Putokya was silent.
“I heard you from where I was,” said Metsi; “when you had a bad dream, I heard you in the south, heard you everywhere, heard you when you turned to be a Putokya, one of the head people, and wanted to kill everybody. You used to be good, you used to be wise, but now you are sick; you will die, and be among people no longer unless you are cured. That is why I started to come south; I started south to find you, to see you. It is a good thing that you came up here; now I see you. I am your relative, your cousin. I want you to be healthy, to be as you were before; to have your arms and legs again, to feel well. I want to cure you.”
Metsi was sobbing all this time. He pretended to be awfully sorry; he wasn’t, for Metsi wasn’t sorry for any one, didn’t care for any one on earth; he only wanted to put Putokya out of the way, to kill him. Metsi was a great cheat.
“A good while ago,” said Metsi, “I met a man like you. He had had a dream, and he was nothing but a head, just like you. I travelled then as I am travelling to-day, and met this man just as I meet you now on this road. If you believe what I tell you, all right; if you don’t believe, it’s all the same to me. I will tell you what I did for that man, how I cured him. Do you want me to tell you what I did for him?”
Putokya was looking all the time with great wildcat eyes at the old woman. Now he spoke, saying: “Talk more, tell me all, old woman. I want to hear what you have to say.”
“Well, I made a man of that head,” said the old woman. “I cured that Putokya; I made him over. I made him new, and he walked around as well as before; I gave him legs and arms; all the bad went out of him; I made him clean and sound and good again.”
“How did you do that, old woman?” asked Putokya. “How can you make a man over again? I want to see that.”
“I will tell you how I do it. I will fix you; I will fix you right here on this road, just as I fixed that other man. I made a hole in the ground; a long hole, a pretty big one. I lined it with rocks; I made a little fire of manzanita wood, and when it was nice and warm in the hole, I put plenty of pitch in, and put the man on top of the pitch. It was good and soft for him, and nice and pleasant on the pitch. I put a flat rock over the hole. He stayed there a while and was cured.”
Putokya believed all this; had full faith in Metsi, and said,—
“Very well, you fix me as you fixed that other man; make me new again, just as I used to be.”