He moved his body forward where he could examine the soil alongside the ledge.  The grass was nowhere bent and broken, still that was no sufficient indication.  There at last was a plain human track, the impression of a naked foot with its toe-marks to the north, and the impression was fresh!  But the Tehua walked on round sandals.  Had he not lost one of them?  It was very uncomfortable walking on one of the circular disks only.  Topanashka rose on hands and feet and crept farther, regardless of what might be behind him.  His eyes were directed northward and he relied upon his ear to warn him of danger in the rear.

The trail lay before him quite distinct for a short distance.  Close to it some grasses were bent, and on the sandy place near by there was a print as if from a small hoop, but the impression was old and partly blurred.  In vain did the old warrior search for other marks; the rain had obliterated everything except this faint trace that might originally have been plainer because deeper.  It looked as if the wearer of the sandal had stepped on the grass-bunch with the fore part of his foot, slipped back lightly, and thus pressed the hind part of the hoop deeper into the soil.  In that case some trace of the heel-print might still be found.  And indeed a very slight concavity appeared behind the impression of the sandal.  The heel was turned from the north, consequently the man was going to, not coming from the Rito.  The tracks were surely old ones.

Everything was plain now.  The Tehua had lost one of his sandals and was returning on his bare feet.  But why should he leave it?  Why did he not take it along?  Even that Topanashka could easily explain.  People from the Rito frequently roamed over the northern mesa, close to the Tyuonyi.  He might have noticed the presence of some of them, and have fled in haste, leaving his foot-gear behind.  Most likely the ties or thongs had given way, and he had no time to mend them.  That was an evidence also that the man was alone, else he would not have fled with such precipitation.  Neither was he in this vicinity any longer.  Topanashka felt that his task was done; he could not gain anything by proceeding farther.

“Kuawk, kuawk, kuawk!” sounded overhead.  A crow had been sitting quietly on the tree above him, but now it flew off again, the unlucky bird!  Its cry startled the old man, and he raised his head to look after the herald of evil, following him with his eye.  All was still.  Then he rose to his knees.

A sharp humming twang, a hissing sound, and a thud followed in lightning-like succession.  Topanashka bends over, and at the same time tumbles forward on his face.  There he lies, the left cheek and shoulder on the ground.  The left arm, with which he has sought to support the body, has slipped; and it now lies fully extended partly below the head, the prostrate head.  The chest is heaving painfully, as if under extraordinary pressure.  Face and neck are colouring; the lips part; the throat makes a convulsive effort to swallow.  The eyes are starting; they denote suffocation and terrible pain.  The legs twitch; they seem struggling to come to the rescue of the body’s upper half.