Tahn-té, the leader, had been born and had come to them; the Flute of the Ancient Gods he had carried as the Sign!––and as they whispered it to each other, their eyes had a new terror, and they sought wildly for reasons to justify themselves.
He had come. They had choice, and they chose the new white brothers, and the new god promises!
He had come;––and they had closed their hearts against his words––they had driven him away as in other days the Ancient Fathers had driven Po-se-yemo to the south:––for the gods only live where the hearts of men are true, and strong, and of faith!
These things they had been told by the Ancients, but they remembered it now anew as they followed each other in silence to the hills, and to the white walls of Pu-yé––and to the tomb there newly built that the Woman of the Twilight might rest where her people had lived in the lost centuries.
The portal of it was closed, and the sign of her order was cut in the rock at the portal.
The priests made many prayers, but no trace of the lost Ruler could they find. All was silence in that place of the dead, but for the song of a bluebird flitting from one ancient dwelling to another.
Younger men went far to the west where the people of the Hopi mesas had loved him;––somewhere in the world he must be found!
But the Hopi people mourned also, for they had heard the strange call of a flute across the sands in the night time, and had feared to answer to the call, and in 333 the morning there was no sound of the flute, and no priest of the flute to be found:––only a trail across the desert sand––and the trail led the way of the sun trail, and the Winds of the Four Ways blew, and swept it from sight––and they knew in their hearts that Tahn-té had sent his good-bye call ere he went from the land of men to the land of gods.
They knew also that he went alive––for the god-born do not die.
This word the couriers took back to the Te-hua people of the Rio Grande, and fires were lit for him as they have been lighted for centuries that the god Po-se-yemo might know that their faith in the valley of the great river was yet strong for the ancient gods.