"Just so!" drawled Old Man Selden. "Just so!"
CHAPTER XXII
THE WATCHMAN OF THE DEAD
Oliver Drew knew that the Mona Fiesta would be held by the Showut Poche-dakas when the July moon was full. The Mona Fiesta was the tribal "Feast of the Dead." It was purely an Indian rite, unmixed with any ceremonies incident to the feast days of the Catholic saints, as were most other celebrations. Consequently, while the whites were not definitely prohibited from being spectators, they were not invited to attend. They often went out of curiosity, Oliver had been told by Jessamy, but always they observed from a respectful distance and went unnoticed by the worshippers.
The underlying principle of the Feast of the Dead was ancestor worship, in which all of the Pauba Tribes were particularly devout. Jessamy told Oliver that she had witnessed the ceremony once from a distance, but that, as it occurred at night, she had seen little of what was taking place.
Oliver had wondered that he had received no message from old Chupurosa Hatchinguish after the night of the fire dance. He was now a member of the tribe, he supposed, but all actual contact with his new-found brethren seemed to have ceased when he rode away from the fiesta. The mystery of why he was in this country hung on his connection with the Showut Poche-dakas. He was impatient to get in closer touch with the wrinkled old chief and bring matters to a head.
And now another feast day was close at hand. In two more nights a full moon would shower its radiance over the land of the Poison Oakers. He had received no word, no intimation that he would be wanted at the reservation for the Mona Fiesta. Whites were excluded, he knew; but, then, he was now a brother of the Showut Poche-dakas, and he hoped against hope that he would be commanded to appear.
But the two intervening days went by, and the evening of the celebration was at hand, with no one having arrived to bid him come.
He was seated on his little porch that evening, listening to the night sounds of chaparral and forest, as the moon edged its big round face over the hill and smiled at him. He was thinking half of Jessamy, half of an article that he had planned to write. Two fair-sized checks for previous work had reached him that week, and he was beginning to have visions of a future.