"'Feed farther up,' Tse-tse told her; 'the Diné are abroad.'
"Her face changed, but she did not squeal as the other women did when they heard it. Therefore I respected her. That was the way it was with me. Every face I searched, to see if there was fear in it, and if there was none I myself was a little afraid; but where there was fear the back of my neck bristled. I know that the hair rose on it when we came to tell our story to the Council. That was when Kokomo was called; he came rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, pretending that Tse-tse had made a tale out of nothing.
"'We have a treaty with the Diné,' he said. 'Besides, I was out rehearsing with the Koshare last night toward Shut Cañon; if there had been DinéIshould have seen them.'
"It was then that I was aware of Tse-tse's hand creeping along my shoulders to hide the bristling.
"'He is afraid,' said Tse-tse to me in the cave; 'you saw it. Yet he is not afraid of the Diné. Sometimes I think he is afraid of me. That is why he wished me to join the Koshare, for then he will be my Head, and without his leave I can do nothing.'
"This was a true saying. Only a few days after that, I found one of their little wooden images, painted and feathered like a Delight-Maker, in my cave. It was an invitation. It smelled of Kokomo and I scratched dirt on it. Then came Tse-tse, and as he turned the little Koshare over in his hand, I saw that there were many things had come into his head which would never come into mine. Presently I heard him laugh as he did when he had hit upon some new trick for splitting the people's sides, like the bubble of a wicker bottle held under water. He took my chin in his hand. 'Without doubt,' he said, 'this is Kokomo's; he would be very pleased if you returned it to him.' I understood it as an order.
"I carried the little Delight-Maker to Kokomo that night in the inner court, when the evening meal was over and the old men smoked while the younger sat on the housetops and moaned together melodiously. Tse-tse looked up from a game of cherry stones. 'Hey, Kokomo, have you been inviting Kabeyde to join the Koshare? A good shot!' he said, and before Kokomo could answer it, he began putting me through my tricks."
"Tricks?" cried the children.
"Jumping over a stick, you know, and showing what I would do if I met the Diné." The great cat flattened herself along the ground to spring, put back her ears, and showed her teeth with a snarly whine, almost too wicked to be pretended. "I was very good at that," said Moke-icha.
"'The Delight-Maker was for you, Tse-tse,' said the turkey girl next morning. 'Kokomo cannot prove that you gave it to Kabeyde, but he will never forgive you.'