Into the air spun the three sticks again, but as they came down Wiki saw with disappointment that one showed the white side while the other two had fallen with the red uppermost.
“No play,” cried Kwasa.
“But I have one more throw,” said Wiki, and this time three reds gleamed against the gray rock floor.
“One space, anyway,” said Wiki, and this time a red pebble on the farther side of the slab was set one space nearer the center.
Kwasa laughed.
“When I have beaten you I will show you how to hold the dice,” he boasted playfully. “Old Honau showed me the trick. He can bring down the white every time.”
“I am thirsty,” said Wiki, laying down the dice and jumping up.
“So am I,” said Kwasa, “but it is too far down to the spring. Let us go to the reservoir.”
The lads ran lightly across the long, narrow court and climbed a niche staircase hewn in the rock wall at the back of the cliff. A dozen steps brought them to the top of the wall, from which they looked down into a huge hollow in the rock, which appeared to be partly natural and partly the result of human labor. It was nearly full of water, which fed slowly into it from a small stream trickling down from the higher side of the bluff.
On top of the wall stood a graceful olla, or vase-shaped jar of pottery, strikingly ornamented with red and black. About the neck was a short, twisted rope of yucca fiber, long enough to let the jar down to the water. The boys dropped it down and brought it up full, holding it carefully that it might not strike the side of the wall.