"How so?" inquired the other. "Canst thou see through the rock with thy bright eyes, Blossom?"
"The cunning medicine man goes not to pray to his Manito," answered Otaitsa, "nor to converse with his Hawenneyo. Neither does he wander forth to fulfil his fasts in the solitude to the east. Yet he will find no dry deer's flesh there, my sister, nor any of the firewater he loves so well. But away there, where I have gathered many a strawberry when I was young, there is a deep rift in the rock, where you may walk a hundred paces on flat ground, with the high cliffs all around you. The wildcat cannot spring up, and the deer winks as he looks down. It has but a narrow entrance, for the jaws of the rock are half open; and I know now where they have hid my brother. That is enough, for this night, to Otaitsa."
"And what wilt thou do next?" asked her companion.
"Nay, I know not," answered the Blossom. "The sky grows darker; the night is coming on, and we must follow the setting sun if we would not have Apukwa see us. We have yet time, for the gloomy place he goes to is two thousand paces farther. Come. Be assured, dear sister, I will call for thy aid when it is needful, and thou wilt as soon refuse it as the flower refuses honey to the bee. Step carefully in the low places, that they see not the tracks of thy little feet."
Thus saying, Otaitsa led the way from their place of concealment with a freer air, for she knew that Apukwa had far to go, but with as cautious a tread as ever, lest returning before the sun had fully fallen, he should see the footprints in the snow.
They had been gone some ten minutes when, creeping silently down along the trail from the east, the medicine man appeared at the farthest corner of the rock, within sight; but he was not alone. The Indian whom they called the brother of the Snake was with him. The latter, however, remained at the point where he could see both ways, while Apukwa came swiftly forward. At the spot where the trail separated he paused and looked earnestly down upon the ground, bending his head almost to his knees. Then he seemed to track something along the trail toward the Indian Castle; and then, turning back, walked slowly up to the rock, following exactly the path by which the two women had returned. At length he seemed satisfied, and quickening his pace he rejoined his companion. "Thou art right, brother," he said. "There were two. What dimmed thine eyes, that thou canst not tell who they were?"
"I was far," answered the other, "and there is shadow upon shadow."
"Was not one Otaitsa?" asked the medicine man, slowly. "Could the brother of the Snake fail to know the Blossom he loves to look at?"
"If my eyes were not hidden, it was not she," replied his companion. "Never did I see the great sachem's daughter go out, even when the sun has most fire, without her mantle round her. This woman had none."
"Which woman?" asked Apukwa. "Thou saidst there were two."