Nacaytzusle looked straight at him.
"Do you believe," he hissed in turn, "that if I were to go down to the brook and tell the tapop what you have urged me and my people to do against your kin that he would not reward me?"
Tyope Tihua became very quiet; his features lost the threatening tension which they had displayed, his eyes opened, and he said in a softer tone,—
"That is just what I want you to do. But I want this from you alone. Go and see the tapop. Tell him not the small talk about this and that, but what you have seen with your own eyes about Shotaye, that witch, that snake,—of her dark ways, how she sneaked through the brush on the mesa, and how she found and gathered the plumage of the accursed owl. Tell him all, and I will carry Mitsha to your lodges, tied and gagged if needs be."
"Why don't you send the girl out alone? I will wait for her wherever you say."
"Do you think that I would be so silly?" the Pueblo retorted with a scornful laugh. "Do you really believe I would do such a thing? No, Dinne, you and your people may be much more cunning than mine in many ways, but we are not so stupid as that. If I were to do that, you would rob me of my handsome maiden and that would be the last of it. No, Dinne, I do not need you to such an extent, I am not obliged to have you. But if you go to the Tyuonyi and accuse the witch, then you shall go out free, and Mitsha must follow you to the hogans of your people, whether she will or not. Do what I tell you, and I will do as I promise. If you will not neither will I, for mind, I do not need you any longer."
Tyope glanced at the stars with an air of the utmost indifference. Nacaytzusle had listened quietly. Now he said without raising his eyes,—
"Tyope, you ask me to do all this, and do not even give me a pledge. You are wise, Tyope, much wiser than we people of the hogans. Give me some token that you also will do what you have said when I have performed my part. Give me"—he pointed to the alabaster tablet hanging on Tyope's necklace—"that okpanyi on your neck."
It was so dark that Nacaytzusle in extending his arm involuntarily touched the other's chest. Tyope drew back at the touch and replied, rather excitedly,—
"No, I will not give you any pledge!"