The Master-Girl

by Ashton Hilliers

The old chief sniffed more snow in the sky and bade strike the wigwams, the summer homes of his people. 'Twas ho, for their winter quarters, the range of southward-facing limestone caverns, a ten-fingers' march down-stream. Certain braves were sent on ahead to prospect and smoke out the hyænas which were pretty sure to have usurped possession.

Preparations began at once and the Master-Girl must make herself conspicuously useful and prominent in the flitting with whatever heart she set to it. As she worked and packed she thought hard and keenly as she had never thought before in her life. Hitherto her thoughts had been solely for her tribe, and upon topics upon which she could think aloud, but, now, and for the first time, she had thoughts for someone outside the circle which had enclosed her since she could first remember, and thoughts which must most carefully be kept to herself; yes, so rigorously that she gabbled loudly, as girls who work in company will when they fear the suspicion of having any private thoughts at all.

Before mid-day the march was begun, and the Master-Girl, still chatting loudly and thinking hard, must take her place on the trail, albeit with a very backward-looking heart. How was her man getting on?—This cold was bad for him, he had no bison-skin robe with him. A wife-hunter's kit is light, and no doubt the weather had been warmer when he left his people upon the other, the sunny side of the ranges. Another night of this would finish him. She had given him her word, too, and the Master-Girl was as truthful as girls went in those days, which means she didn't lie from choice, and had a natural pride in doing the thing which she had said she would do, even if it proved unexpectedly difficult.

Thus it befell that without committing herself to any specific plan the Master-Girl kept a definite end resolutely in view, even to the extent of selecting for her special burdens on the march certain articles which on another occasion she might have placed upon the back of one and another of her pupils.

The braves formed line and scouted for game ahead of the old men in the centre. The squaws and girls staggered slowly behind bowed beneath the property of the tribe, the accumulated gettings of a summer's hunting. There were also the household stuff and the babies.

So big were the flakes that progress was difficult from the first, and presently became impossible, the smaller and more heavily-laden girls could not be kept going. It was no use beating the stragglers. The old chief called a halt. When young things begin to get behind, someone will presently be missing. The braves, who had come upon bears' sign, might follow it up; but a camp must be pitched for the night at any rate, and the girls must drop their burdens and forth for firing before the snow covered all. Down went ill-secured bundles of skins, sheaves of assegais, wallets of jerked deer-meat, the miscellaneous lumber of a tribe of hunters, and out went the stick collectors; 'twas then or not at all.

A little girl near the edge of the covert saw the Master-Girl bending beneath a faggot, saw her drop it and run, heard her shriek "Bear!" There was a headlong race through swirling flakes over and under fallen trunks and laden boughs: five minutes later the last of the runners was safe in camp. The mother-squaws were scolding, counting, cackling, but where was Dêh-Yān? The hunters must be recalled, but were far ahead running a trail. By the time they were told of what had happened, and the pack had been lifted, the snow had covered all marks, indeed a good deal of property which had been thrown down in the confusion was temporarily lost. For the rest of the short dark day the braves cast forward up this gully and that glen, but it was upon their return that a hound scratched up from under a drift a skin wallet stiff and red. The finder of this grim relic brought it to the old chief in good faith. The elder looked, sniffed, snarled, "Fool!—this is not blood, but berry-juice!" whereat Gow-Loo, a somewhat jolter-headed young savage, slunk away cursing the lost girl and wishing the bear a good meal of her. Later he cursed her more bitterly still.

A hasty camp was pitched, ill-warmed, ill-lighted. The squaws huddled amid their shuddering children, the men never laid down their arms all night. A cannibal bear was the most terrible enemy known to the tribe; a taste for human flesh once acquired, and the fear of man once overcome, there was no knowing to what lengths such a beast might go. 'Twas opined to be no brown bear either, but a grizzly, or worse, a cave monster, one of the sort that even the lions feared, a brute that hung around the mammoth herd on its march, and occasionally cut off a calf. Nobody slept, and there was but one topic of conversation, the fate of Dêh-Yān.

One boy, indeed, the boy whom she had spanked the day before, stuck to it that she had outrun him whilst making for camp, had passed him running silently and running wide, but none believed him, for he was not a truthful boy, nor did his tale obtain a moment's credence from the fact that next morning certain assegais, axes and skins were missing. Such losses are incidental to a panic when women and girls run and cry out and drop things; they would be found, if and when the snow melted. But the snow did not melt.

So, a day later, the Little Moons trailed down in close order to their winter quarters, leaving their summer camp under a robe of new snow. The fate of the First Governess added a delicious piquancy to the nightly tremors of the children whom she had whipped. The women regretted, grumbled and speculated without a misgiving, but a doubt remained in the mind of a certain young brave, which doubt he later imparted to a couple of his comrades, who turned it over silently in their minds.