"Yes, and no. I thought, if you took the gun, it would not matter whether you hit or missed."
"Why?"
"Are you so simple, Netawis? Or is it in revenge that you force me to tell?… Yes, I have played you an evil trick, and by an evil tempting. I saw you with Azoka.… I gave you the gun, thinking, 'If he misses, the whole camp will mock him, and a maid turns from a man whom others mock. But if he should kill the bear, he will have to reckon with Meshu-kwa. Meshu-kwa fears ill-luck, and she will think more than twice before receiving a son-in-law who has killed her grandmother the bear.'"
"I will marry Netawis," said Azoka to herself, shutting her teeth hard. And yet she could not feel angry with Ononwe as she ought. But it seemed that neither was Netawis angry; for he answered with one of those strange laughs of his. She had never been able to understand them, but she had never heard one that sounded so unhappy as did this.
"My brother," said Netawis—and his voice was gentle and bitterly sorrowful—"if you did this in guile, I have shot better indeed than you to-day. As for Meshu-kwa, I must try to be on good terms with her again; and as for Azoka, she is a good girl, and thinks as little of me as I of her. Last night when you saw us… I remember that I looked down on her and something reminded me… of one…" He leaned a hand against a pole of the lodge and gripped it as the anguish came on him and shook him in the darkness. "Damn!" cried John à Cleeve, with a sob.
"Was that her name?" asked Ononwe gravely, hardly concealing the relief in his voice.
But Azoka did not hear Netawis' answer as she crept back, smoothing the snow over her traces.