"Do you know whether Tyope is mourning?" asked his uncle.
"I have not seen him," grumbled the other.
"I am sure he will look as if his mother had died," scolded Hayoue. "He is a great liar, worse than a Navajo. He puts on a good face and keeps the bad one inside. I would like to know what the Shiuana think of that bad man."
"Have we any bad women among us?" Okoya said, to change the conversation.
"Hannay is bad!" his uncle cried.
A pang went through the heart of the other youth. His prospective father and mother in-law appeared really a pair of exquisite scoundrels.
"Are there any others?"
"I don't know, still I have heard." Hayoue looked about as if afraid of some eavesdropper,—"what I tell you now is only for yourself,—that Shotaye is bad, very bad! After being Tyope's wife for a while, I should not be surprised if—"
"Does she speak to those that can do us harm?" Okoya interrupted in a timid whisper.
"It may be. There is no doubt but she is a harlot; I know it myself, and every man on the Tyuonyi knows it. Other women are also spoken of, but nobody says it aloud. It is not right to speak thus of people when we do not know positively. I have not seen Shotaye since our father died. She is mourning perhaps, for her cave is shut and the deerskin hangs over the doorway. She is likely to be inside in quiet until the trouble is over and the men can go to her again."