in the dead hours silence lay like a heavy mantle over the citadel. Then Taneen stalked forth upon the terrace.

A pale moon gleamed down upon the innumerable facets of rock. The gorge to the north resembled the night, menacing, mystic, waiting. Those whom Clodothie called the First People might be there in the blackness. But Taneen was certain only of a monstrous beating heart in the oppressive silence. The air had cooled and he breathed deeply. It was the midnight hour of vigil that Taneen seldom missed, and never when the moon soared high. Pale forms moved noiselessly, like spirits, out of the shadow of the great arch. Taneen watched them, his heart full to bursting. Nashta, with the star-maidens, her attendants, was stealing out to bathe in the moonlit pool below the citadel.

The austere summer days dragged on. Taneen’s high priests, for all their lore and boasted influence with the gods, failed to bring the rains. Rabbits and antelope left the valley. The Sheboyahs fell back upon their store of grain. The springs sank lower. Oljato no longer slid its pale lacy waterfall over the precipice. But the great pool under the wall, shaded from the thirsty sun, held to its shimmering level.

The mysterious fate of the Antelope Clan ceased to dominate the harangues of Taneen’s medicine men. Jealous of their power and doubtful of their strength, they bent all their efforts into prayers for rain.

One day Taneen proved to himself that he still retained the keenness of eye which in his youth had been compared to that of the eagle. Far down on the ragged red slope he made out a moving dot. He watched from his terrace. The object might be a sheep or a cougar, but he thought it was a man, and therefore kept his counsel. The black speck moved, enlarged, vanished to reappear, and was always climbing. The time came when Taneen’s fears were justified.

He called for his hunters, those of the clan who were farsighted. They came and looked long in silence.

“A tall man!”

“He is not a runner.”

“Aie! From the north.”

The braves came singly and in groups; the squaws left their tasks to line up along the ramparts; the medicine men heard and stalked forth to see. When the stranger appeared in plain sight on the slope below the base of the cliff, all the Rock Clan crowded the walls, the terraces, the roofs. The hour seemed momentous.

The stranger waved something that flashed in the moonlight. The gesture was friendly. Only the medicine men did not take it so. The maidens were in a flutter of excitement. Taneen waved an answer which was a gesture of welcome. Then old men, squaws, braves and the maidens followed their chief, and a long fluttering line of waving hands and arms could be seen along the parapets.

This visitor had the spring of a deerstalker in his stride. He came on. He climbed with no sign of weariness. He reached the first flight of cut steps in the ragged cliff. These he surmounted as one used to steep walls. Only those watchers who leaned over the ramparts could see him now. Low guttural murmurs flowed back to those behind.

Taneen saw the stranger halt at the second flight of cut steps. His upturned face flashed in the sun. He called aloft in a ringing voice. It was an unknown tongue that silenced the wondering onlookers! Then this daring visitor essayed the second stairway, soon to pass from view under the wall.

“Let down the ladders,” commanded Taneen.

The priests made loud and wailing protest. But the chief waved them into silence.

“Bring him before me,” ordered Taneen.

The high priest Clodothie raised his gaunt arms to heaven and from his cavernous chest rumbled a dolorous lamentation. It was the end. Taneen was about to receive the serpent into their midst.

Strong-armed braves slid the long spruce poles down over the parapet. Little crosspieces were bound on these poles for rungs. A brave of the Rock Clan could run up these ladders like a squirrel. It remained to be seen if this visitor could mount the walls. The silent crowd thronged twenty deep at that point, and waited breathlessly.

Taneen paced his terrace, erect and haughty, true to the nobility to which he owed his heritage; but the lament of his high priest rang like a knell in his ears.

Presently a shout went up. The stranger had surmounted the walls. Taneen turned to see the throng open to make way for a splendid striking figure of a man, striding forward between the priests. They brought the stranger before Taneen, silent, no doubt awed by his majestic presence. Taneen lifted his right hand high and voiced the welcoming words of his clan.

The visitor imitated the chief’s gesture and replied in a language which none there understood. He was a head taller than the tallest brave of Taneen’s clan. Round his eagle head and raven hair ran a beaded band, from which projected a long, graceful blue feather. His handsome face was of a markedly lighter shade than that of any brave of all the clans Taneen remembered, and its tinge of red was equally slight. His eyes, of a dark, piercing gray hue, held the secret of a great power. Taneen estimated his age to be under thirty years. His magnificent torso was naked to the waist. Below, he wore a short divided garment of buckskin, held in place by a braided girdle. From this hung a flint-headed tomahawk. Moccasins and leggings of buckskin, worn ragged, completed his attire. He carried a long bow, and at his back a quiver of arrows.

“Whence come you?” queried the chief, with slow signs correlating his question.

The stranger understood, for he answered by a sweep of his long arm to the north, indicating a far country beyond the chasms that no Sheboyah had ever crossed. He spoke again, and his speech, illustrated by signs made with his weapons, and his strong hands applied to his body, made plain that he was a hunter, that in the chase he had become lost, and had wandered across the gorges, starved and sore distressed.

Taneen indicated his watching braves, the shy-eyed maidens, the squaws, all his clan, and queried again with further sign.

“Your people?”

“Nopah!” replied the stranger, and touched the blue feather that crowned his raven hair.

“Blue Feather,” interpreted Taneen, to his gaping listeners. “Taneen makes him welcome. Give him food and drink.”

To the stern high priests Taneen said, “The Clan of the Rocks cannot change its creed because famine is abroad in the land. Or because there is a creeping cloud on the horizon. Taneen does by this strange visitor from a new people what he would ask for one of his own sons.”

With glad acclaim the young braves surrounded Blue Feather to lead him away down the terraces, followed by the whispering, murmuring maidens.

While the summer waned Blue Feather idled with the braves in the cool shade of the walls or under the brush sun shelters. He let it be known that he was content to tarry there until the cold winds of autumn would temper the heat of his long journey back to his people.

Meanwhile he learned the language of the Sheboyahs. Quick and intelligent, he soon mastered the scant vocabulary of the Rock Clan, meeting difficulty only with the words that had many meanings, each of which depended upon the intonation with which it was spoken.

Blue Feather was a trusted spy of the great Nopahs, a tribe from a far country. They were warriors and not tillers of the soil. Nothis Toh, their chief, having destroyed the little people of the cliffs beyond the vast chasms of the red river, had turned his fierce eyes toward the corn growers, the grain grinders of the caves. Blue Feather’s work was manifold. It was to make friends with this most populous Rock Clan of the Sheboyahs, to take stock of their possessions, their defenses and the approaches to their citadel, to deceive the medicine men and lastly to corrupt the braves by the subtle arts and games and herbs of which Blue Feather was master, and to work his wiles upon the young women so that they would fall into his power.

In all, the Rock Clan totaled two thousand members. A third of these were able-bodied men. Taneen’s fortress appeared impregnable to attack from the outside. The wily Sheboyahs had chosen a great unscalable crag, from which height tribe after tribe could be repulsed. Only through strategy and surprise, through treachery within the citadel, could Taneen be overcome. The huge circular bins were bursting with grain, the cisterns were full, and the deep pool of water under the arch would not fail that year. Taneen could withstand a siege longer than even the Nopahs might sustain one.

From some untraceable source, Blue Feather had received a vague hint of an underground passage beneath the citadel. Inimitable actor that he was, he played his part, growing doubly sure of a conquest which would earn him great honor among the Nopahs.

The summer passed and the cool days came. Grass and grain in the valley below had withered. The springs had dried up. Blue Feather heard the exhortations of the medicine men, and they filled him with contempt. They did not know how to propitiate the rain gods. When the vine leaves and the lichens turned gold, Blue Feather resorted to his arts.

The braves of the Sheboyahs, and many of the matured men, were fond of games, especially those that called for fleetness of foot and the exhibition of strength. Blue Feather affected laziness and indifference, causing the young men to deride their guest from the unknown Nopahs. The bolder of the maidens, urged by their brothers and sweethearts, added their gay taunts. So at last Blue Feather let himself be persuaded to enter the races, but only on his condition that each competitor wager something. As Blue Feather had divined, this ultimatum of his greatly excited the braves. They were all born gamblers.

The racecourse and field for games lay outside the citadel, on a patch of level ground surrounded by steps of rocks, where the spectators sat. Blue Feather judged from the worn, smooth ground that the Sheboyahs passed much time at their games. Generations of the Rock Clan had played there. High above the desert, like a perch for eagles, with the forbidding lowlands far below, and a fringe of spear-pointed spruce trees standing all around the oval, this playground made a strong appeal to Blue Feather. Among the Nopahs, a tribe of exceeding prowess in all feats that developed fighters, he was pre-eminent.

So Blue Feather raced with the first brave chosen to compete, and ran away from him easily. Then one after another Blue Feather defeated the clan’s fleetest runners to the number of five more. There arose a clamor from the discomfited braves.

“Tith-lei! Tith-lei!” they shouted. Blue Feather was to learn that Tith-lei, the Mole, was not only the fleetest runner of the Rock Clan, but champion of all the Sheboyahs.

“Blue Feather is not a bird that he can fly a seventh race in one day,” replied the victor haughtily.

The defeated braves and their backers argued for a competition on the morrow, that they might recoup their losses. Blue Feather agreed to race, but only provided the stakes were larger. Then while he rested the braves indulged in their favorite games. One in particular attracted Blue Feather. In the center of a circle there had been imbedded a post of petrified wood so that about three feet of it projected above the ground. The top of the post was round and polished so smoothly that it shone in the sunlight. A long pole and a small hoop constituted the other implements needed for this game. From an established line the hoop had to be tossed or rolled, by the aid of the pole, and the object of the game was to put the hoop over the post. Blue Feather admitted the dexterity necessary to excel at this game, and resolved to come out in the dead of night to perfect himself at it. His plot called for the winning of all their games before he introduced those of the Nopahs.

That afternoon and night news of the race on the morrow and the size of the wagers went from lip to lip all over the citadel. It augured well for Blue Feather’s plan to inflame the gambling passion of the Rock Clan.

Therefore he was not surprised, when in the morning he sallied forth, to find the populace streaming out to see the race. Blue Feather thrilled at sight of the hosts of maidens, brightly clad, and in the gay mood that befitted the occasion. So far it had suited his purpose to remain aloof, impervious to the many shy advances they had ventured toward him. But this occasion might well be an auspicious one to begin his conquest of the maidens of the tribe.

Taneen and his chiefs and priests occupied seats at the top of the rock ledge. Below them and to each side extended the colorful throng, halfway round the oval field. Braves were tossing a ball to and fro.

Blue Feather stalked proudly before the double row of maidens. His heart swelled and for the time being he forgot the evil design he had upon this peaceful tribe. He reveled in the fluttering awe and admiration that he excited in them. His quick and roving eye soon picked out Ba-lee, one of the prettiest maidens of the clan, whose dusky glances toward him had not passed unnoticed.

He made her a gallant bow.

“There is no maiden to wear this for me,” he said, touching the blue feather in his hair.

“Perhaps the Nopah runner has not asked,” Ba-lee replied, her dark eyes alight. They told Blue Feather that he had not far to go to awaken fire in their slumbering depths.

“Blue Feather has not yet been so bold—but ... ,” and he removed the long graceful ornament from its band.

Ba-lee gave a little gasp of expectant pleasure, while whispers and murmurs ran through the bevy of maidens with her.

At that moment Tith-lei, the Mole, rival runner to be paired with Blue Feather that day, came up escorted by many braves. He was little, and his mean, half-shut eyes no doubt had won him the sobriquet of “The Mole.” His sight was keen, however, for he betrayed jealousy at the spectacle of Blue Feather before Ba-lee. The maiden reacted subtly to this encounter. Blue Feather’s swift thought was that Tith-lei was deeply enamored of her, a passion which she did not return.

Blue Feather tendered his token to the maiden. “If Ba-lee will wear this the Nopah runner cannot lose the race.”

She bent her glossy dark head while Blue Feather stuck the feather in her hair, so that it stood up proudly. Tith-lei hissed like a snake. If he had not been Blue Feather’s enemy before, he instantly became so now. Ba-lee threw back her dainty head and laughed with her maidens. But the swift half-veiled glance she shot Blue Feather told him of his conquest.

Then the runners were called to the starting point. Tith-lei stripped to his buckskin breechcloth. Blue Feather cast an inquisitive and critical gaze over his antagonist. Tith-lei’s wide and deep chest, his narrow loins and his thin sinewy legs convinced Blue Feather that in a long race of endurance the Rock Clan racer would prove a rival to be feared. In a short race, however, he could not contend with the Nopah.

Poised, the racers toed the line. They were instructed to run around the stake at the far end of the field and back to the starting point. He who first touched the starter’s hand would be declared the winner. A brave raised his drumstick. When the boom resounded the runners leaped into action.

Blue Feather kept pace with Tith-lei and watched him cunningly. The faster Tith-lei went the faster Blue Feather ran to keep up with him. Thus they reached and rounded the far stake. Then like an arrow from a bow Blue Feather shot ahead into his marvelous stride, that was twice as long and quick as Tith-lei’s. He left the boasted racer of the Sheboyahs as if he had been rooted to the earth.

The yelling of the braves and the screaming of the maidens rang sweet in Blue Feather’s ears. He had heard that blended roar before. If the Rock Clan loved a runner, let them see the greatest of the Nopahs in all his glory.

Taneen’s tribe uncrowned a champion that eventful day. The chief came down from his seat to place a hand upon Blue Feather’s heaving shoulder.

“The Nopah runs like the antelope,” he said. “Taneen would be proud of such a son.”

But the high priests glowered upon Blue Feather, and the panting Tith-lei cast malignant eyes of jealousy and hate upon him. Yet among the braves, even those who had lost their wagers to the Nopah, he became more popular than ever. And among the maidens, when he sought Ba-lee to retrieve his blue feather, he was a hero. Coyly Ba-lee held the feather behind her back, and besought him to give it to her to keep.

“Someday, perhaps, when the Nopah has won all—and you,” replied Blue Feather boldly.

In the still, smoky days that followed, Blue Feather played and won at all the games of the Rock Clan except those which involved feats of strength. He held back here, letting the braves imagine that he was weak of arm and back. Then he taught them a Nopah game the tempo of which was very fast and furious. To win a player had to drive a ball with a crooked stick through a hole in the wall. Another game he taught them the braves liked even better. It was to knock a ball made of a kangaroo-rat skin into a hole at the top of a mound in the center of the court.

Blue Feather always won. At any game or contest or wager he was invariably the winner. But the fact that he seemed to shun feats of great strength left him vulnerable at one point. The braves taunted him with the one thing at which they believed he could be beaten.

One bright afternoon all the Rock Clan was again out upon the open field. The center of attraction appeared to be a round stone a little more than knee-high. Blue Feather asked of the maidens what the stone was for.

“That is the Man-Rock,” replied Ba-lee, earnestly. “At a certain age every boy of the clan has to go out each day and tug at this stone and try to move it. When he can roll it he becomes a brave, and when he can lift it off the ground he is a man, and when he can carry it he becomes a chief.

“Blue Feather, you carry the Man-Rock,” pleaded Ba-lee, her little brown hands clinging to him. “Ba-lee knows you can. Have you not lifted her as easily as though she were thistledown? ... Show them and make Ba-lee rejoice. Tith-lei is jealous. He swears that you are weak. That he will kill you in battle. And, oh, my Nopah, if he does, Ba-lee will die and her soul will wander lost forever!”

Blue Feather joined the circle around the lifting stone. One young Indian after another tugged and heaved; others, more mature, budged and moved it. Tith-lei bent over it and the muscles of his back corded and strained. But loud cries from the watchers attested to the fact that he had lifted it off the ground. The medicine men proclaimed the feat to all. Tith-lei staggered erect, spent and purple of face, sweat pouring off his shoulders. In triumph he confronted Blue Feather.

“No-pah!” he panted. “Winged foot—big talk—squaw hunter! ... If you are—a man—lift the rock!”

Clodothie, the priest, gave vent to his long-damned up suspicion and hatred of this interloper from an unknown tribe.

“Carry the rock—if you would stay longer among the Sheboyahs!” he demanded.

“Little people, you would learn if the Nopahs are strong?” queried Blue Feather contemptuously, for once giving way to anger at these taunting enemies of his tribe. “Behold!”

Bending over the stone, he lifted it without apparent effort and carried it all the way back to the spot where it had rested when first the forefathers of the Rock Clan had instigated this man-building custom. The spectators exclaimed in wondrous awe at the feat. Blue Feather had carried the stone as far as had the combined efforts of hundreds of braves throughout the years. Then with wrath upon his brow he bounded up the ledge, and laying hold of a dead spruce tree he lifted with slow and tremendous might, getting it on his bowed shoulder. Staggering, with whistling breath, he carried it down to crash it at the feet of those who had been taunting him.

The high priest raised his arms as if in the presence of one imbued with godlike powers. Tith-lei’s ghastly face betrayed the end of the bold plan that he must now abandon. Fear in the breasts of the braves overpowered their awe and admiration. But the squaws screeched their delight at Blue Feather’s prowess, and the maidens gave him wild acclaim.

To these admirers, and to the few braves who pretended not to have been too deeply impressed by the dramatic revelation of Blue Feather’s power, he gave an explanation of the reason that he always won. His grandmother had taught him a ceremony, through which, if successfully performed, the gods of chance would throw all in his favor; but if he failed in the least detail of this exceedingly difficult legendary rite he would never win again at anything. Blue Feather told how he had dared. His ancient grandmother had bidden him take some corn pollen, and pollen from other plants, and lie down before the hole of a lizard, and place some of the pollen upon his hand, palm upward, and chant the four songs she taught him. He must wait until the lizard came out to eat the pollen, and the singer must not move while the lizard was out nor while he was singing, nor forget one single word of the songs.

“Teach us the songs,” cried the ambitious braves. But Blue Feather shook his head.

Blue Feather had a great store of turquoise and jet, weapons of flint, bows and arrows, beaded buckskin moccasins and garments, sheaths and bags, necklaces of bone, skins and blankets, all of which he had won from the braves of the Rock Clan. They borrowed and begged and stole articles to pit against his acquired possessions, not that they dearly loved what they had lost, but because of their insatiable passion for gambling, which Blue Feather had encouraged.

This was what the crafty Nopah wanted. He refused to run more races or play more games, saying that it would be unfair to contest further with them in ways wherein he had established his superiority. But in gambling, which allowed them the same element of chance as himself, he would meet them halfway. So they fell to gambling, a practice which was forbidden by the medicine men. And as before, Blue Feather always won.

Now about this time Blue Feather imposed upon his victims a habit far more dangerous than gambling. He had brought in his large quiver a goodly supply of blue gum, which when chewed brought on a kind of intoxication. Blue Feather introduced this evil habit little by little, to one brave at a time. And the sweet and potent drug affected each so powerfully and ecstatically that he kept the use of it a secret. Blue Feather knew then that if he could brew the concoction in sufficient amounts it would not take long to corrupt the entire fighting force of the Rock Clan. This blue gum was made from the heart of a mescal plant boiled with a resinous pitch which exuded from some species of evergreen. Blue Feather knew how to make it if only he could find the ingredients.

His days then were consumed with gambling in secluded niches of the rocks or in abandoned kivas. His nights were devoted to exerting his powers of fascination upon the women.

One moonlight night Blue Feather waited for Ba-lee on a terrace at the lower end of the citadel. As he had arrived late at the rendezvous, he assumed that she had come and gone. He reflected wonderingly that Ba-lee seldom seemed to spend time with him late at night. The squaws were strict with their daughters; and upon Ba-lee especially there was a restraint that he could not understand.

Blue Feather gazed down into the black gulf of the chasms. He knew that his father, Nothis Toh, with his bravest warriors, was hidden in the green valley under the red walls, waiting for the spy to return and guide them to the massacre of the Rock Clan. But that hour had not yet come. Blue Feather’s task was not yet accomplished.

On this night, as once before, there were spirits abroad on the cool wind; and their voices were unintelligible to the spy. They seemed not to bear messages from the gods of the Nopahs. Their presence around Blue Feather, as he waited for Ba-lee, weighed upon him and troubled him. Ruthless Nopah that he was, no remorse abided in his heart. But there was a mystery here that he could not fathom. And unknown terrible events to come seemed to bring warnings from the shadows.

Silence enfolded the scene, except for rustlings as of soft invisible wings on the air. It boded the death and loneliness and decay that hovered over this crag peopled with sleeping Sheboyahs. The silvered desert stretched away to the south, endless and desolate, untenanted by life or spirit.

Blue Feather shook off this nameless oppression and went his way. The next night when the moon was full he walked with Ba-lee along the western wall, and reproached her for her failure to meet him the night before.

“Ba-lee was there,” said the maiden. “But the hours are not all hers.”

He faced her in the moonlight and drew her close with swift and rude hands.

“Blue Feather will kill that blinking, mole-eyed Tith-lei,” he whispered passionately.

Like a bird in the coils of a snake Ba-lee quivered. “Ba-lee is true. She cannot help it that Tith-lei watches and plots.”

“Then if Blue Feather kills him?”

“Ba-lee will not care. Her love is—here,” whispered the maiden, her dusky eyes shining, and she laid her cheek upon his bare breast.

Blue Feather’s jealousy seemed appeased, but he was not yet completely satisfied. Ba-lee loved him wildly, yet he did not believe that she would ever betray the secrets of the Rock Clan.

“Blue Feather soon must go back to his people.”

“Ah! ... He will forsake the Sheboyah girl. He has played with Ba-lee and her sisters. They, too, love him. And they are afraid. They do not trust the warrior from the north. Blue Feather is the lover of many.”

“Does Ba-lee fear the Nopah?”

“Ba-lee does not know where love ends and fear begins,” she replied mournfully.

“What do the old men say?”

“That the Nopah has weaned our braves from play and work to drunkenness and gambling ... that he has cast a spell upon our maidens.”

“Blue Feather wants to leave by night ... not by the ladders ... not to be seen. Tith-lei would shoot an arrow into his back.... Will Ba-lee guide Blue Feather to the secret way down under the walls?”

The maiden shook in his arms. Her lips denied, but her eyes betrayed.

“Ha! So great is the love of Ba-lee for the Nopah! She will see him languish here.”

“Not death for herself does Ba-lee fear.... But for others as well—if she betrays.”

Blue Feather was answered, and cold thrills coursed his frame. The maiden knew the secret passage. But more than honor sealed her lips. More than life itself! He was content to let that knowledge suffice for the time. But he would break her to his will. Then, sustained by the knowledge that his perilous enterprise was soon to be accomplished, he caressed the maiden until she lay spent and rapt upon his breast. For once she forgot the fleeting hours. When the white moon had soared high above, riding serene in the dark blue sky, Ba-lee seemed to awaken as from a trance. She uttered a dolorous little cry.

“Oh, the moon is high! It is late. Ba-lee must go,” she whispered, trembling as she slipped from him.

“The squaws and old men are deep in slumber.”

“No!” she cried, eluding his long arm.

“All are asleep, Ba-lee. Stay with Blue Feather.”

“No!” she breathed, and fled.

Blue Feather watched her glide away and it struck him again that something vastly more vital than fear of her mother had possessed her. The dark eyes opening suddenly to the moon had expressed an emotion close to actual terror. Blue Feather had no faith in these Sheboyah maidens, but that might have derived from his contempt for an inferior race. Her people wanted her to become the wife of Tith-lei. She had probably been promised to the Mole. Whatever actuated her piqued anew Blue Feather’s jealousy, and for the first time he followed her.

The moonlight divided the citadel into bars of silver and ebony. The hour was midnight. Ba-lee’s gliding form melted into the shadow of a wall, reappeared to steal across a white lane into blackness again. Blue Feather quickened his step. Ba-lee had gone toward her dwelling, and then she had turned abruptly away from the center of the citadel. She was not going home. Blue Feather muttered a sibilant curse. He would surprise Ba-lee with Tith-lei and strangle them both.

Blue Feather lost trace of Ba-lee after she had stolen like a specter down the west terraces. The great arched crags loomed there, and in their shadow lay the granaries and cisterns. Blue Feather had been satisfied to ascertain that they were full and sealed. A shaft of moonlight came down from a ragged notch in the wall, to pierce the gloom. The keen-eyed spy saw Ba-lee cross it. To Blue Feather’s amazement she appeared to be going on under the very arch of stone. Perhaps the cunning Tith-lei had arranged with her to meet him there.

At length Blue Feather passed out of the silver moonlight into the deep shadow. He was approaching the rough west side of the huge eminence upon which Taneen maintained his citadel. The crags rose high and they were utterly unscalable. A blank space appeared hollowed out under the rached cliff. It was a shallow cavern that by day Blue Feather had noticed was filled with firewood. Below it the ledges dropped down like steps to the gorge on the west.

Suddenly Blue Feather gave a quivering start, like that of a panther when it sights its prey. Moving forms were gliding out of the shadow into the moonlight. Slight forms to the number of three, one of which was clad all in white. Blue Feather thought he recognized Ba-lee, her stature and walk. Sheboyah girls bent on a midnight lark! Or did Ba-lee have friends who met their lovers in secret? The figures passed out of sight around the corner of the wall.

The spy ran with softly padding feet down to the point where the maidens had disappeared. Peeping around the corner, he stood transfixed and thrilled. The dark pool shone like burnished silver in the moonlight. Ba-lee and her accomplices in this mysterious midnight adventure were gliding through a fringe of willows. Blue Feather’s grim mood lightened and he laughed noiselessly. The little devils meant to bathe in the crystal pool banned by the priests. Blue Feather resolved to surprise them in the act. Stealthily he descended, keeping in the dense shadows. Reaching the willows, he crawled very slowly and silently to a slight aperture in the foliage and peered out.

On the silver sand at the margin of the shimmering pool, scarcely three strides distant, stood the three maidens in a glory of moonlight that seemed to magnify the beauty of the place. Blue Feather remembered a dream of his mother’s. Once in Blue Feather’s life he was to meet something of transcendent beauty, from which, if he succumbed to it, must come certain ruin and death.

Ba-lee was binding up the shining black tresses of the maiden in the pale robe. She was taller than Ba-lee and her little head was borne on her slender neck with regal grace. Blue Feather could not see her face. The third girl was kneeling on the sand at her feet.

“O my mistress,” Ba-lee was murmuring, in poignant contrition, “forgive Ba-lee! She was late again.”

“Child, as you are beloved, so are you forgiven,” replied a flutelike voice. “But Nashta cannot answer for the gods that hideous Clodothie prates about so continuously.”

“Our Daughter of the Moon,” said the kneeling maiden, “it is not long after midnight.”

“My gentle slaves, you know that only the full moon at midnight must shine on Nashta when she is disrobed.”

“Oh, dare we risk the anger of the gods?” cried Ba-lee fearfully. “They may tell Clodothie. He will see only evil befalling the Rock Clan.”

“Nashta would risk more than that ... just to have one brief adventure like Ba-lee’s with the Nopah!”

“Ba-lee begs the gods forbid. She should keep her lips sealed.”

“But Nashta is also a woman. Tell her more of him—the racer with the blue feather.”

“Tonight Ba-lee went from Tith-lei to Blue Feather. And her heart is heavy. She is pledged to one. She loves the other. Blue Feather swears he will kill the Mole.”

“Does Blue Feather love Ba-lee?”

“Oh, woe! He swears it with a laugh on his lips. But he loves many. La-clos here will tell Nashta. She also loves the Nopah.”

“La-clos, are you too such a fool?” queried the Daughter of the Moon as she slipped a dazzling white arm and shoulder from her robe.

“He is a master of women,” mourned the maiden. “He is not of our race. He is beautiful—and terrible!”

“Ah! La-clos—Ba-lee, you fear this stranger?”

La-clos bowed her dark head. Ba-lee answered in shame, “Ba-lee’s soul is not her own.”

“Nashta has seen no man save her father and the priests. Then only by night. She would see this Nopah by day, though the sun strike her blind!”

“Hush, Nashta! ... What is it that Ba-lee hears?”

They gazed around fearfully. Only the silence and moon-blanched water and silvery rocks were there; Nashta turned toward the willows, revealing a lovely face white as the white lily that blooms in the gorges. Her eyes were like two dark pools in the moonlight. Then Ba-lee stripped the robe from Nashta, and the white maiden stepped out of it, upon the moonlit sand.

Blue Feather felt something enter his heart that was like a piercing blade. The beauty and the warning of his mother’s dream both had come true. In that instant he knew that though he was mortal what he now beheld was a spectacle reserved only for gods. But this Nashta, this maiden called Daughter of the Moon, was not a goddess. She moved, she emanated an exquisite fragrance upon the still night air, she shone white as the driven snow in the silver light. She embodied all the loveliness of all the dreams and the legends of the Nopahs.

Blue Feather hurled his transfixed body out upon the sand. Ba-lee fell to her knees with an agonized cry. La-clos became a statue of stone. Nashta neither started back nor uttered a sound. The wondering, enveloping flash of her great black eyes all but sent the bold intruder into precipitate flight. Nashta stood naked before him and unashamed. She seemed like a child who had never known any distinction between being naked and being clothed.

“Ba-lee, cover her,” commanded Blue Feather.

Both maidens were galvanized into immediate action. In another moment Nashta stood draped to her white face, out of which blazed her dark, proud, challenging eyes.

“Nashta, princess or maiden, you have your wish. It is the Nopah!”

“Oh, Ba-lee!” she faltered.

He no longer doubted that never before in this maiden’s life had she gazed upon a young and ardent brave. When he enfolded her in his arms she let her lovely head fall upon his breast.

“Blue Feather,” said the spy, his enraptured voice trembling with the great wonder that filled his heart.