that the wind was saying something, some very, very dreadful thing in
a tongue that they did not know. They listened, but they could not
tell what it said. Nobody could have said from seeing their faces how
much the four tall men desired the wigwams again, desired the
camp-fire and the tales of war and the benignant totems that listened
and smiled in the dusk: nobody could have seen how well they knew that
this was no common night or wholesome mist.

When at last no answer came nor any sign from their totems, they
pulled out of the bag those golden gods that Loma gave not up except
in flames and when all her men were dead. They had large ruby eyes and
emerald tongues. They set them down upon that mountain pass, the
cross-legged idols with their emerald tongues; and having placed
between them a few decent yards, as it seemed meet there should be
between gods and men, they bowed them down and prayed in their
desperate straits in that dank, ominous night to the gods they had
wronged, for it seemed that there was a vengeance upon the hills and
that they would scarce escape, as the wind knew well. And the gods
laughed, all four, and wagged their emerald tongues; the Indians saw
them, though the night had fallen and though the mist was low. The
four tall men leaped up at once from their knees and would have left
the gods upon the pass but that they feared some hunter of their tribe
might one day find them and say of Laughing Face, "He fled and left
behind his golden gods," and sell the gold and come with his wealth to
the wigwams and be greater than Laughing Face and his three men. And
then they would have cast the gods away, down the abyss, with their
eyes and their emerald tongues, but they knew that enough already they
had wronged Loma's gods, and feared that vengeance enough was waiting
them on the hills. So they packed them back in the bag on the
frightened mule, the bag that held the curse they knew nothing of, and