"Once there was a young god named Alaka sent by the Great Spirit to live awhile among the cliff-dwellers of the Southwest. Now in that country there is a fever that lays hold of the children of the sun. It comes you know not how, and you cannot stop it. And this fever that runs hot in the veins of men began to course through the blood of Alaka, a fierce fever to gamble.
"At first, when men challenged him to pit his skill against theirs, he refused, knowing that the Great Spirit had forbidden it; but they jeered him, saying: 'Ah, ha! He is afraid that he will lose. This can be no god, or he would not fear us.' So when they had made a mock of him until he could no longer endure it, he cried: 'Come! I will show you that I am a god! that I fear nothing!'
"Forgetting all that the Great Spirit had enjoined upon him, he plunged madly into the game. Now the most precious thing known to that people is the turquoise, for it is the stone that stole its colour from the sky. Around the neck of the young god hung a string of these turquoises, and one by one he lost them, till the morning found him with only an empty string in his hand.
"Still the fever was upon him, and he could not assuage it, so he put up his shells from the Great Water in the west. These people had heard of a great water many days' journey toward the setting sun, but to the dwellers in the Land of Thirst it seemed incredible to them that there could be so much water in the world as Alaka told them of. But they looked upon the exquisite colour of the shells he brought, which held the murmur of the sea in their hearts, and counted them wonderful treasures. And they gambled all day with Alaka to gain possession of them.
"Still the fever waxed hotter than ever within him, and, when he had lost his shells, he put up his measure of sacred meal. When he lost that, they made a mock of him again, saying not that he was afraid to lose, but that he had no skill, that he was not a god. He was less than a man,--he was only a papoose, and that he should play no more until he had learned wisdom.
"Then Alaka was beside himself with rage. 'I will show you,' he cried. 'I will venture such mighty stakes that I must win.' He plucked out his right eye and laid it where the turquoises, the shells, and the sacred meal had lain. But the eye was lost also, and after that the left eye, so that, when morning dawned, he staggered into the sunrise, blind and ruined.