I + 

The dance of the second night was much like that of the first, although perhaps a little less exuberant. He entered once more into the river of song, and was happy, yelling his head off, save that he kept on being conscious of that girl. While she was dancing, he would forget about her, but when he saw her looking for another partner, he would be uneasy until she had made her choice. He noticed that she did not dance with Red Man. Halfway between midnight and dawn, the women having departed, he fell out, to sleep by a fire. + 

They rode down to Ane’é Tseyi that day, where the dance of the final night would be held. He rode behind Jesting Squaw’s Son’s saddle, leading the mare. He hoped they would find a place with some grass for the animal, and reflected that in any case, now, he could afford to buy corn. The long, hot ride, hot sun, hot wind, unrelieved, weighed on them somewhat, combining with lack of sleep to make limbs sluggish and eyes heavy. It was a relief to ride into the narrow canyon of their destination, to rest in a strip of afternoon shade. Laughing Boy took the horses down to the windmill for water, and staked them out in a corner where uncropped spears of grass stood singly, each inches from the next, in brown sand. A beaten track toward an oak tree and a break in the rock caught his eye. A spring, perhaps. + 

He followed it. Behind the oak, currant bushes grew in a niche of red rock like the fold of a giant curtain. At the back was a full-grown, lofty fir. A spring, surely. Behind the fir a cleft opened at shoulder height into transparent shadow. The footholds were worn to velvety roundness in the sandstone; at one side a pecked design showed that long before the Navajos had swooped upon the land, a people of an elder earth had known this entrance. Laughing Boy climbed lightly in. + 

It was a stone-lined pocket, scarce twenty feet across, narrower at the top. One went forward along a ledge at one side, shouldering against young aspens, then slid down a rock face into a curving bowl, with a seep at one lip from which silent water oozed over moss and cress into the bottom. Spears of grass grew in cracks. By the tiny pool of water in the bowl was a square of soft turf with imprints of moccasins. He squatted there, leaning back against the rock. Here was all shade and peace, soft, grey stone, dark, shadowed green, coolness, and the sweet smell of dampness. He dabbled his hands, wet his face, drank a little. He rolled a cigarette with crumpled cigar tobacco. This was good, this was beautiful. + 

Away above, the intolerant sky gleamed, and a corner of cloud was white fire. His eyes shifting lightly, the edge of the rocks above took on a glowing halo. He amused himself trying to fit it back again, to get the spot the cloud made back against the cloud, playing tricks with his half-closed eyelashes that made things seem vague. + 

“Ahalani!” The two-toned greeting came from a voice like water. + 

He returned to himself with a start. Slim Girl stood poised on the edge of the bowl, above his shoulder, water-basket in hand. + 

“Ahalani, shicho.” Dignified, casual. + 

“Move over, wrestler, I want to come down.” + 

He observed her small feet in their red, silver-buttoned buckskin, sure and light on the rocks as a goat’s. She seemed to be hours descending. She was businesslike about filling the basket, but she turned utilitarian motions into part of a dance. Now she knelt, not two feet from him, taking him in with the long, mischievous eyes that talked and laughed. + 

She is a butterfly, he thought, or a hummingbird. Why does she not go away? I will not go⁠—run away from her. He thought, as he tried to read her face, that her slimness was deceptive; strength came forth from her. + 

“Now, for ten cents, I go.” + 

He blinked. “I save that to get rid of you tonight, perhaps.” + 

“I do not dance tonight. There is trouble, a bad thing. I come from far away.” + 

He thought he had better not ask questions. “Tomorrow there will be horse-racing, a chicken-pull, perhaps.” + 

“And you have a fine horse to race, black, with a white star and a white sock.” He grunted astonishment. She smiled. “You are a good jeweler, they say. You made that bow-guard. You sold Red Man’s belt to the American, they say, for sixty-five dollars.” + 

“You are like an old wife, trying to find out about everything a man is doing.” + 

“No, I am not like an old wife.” + 

They looked at each other for a long time. No, she was not like an old wife. Blood pounded in his ears and his mouth was dry. He pulled at the end of his dead cigarette. At length, + 

“You should stay for the racing. There will be fine horses, a beautiful sight.” + 

“I shall stay, perhaps.” + 

Her rising, her ascent of the rock, were all one quick motion. She never looked back. He stayed, not exactly in thought, but experiencing a condition of mind and feeling. Loud laughter of women roused him, to pass them with averted eyes and go forth dazed into the sunlight. + 