But Tahn-té knew that a welcome was theirs, for the governor would not have come outside the walls except it had been so, and the old man watched keenly the delight of the boy as the river of that land came clear before him spread at the foot of the wide table land, and the great plain below. Trees grew there, and between them the running water shone in the sun. The Black Mesa Tuyo, Mesa of the Hearts, arose 36 from the water edge,––a great dark monument of mystic rites, and wondrous records of the time when it had been a breathing place for the Powers in the heart of the earth. The rocks were burned so red it always seemed that the fire was still under them. And south was the God-Maid mesa:––its outline as the face of a maid upturned to the sky.
Beyond the river stretched the yellow corn fields––the higher land like a rugged red skeleton from which the soil had been washed,––and beyond that was the great uplift of the pine-clad mountains where the springs never failed, and the deer were many.
Wild fowl fluttered and dove in the waters of the river, grey pigeons flew in little groups from the trail; as they walked, two men in canoes caught fish where a little stream joined the big water of P[=o]-s[=o]n-gé––in every direction the boy was conscious of a richer, fuller life than any he had yet seen. His mother was right––her people were a strong people! and their villages were many in the valleys of the river.
In Povi-whah the clan of the Arrow Stone people welcomed the Twilight Woman as their own, and the men and women who had journeyed with her from Ua-lano looked glad to have journeyed with her,––they had to answer many questions.
Tahn-té also had much practise in the Te-hua words when he tried to tell them what the peach was like, and what the pear was like, and the youth were skeptical as to peaches big as six plums.
A boy larger than he flipped with a willow wand at the urn with the little trees, and told him that in Provi-whah a boy was whipped if he lied too often!
“How many times may a boy lie and not be whipped?” asked Tahn-té, and the other boys 37 laughed, and one stripling gave him a fillet of otter skin in approval, and said his name was Po-tzah, and that their clan was the same.
But the tiny Yahn who looked from face to face, and saw the anger in the face of the boy of the willow wand, caught the switch and brought it down with all the force of her two chubby arms on the nurslings brought from Hopi land.
Tahn-té caught her and lifted her beyond reach of the urn.
“I should have let the strange beasts of the iron men eat you,” he said. “You shall go hungry for peaches if you kill the trees!”