During dinner, Latour is told that Jacinto's baby is sick. He knows better than to recommend medical treatment because Indians distrust white medicine. The author tells the reader from Latour's point-of-view that Indian child mortality was high and that fertility was low. Smallpox and measles had decimated the Indian population.
The reader is also told that there are many dark legends of Pecos, one of which is that the Indians serve a secret fire that drains their virility, and that they sacrifice their babies to a sacred snake that is kept in the mountain and brought to the pueblo for feasts. Latour disbelieves the legends, choosing instead to believe that disease has caused the tribe to shrink.
Latour reads his breviary by the firelight after pondering the history of the Pecos pueblo. The only sounds he hears are the baby's crying and the wind outdoors.
