"Who is he?" she interrupted with more interest than she had yet shown, gesturing with her arrow toward Tawannears, who had not moved since first he saw her, his eyes devouring her face in a manner most extraordinary in one so self-contained and regardless of women as the Seneca.
"He is an Indian warrior, who has journeyed with us from the country by the Eastern Ocean, where we English dwell. He is of the People of the Long House."
She shook her head.
"You talk nonsense. What are English? People of the Long House! Do not we of Homolobi dwell in long houses? Wiki says that all our people do so, except the Awataba, who have been cursed by Massi* to go naked amongst the rocks. And what is an ocean?"
* Ruler of the Dead.
How I should have answered these very difficult questions I don't know, but fortunately—or unfortunately—at that moment the bowmen, the Awataba, as the turkey-girl called them, were emboldened by our quiescence to attempt a final charge. They preceded it with a tempest of arrows aimed to follow a high arc and fall on our side of the bowlders that partially sheltered us. One of these shafts killed a turkey, and the herd-girl was immediately almost in tears. Another stuck in the sleeve of Peter's shirt, and he squeaked indignantly.
"Come! We gife der naked men a lesson, eh? Afterward we take der girl's friendts."
We had no choice. Our tormenters were dodging in and out of the rocks at the mouth of the ravine, and if we ran from them we should present excellent marks on the open ground of the valley floor.
Peter tumbled over one of the nearest to us, and I knocked a poor wretch from his cliff-perch. Tawannears, rousing from the bewildered stupor which had overcome him, was equally successful. A bow-string twanged at my elbow, and the turkey-girl pointed proudly to a savage who was making off with her shaft in his arm. But the Awataba refused to lose courage as they had in every previous attack upon us; and in ten minutes of rapid firing we exhausted our ammunition.
I looked behind me as I fired my last shot, and was relieved to see that several hundred men were running up from the valley; for the naked bowmen were now at close range, their hideous, bestial faces bobbing betwixt the rocks, dropping from ledge to ledge in efforts to come at us in flank. They reached Peter first, and he surprised them by reversing his piece and using the butt for a flail. I imitated him, but Tawannears preferred to trust to knife and tomahawk, after the manner of his race. And at intervals, when I cleared myself of an opponent, I saw the turkey-girl, still standing undaunted in front of her excited flock, loosing her arrows with cold precision.