Lujan had walked apart from the
camp to wait for her; smiling, he waited. She was still very beautiful,
and he thought she was in love with him. Therefore, when he saw the
long, hurrying stride of a puma in the trail, he thought it a pity so
beautiful a woman should be frightened. The arrow that he sped from his
cross-bow struck in the yellow flanks. 'Well shot,' said Lujan
cheerfully, but his voice was drowned by a scream that was strangely
like a woman's. He remembered it afterward in telling of the
extraordinary thing that had happened to him, for when he went to look,
where the great beast had leaped in air and fallen, there was nothing to
be found there. Nothing.
"If she had been in her form as a woman when he shot her," said the
Condor, "that is what he would have found. But she was a Passing Being,
not taking form from without as we do, of the outward touchings of
things, and her shape of a puma was as mist which vanishes in death as
mist does in the sun. Thus shortens my story."
"Come," said the Road-Runner, understanding that there would be no more
to the Telling. "The Seven Persons are out, and the trail is darkling.
Pages:
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293