Why don't you answer ?" Shyuote was frightened, and stammered in reply,-- "To see my father." "Who is your father ?" "Zashue Tihua." The features of the interlocutor took on a singular expression.

It was not one of pleasure, neither did it betoken anger; if anything, it denoted a sort of grim satisfaction.
"If Zashue is your father," continued he, and his eyes twinkled strangely, "Say Koitza must be your mother." "Of course," retorted the boy, to whom this interrogatory seemed ludicrous.
"And Okoya your brother," the old man persisted.
"Why do you ask all this ?" inquired the child, laughingly.
A look, piercing and venomous, darted from the eyes of the questioning man.

He snarled angrily,-- "Because I ask it.

I ask, and you shall answer me without inquiring why and wherefore.

Do you hear, uak ?" Shyuote hung his head; he felt afraid.
"I forbid you to say anything about what I say to you to your mother," continued the other, grasping the left arm of the boy.
Shyuote shook off the grip, and also shook his head in token of refusal.
The old man seized the arm again and clutched it so firmly with his bony fingers that the lad screamed from pain.
"Let me go!" he cried.