"He seemed to climb clumsily. He had but one fore-paw to which he could fully trust, as it seemed to me. I watched him go, and he went lame in the shoulder, and it was not my stones that did that—no, there was a something there, a stump of a spear, as I think, and that is why he has lost some of his fat and cannot lay up for the winter."
"And, being too slow to catch bison calf, he comes for us. My dream was a true sending. He is certainly thy Saw-Kimo and will assuredly come back for thee, Dêh-Yān."
"And so will they," muttered the girl, "for they must know they have left a spear-head in him and that he must be getting weaker. They will give the wound time to ripen, and then—"
"It is time I was about again," growled the crippled hunter, and set to work upon his drilling with a grim face. Dêh-Yān was kneeling upon his right hand, her left resting loosely upon the cave-floor within his reach. Upon the impulse of the moment and without word or look, Pŭl-Yūn struck swift and hard at the brown wrist with the elder bit that he was holding: the stick encountered the rock and split, for the slim brown wrist had been withdrawn with nimble rapidity. The eyes of the young people met and smiled, it was their first attempt at play.
"My husband sees that I can take care of myself," remarked the girl sedately.
"That is well, Dêh-Yān, for with a Ghost-Bear and a hunting party of three in this glen, a woman has need of eyes in the back of her head," was the comment of her lover.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] Children, countrymen and savages are keenly sensitive to ridicule. It is the fear of failure and of becoming the butt of his fellows which keeps many a young labourer from attempting anything new. To have tried and failed is to incur some opprobrious by-name that may stick to a villager through life. Rustic wit is cruel and drearily long-lived.
[2] She meant Cave Bear (Ursus spelæus), now extinct.