The dim greenness of a forest glade shadowed Graydon when he opened his eyes. He was lying upon his blanket, and close beside him was his burro, placidly nibbling the grass. Some one stirred in the shadow and came toward him. It was an Indian, but Graydon had never seen an Indian quite like him. His features were clean cut and delicate, his skin was more olive than brown. He wore a corselet and kilt of quilted blue silk. There was a thin circlet of gold around his forehead, upon his back a long bow and quiver of arrows, and in his
hand a spear of black metal. He held out a silken-wrapped packet.
Graydon opened the packet. Within was Sierra's bracelet of the Snake Mother and a caraquenque feather, its shaft cunningly inlaid with gold.
"Where is she who sent me these?" he asked. The Indian smiled, shook his head, and laid two fingers over his lips. Graydon understood—upon the messenger had been laid the command of silence. He restored the feather to its covering, and thrust it into the pocket over his heart.
The bracelet he slipped with some difficulty over his own wrist.
The Indian pointed to the sky, then to the trees at his left. Graydon knew that he was telling him they must be going. He nodded and took the lead-strap of the burro.
For an hour they threaded the forest—tailless so far as he could see. They passed out of it into a narrow valley between high hills. These cut off all view of the circular mountain, even had he known in what direction to look for it. The sun was half down the western sky. They reached, at dusk, a level stretch of rock through which a little stream cut a wandering channel. Here, the Indian indicated by signs that they would pass the night.
Graydon hobbled the burro where it could graze, made a fire and began to prepare a sketchy meal from his dwindling stores. The Indian had disappeared. Shortly he returned with a couple of trout. Graydon cooked them.
Night fell and with it the Andean cold. Graydon rolled himself up in his blanket, closed his eyes, and began to reconstruct, as far as possible, every step of the afternoon's journey; impressing upon his memory each landmark he had carefully noted after they had emerged from the trees. Soon these blended into a phantasmagoria of jeweled caverns, great faces of stone, dancing old men, in motley—then Sierra floated among these phantoms, banishing them. And then she, too, vanished.
It was long after noon when, having passed through another belt of trees, the Indian halted at the edge of a plateau stretching for unknown distances west and east. He pushed aside some bushes and pointed down. Graydon, following the pointing finger, saw a faint trail a hundred feet beneath him—some animal's runway, he thought, not marked out by human feet. He looked at the Indian, who nodded, pointed to the burro and to Graydon, then down to the trail
and eastward. Pointed next to himself, and back the way they had come.
"Plain enough!" said Graydon. "Frontier of Yu-Atlanchi. And here is where I'm deported." The Indian broke his silence. He could not have understood what Graydon had said, but he recognized the name of Yu-Atlanchi.
"Yu-Atlanchi," he repeated gravely, and swung his hand behind him in a wide gesture. "YuAtlanchi! Death! Death!"