He lifted her to where the water ran, and with prayer let the cool drops of the living spring touch her face until the life came back, and her eyes opened wide with terror at sight of him bending above her, but he whispered as to a child––“Na-vin (my own)” and then “K[=a]-ye-povi”––which was to call her the Blossom of the Spirit, the name had been always with him in the Love-maiden Dream;––and this maid was the dream come true!
He drew her back from that strange border land of life where the strong gods of shadow wait;––and then the whisper of the blossom name took the fear from her dazed eyes––she clung to his hands and in a sort of breathless joy repeated the name “K[=a]-ye-povi––K[=a]-ye-povi!”––Me! “K[=a]-ye-povi!”
“You!––Doli––Navahu!”
She nodded assent. “Yes––it is so––now,” she said––“but once when little,”––she made the sign for the height of a child––“Te-hua, not Navahu––then K[=a]-ye-povi!”
Thus it was Tahn-té found K[=a]-ye-povi after the many years, and knew that the Great Mystery had set his foot on the trail to Te-gat-ha that he, and not another, should find her!
From traders, and from an occasional Navahu prisoner, Tahn-té had learned Navahu words, and Navahu god thoughts, and now he strove with eagerness to speak their language, even though haltingly, and question of her coming to him––to him!
To a new master she had been sold by the old 218 people who had owned her long, and many of the Navahu had gone north for deer––and perhaps for buffalo, and she had been taken with them. So far had they travelled that Tse-c[=o]me-u-piñ, the sacred, had been pointed out to her––and as a bird will seek its own place of nesting, had she sought the Te-hua land by fleeing to the sacred mountain. In the night time she had fled from her new master,––from a tall pine where she had climbed, had she seen them search the trail for her. In vain they had searched, and alone she had wandered many days. Almost had she reached the Te-hua towns of the river when some traders of Te-gat-ha had found her in the forest. To their own town they had taken her and had traded her for shell beads and for corn––the rest Tahn-té knew!
He strung his bow while he listened,––and while the thunder shook the earth he slipped through the crevices of the rock and lay hidden at the edge of a mountain morass where the reeds grew tall, and wild things fed––ahead of the storm small animals might cross the open there to reach the shelter of the rock walls––and K[=a]-ye-povi must not go unfed.
A rabbit he killed and covered each track of his feet from the place where he picked it up. When he took it to her it had been cleaned and washed in a little cascade below the shelter he had found for her. With him he took also dry twigs and dry piñon boughs, that the fire made might not carry the odor of green wood.
The sheets of rain were flowing steadily towards them from the west, the earth trembled as the God of Thunder spoke, and the lances of fire were flung from the far sky and splintered on the rocks of the mountain.