came to deal with them. But it was the Salt-Gathering that made
Tse-tse-yote prefer the Warrior Band to the Koshare, for all that
country through which the trail lay was disputed by the Dine. It is true
there was a treaty, but there was also a saying at Ty-uonyi, 'a sieve
for water and a treaty for the Dine.'"

[Illustration: Tse-tse-yote and Moke-icha]

The Navajo broke in angrily, "The Tellings were to be of the trails, O
Kabeyde, and not of the virtues of my ancestors!" The children looked at
him, round-eyed.

"Are you the Dine?" they exclaimed both at once. It seemed to bring the
Cliff People so much nearer.

"So we were named, though we were called devils by those who feared us,
and Blanket People by the Plainsmen. We were a tree whose roots were in
the desert and whose branches were over all the north, and there is no
Telling of the Queres, Cochiti, or Ty-uonyi, O Kebeyde,"--he turned to
the puma,--"which I cannot match with a better of those same Dine."

"There were Dine in this Telling," purred Moke-icha, "and one puma.
There was also Pitahaya, the chief, who was so old that he spent most of
the time singing the evil out of his eyes. There was Kokomo, who wished
to be chief in his stead, and there was Willow-in-the-Wind, the turkey
girl, who had no one belonging to her. She had a wind-blown way of
walking, and her long hair, which she washed almost every day in the
Rito, streamed behind her like the tips of young willows. Finally, there
was Tse-tse-yote. But one must pick up the trail before one settles to
the Telling," said Moke-icha.