The sun was setting as Sid finished his ruminations. The water pool already lay in shadow, the black bottom of its lava basin turning the deep blue-green of its waters to a mirror of shining black. A sharp shadow line was creeping in horizontal masses of dark maroon far up on the face of the east wall, every broken fissure and pinnacle of the west wall shadow etched on its high face. Sid kept one eye nervously on the door of the medicine lodge, wondering how it was all going to turn out. No one had visited it yet, but discovery of Hano’s escape was sure and would come soon. As Sid waited and watched, Honanta came out of a sweat lodge near the borders of the tank. He was naked save for breech cloth and moccasins, and slowly he walked to the brink of the lava basin where it tumbled out between the high walls of Red Mesa. Like some magnificent bronze statue he stood for a time on the brink, facing the setting sun, his arms outstretched in silent prayer. Then an old man tottered out from the council lodge bearing a ceremonial pipe. Honanta took it from him and, after a few whiffs, held its bowl toward the setting sun. Again he dipped it reverently toward Mother Earth and the sunset ceremony was ended. Sid noted that he did not add the modern symbolism of offering the pipe to the four winds. After him every brave in the tribe, down to the little boys of eight, stood and did the same thing, that act of reverence to the Earth and Sun, the most important of the creations of the Great Mystery, which ethnologists often stupidly report as sun worship, earth worship. But Sid knew that, like their nature worship, it was really reverencing the Great Mystery through His creations. He had long ago adopted that viewpoint as his own, and was about to share in the ceremony himself, claiming the privilege as an adopted Blackfoot, when a soft footfall along the path drew his attention. The girl Nahla was approaching the medicine lodge! She bore food and water for her husband, the prisoner. Sid felt tingles of excitement running all through him as he rose and walked rapidly after her. “Nahla!” he called, as soon as they were far enough away from the rest of the village to be alone. The girl turned and faced him. “Do not enter!” he said softly in Apache. “Oh, have they killed him?” she almost shrieked. “_Hai_--I hate you!” Like a fury she faced the bewildered Sid. It was his first experience with women--the instant feminine jumping to conclusions, the fierce and unreasoning hate for the cause of her sorrows. “No. He lives; but do not enter the lodge, I beg you. You must trust in me, Nahla!” said Sid earnestly. The girl shrugged her shoulders scornfully. “Pah! And is my husband to go without food and drink!” she spat out. With a lithe, sudden dash she had reached the lodge door and put her hand on the plumed prayer stick that held it shut. Sid leaped after her. “No!” he barked. “Listen, Nahla--Hano is gone! I freed him. I sent him. They do not know, yet.”