“Rest easy, sister.  Believe me,” the medicine-woman assured her, “you are saved; they can do you no harm.”

It rained softly in the court-yard; inside of the room it went on, pat, pat, pat, pat, dripping through the ceiling.

Shotaye resumed the conversation.

“Speak, sa tao,” she said; “speak, and tell me what you think.  Why is it that you still believe that bad men will be able to do you harm?  Don’t you know, sister, that you are safe from them now, and that they cannot injure you any more?”

Say Koitza shook her head gloomily and replied, pointing to her ear and eye,—­

“Sanaya, what the ear hears and the eye sees, the heart must fain believe.”

“Then speak to me; tell me, sa uishe, what it is that your ear has heard, your eye has seen, that makes your heart so sad.”  The woman spoke softly, entreatingly, as if she was soothing a sick child.  But the object of her sympathy sighed, and continued, in the same tone of utter despondency,—­

“Sister, had you been present at the ayash tyucotz, when all the people danced and sang, your eyes would have seen what the heart could not approve.  I saw my son Okoya Tihua, the child of Tanyi hanutsh, dancing beside Mitsha Koitza, the girl from Tyame; and she is the daughter of our base enemy.”

[Illustration:  Type of old Indian woman]

“Is that all that causes you trouble, koya?” Shotaye very placidly asked.  “Listen to me further, yaya,” Say entreated.  “This morning I took the boy to task for it, and then I found out that Mitsha is near to him,—­nearer than his own mother.  I discovered that he goes to see her, and thus gets to the house of the woman of whom they say that she is Tyope’s ear and eye, tongue and mouth.  What do you say to that, sa tao?”

Shotaye smiled.  “Have you ever spoken to Mitsha?”

“Never!” exclaimed Say.  “How could I speak to one whose mother is a sand-viper, and whose father a carrion crow?”

“Is that all?”

“You know,” Say cried, “how mean Tyope is!  If my child goes to see his child, is it not easy for the young serpent to ask this and that of my son?  Then she will go and tell the old sand-viper, her mother, who will whisper it to Tyope himself.  Don’t you see it, sister?”

The argument was forcible, and Shotaye felt the truth of it.  The other proceeded,—­

“Okoya may have been going with the girl for a long while; and I knew nothing of it.  Have you found out, sister,”—­she leaned forward and looked at her guest with a very earnest expression,—­“how the Koshare have learned about the owl’s feathers in my house?”

The other shook her head and shrugged her shoulders.

“Neither have I,” continued Say; “but might not Okoya—­” The hand of her friend closed her lips.

“Hush!” cried the medicine-woman, imperatively; “speak not, believe not, think not, such a thing!  Okoya is good; I, too, know the boy.  He will never do what you suspect.”