while demino lighted the fire, his wife brought some corn and ground it in the stone mortar.

another woman cooked more piki on the hot stones, while one of the men went to the reservoir for a jar of water.

then the hunters skinned the animals and roasted them.

the women were not hungry, so while the men ate they busied themselves weaving baskets and mats of coarse grass.

demino’s wife stretched the deerskin on the rocks in the sun.

“let me help you,” said teni, as he ran toward the woman.

she let him help her stretch the skin and then thanked him.

“what are you going to use this skin for?” said the boy.

“it will make a warm winter coat for my little boy,” she said.

“my mother makes my coats from skins, too,” said teni.

as the men ate, they talked.

they wished for rain, that they might plant their corn and beans.

the wind might blow the seed away if the rain did not come to wet the dry sand.

“the rain is late this year,” said one, “but our dried fruit will last a long time even though we have no grain.”

the cliff people dried their fruit in the sun.

we would not have liked it because it was so sour.

soon the men noticed teni and mavo and asked who they were.

“they are children of the bear people, our neighbors,” said demino.

“this morning, as i was walking near the tower, i saw a band of indians coming toward me.

“i knew them to be our enemies, so i ran quickly toward some cedar trees.

“the indians did not see me, but these children were hiding behind the trees, and called to me as i came along.

“they had lost their way and could not find their home.

“i was afraid that the indians would find us, so went straight to the tower.

“we crawled through the tunnel and came here.

“i shall take the children home as soon as the sun goes down.”

teni and mavo heard demino say this, and kept watching for the sun to tell them when it was time to go home.