Navajo number two looked closely at the corpse; then he grasped the hair again and resumed the cutting. Number one touched his arm.
"Why do you do this?" he asked.
The other chuckled.
"Dost thou not see it, Nacaytzusle," said he; "the people of the houses know that we only take a lock of the hair. If now they find the body and see that this"—he pointed to the skin—"is gone, they will think it is one of those up here"—waving his hand to the north—"that has done it."
Nacaytzusle, for he was indeed the second Navajo, nodded approvingly and suffered the other to go on.
Cutting, scraping, tearing, and pulling, he at last succeeded in making a deep incision around the skull. Blood flowed over his fingers and hands. Then he grasped the gray hair, planted himself with both feet on the neck, and pulled until the scalp was wrenched off and dangled in his fist. Over the bare skull numberless fillets of blood began to trickle, at once changing the face and neck of the dead into a red mass. Then he turned to the other, nodded, and said,—
Nacaytzusle turned his eyes upon the dead, and replied in a hoarse voice,—
"It is well."
He scanned the surroundings suspiciously.