"Failed, say ye? Of course he failed! For he clambers aloft to the clouds and thinks, forsooth, that he can see under every bush and into every shadow, as sees the Sun-father who sees not with eyes! Go ye before," said the Falcon; and ere they had turned toward the town, he had spread his sharp wings and was skimming off over the tops of the trees and bushes as though verily seeking for field mice or birds' nests. And the warriors returned to tell the fathers and await his coming; but after he had sought far over the world to the north and the west, the east and the south, he too returned and was received as had been the Eagle; but when he had settled on the edge of a tray, before the altar, as on the ant hills he settles today, and had smoked and been smoked as had been the Eagle, he told the sorrowing fathers and mothers that he had looked behind every copse and cliff-shadow, but of the maidens had found no trace. "They are hidden more closely than ever sparrow hid," said he, gripping the cover of the tray on which he perched as though it were real feathers and blood, and ruffling his crest. Then he, too, flew away to his hills in the west. "Alas! alas! our beautiful maiden mothers!" cried the matrons. "Lost, lost as the dead are they!" "Yea," said others, "where, how indeed, shall we seek them now? For the far-seeing Eagle and the close-searching Falcon alike have failed to find them." THE SEEKING OF THE MAIDENS OF CORN BY THE RAVEN. "Stay your feet with patience," said the fathers. For some amongst them heard a Raven who was wandering about the edge of the town at break of day seeking food in the dirt and refuse, and they bethought themselves. "Look, now! There is Heavy-nose, whose beak never fails to find the substance of seed itself, however so little or well hidden it be. Surely he well must know then, of the maiden-mothers thereof. Let us call him." So they bade the warrior-priests go forth once more. Forth to the river side went the priests. "We carry no pricking quills," said they, raising their hands all weaponless, "and, O, Black-banded father, we seek your aid; for look now, the mother-maidens of seed whose substance is the food alike of thy people and our people, have fled away whither neither our grandfather the Eagle, nor yet his younger brother the Falcon, can trace them; and we pray thee to aid us or give us counsel of guidance." "_Ka! ka!_" cried the Raven. "Nay, now; much too hungry am I to go abroad fasting on business for ye and thy kind. Ye are stingy! Here have I been since ever perching time, striving to win a throatful, but ye pick thy bones and lick thy bowls too clean for the like of that, be sure!" "But come in then, thou poor grandfather. Surely we will give thee food to eat; yea, and a cigarette to smoke with all due observance!"