“And––why come you here to this house?”
“Here is the one man who knows the ways of the snake––if he is not in prayer they think he may come––but not any man can know what the Po-Ahtun-ho may do––and the horse beautiful may die on our first day in Povi-whah!”
But the reeds with their copper and shell tassels tinkled, and Don Ruy looked to see the old medicine man of spells and charms come forth.
He saw a man young as himself and more tall. Almost naked he was, with only the white banda in which was a blue bird’s feather––the girdle and moccasins. One glance he gave Don Ruy and his companion, bent his head ever so little in acknowledgement of their presence, and then ran beside his friend Po-tzah with the easy stride of the trained runner. Whatever his knowledge of the snake might be, he waited for no words, but moved quickly.
Many men were about the animal and Don 165 Diego had bound tightly a cord of rawhide about the knee, and water was being poured on the foot. But Te-hua and Castilian alike stood aside as the swift nude figure came among them––and without word or question went straight to the hurt animal.
The other natives had approached the four-footed creatures with a certain curiosity––if not awe, and there had been more than a little scattering of prayer meal when the mules were hobbled. The braying of one of them had caused terror in the hearts of the older men.
But this man took no heed of the groups of men or of animals. He led the injured steed out of the pool of water, and with a knife of the black flint cut the bandage––to the extreme distaste of Don Diego, who had been chief surgeon.
Then, still without words to the people, he did a strange thing, for he knelt there on the ground and leaned his shoulder against the leg of the horse, and slipped slowly, slowly down until his cheek touched the pastern, and his strong slender hands slid downward again and again over the leg of the animal while his lips moved as though in whispered speech to the ground itself.
No man spoke for a long time, but some of the elder men cast prayer meal that it fell on the kneeling savage and on the horse, and the animal reached down and rubbed its nose on his shoulder as if he had been its well known and long belovéd master.
Curious were all the Castilians, but Juan Gonzalvo, who had spent time in speech with Yahn Tsyn-deh, was more than curious. Like a tiger cat above its prey he stood frowning at the silent “medicine” of the naked worker in devilish arts.