The whites knew vaguely of Dsilyi. He was the Elder Brother of the Navaho, a heroic demigod who had visited in the abodes of the high gods, and who stood in the same relation to the Navaho as Achilles did to the ancient Greeks.
“Why don’t you shoot the varmint, Injun?” broke in Big John. “You won’t have no wool for to make blankets of if you don’t get rid of that critter.”
Neyani shrank back, alarmed at the very idea, and an expression of superstitious fear crossed his face. “Ugh! No,—no! Navaho no kill! Him medicine panther! Him black! Dsilyi send him.”
“Well, I want to know!” guffawed Big John, incredulously. Neyani shot him a dark look, and then turned to the Colonel, whose face showed more sympathy for the Indian’s beliefs and superstitions.
“Oh, White Father,—black he is! Great, and black as the night! I, Neyani, seen him have! Dsilyi send him!” he insisted, coming back to his original declaration again.
“How do you know that he is Dsilyi’s panther, Neyani?” asked the Colonel, sympathetically, suppressing patiently his own ardent wish to inquire about his son.
“Know, then, the legend of the Navaho, my White Father. How that Dsilyi crossed the rainbow arch and so to the Sacred Mountain came. And in the mountain was a cave. In the cave was a fire. The fire without wood burned. Around the fire were four panthers. A white one to the north. A blue one to the south. A yellow one to the west. A black one to the east.” Neyani paused to let the significance of this—to him—sink in. “The four panthers asked for tobacco,” he went on. “Then Dsilyi of the medicine tobacco took that he had stolen from the Ute. He to the four panthers gave. The four panthers smoked the medicine pipe. Still they lay, dead. Then took Dsilyi the ashes from the pipe, and on the four panthers rubbed. The four panthers came alive again. Then drew the four panthers a sheet of cloud from the four corners of the cave. And on the cloud were painted the yays of the cultivated plants by which the Dene (Navaho) now live. Thus Dsilyi for his Younger Brothers the secrets of the plants learned. And now Dsilyi afflicts the hogan of Neyani with the Black Panther,” grunted Neyani, despondently. “From the Valley of the Departed to the west he comes! Great and black as the night he is!” shuddered Neyani. He relapsed into silence and looked to the Colonel for some help in this his trouble.
“But why has Dsilyi sent him, Neyani? Has anyone in your hogan done any wrong?” asked the Colonel, sympathetically.
Neyani’s face took on a look of stony immobility. Whatever his private family griefs were, he chose not to air them before strangers.
“Well, I know why!” suddenly roared Big John. “Injun, you projooces that white boy, mighty sudden pronto!” he shouted, angrily. “Or by jings, you’ll find more’n forty black panthers atter ye!—Look yonder, Colonel!”