Pŭl-Yūn and Dêh-Yān had had their warning, thenceforth their fire was never let out, nor at night did they both sleep at the same time.
Meanwhile the lynx was turning out well, there were no flaws in the bone: it worked kindly, and the tedious process of scraping and undercutting went on steadily.
"Give me but ten more days to get out of these splints and yet another ten to supple the stiff limb, Dêh-Yān, and then—let thy Ghost-Bear lover come if he will, I will meet him at the cave-sill and stop him there."
Then he would expatiate after the manner of men upon the extraordinary virtues of his tribal totem, the Sun God. "Oh, a good totem, a great totem, the best of totems!"
"Yet not so good as mine," riposted the woman with conviction, "thou shalt see my totem, the Little Moon, will have the better of it yet." She knew not what she meant, but for the fun of opposition she argued pertinaciously and had the last word whilst testing the capacities of her new toy at a mark. Yes, it would send a big skewer the whole length of their dwelling and make it stick firmly into anything softish. Moreover, and this was a thing to take note of, you must shoot from the level of the eye and aim point-blank—no throwing high as with an assegai. She was learning more than she knew. She played at this childish game at intervals for some days, gradually lengthening the skewers, and attaining a pretty creditable proficiency, watched with a good-humoured tolerance by her husband, and might, in the end, have played her game out and wearied of her toy without getting to the bottom of it, had not the Thing happened that I am about to tell.
There came a bitter night with the wind edging in and out of the cave-mouth and compelling the youngsters to shift the fire and the bed-skins to the far end if they would keep a light or sleep at all. Pŭl-Yūn had taken his spell off, shuddering and muttering in sleep, and Dêh-Yān, shivering in her bison robe, had kept watch. The last silver shard of a waning moon hung low over the forest spires south-eastward, the cave-woman made silent obeisance to the god of her private orisons, bending low and striking the rock-floor with her forehead. "Little Moon!—be good to my man—and to me!" She grovelled prone, and as she did so something snapped beneath her; it was one of her assegais. She raised it and examined it in the dim light, good enough for a woman of a race which still saw well enough in the dark. The mischief was done, the thin tapering shaft had parted at a knot-hole, a flaw in the wood selected by its maker, the loutish Gow-Loo. The keen, leaf-shaped chert head of the weapon had less than an arm's-length of shaft behind it, and until remounted was useless as a throwing-spear.
Pŭl-Yūn sate up at the sound, asked and was told its cause, and scolded his wife for her carelessness. She excused herself, and even as they spoke, querulously as sleepy folk may be excused for speaking who are miserably cold and are talking down a blusterous wind (and perhaps too loudly for a hunted folk) the Terror was upon them!
There, upon the sill-platform beyond the cave's mouth, and disregarding the dull ash of a dying fire let down because the night was over, stood the Great Ghost-Bear, huge and hairy, terrible, black against the first pallor of the dawn, obliterating Dêh-Yān's totem, nullifying and intercepting the answer to her prayer!
Escape was none; nor was resistance reasonably possible. The enemy was already within their defences; had made good his footing; yet Pŭl-Yūn without a word of reproach to the woman whose ear had for once been at fault, gripped his axe and sate square with clenched teeth and narrowed nostrils. No moan escaped him, his time had come, he would show his squaw how a Sun-Disc brave could take his death.
The girl's heart seemed to swell upwards until it filled her body, and thrust against her throat. She did not cower, or shriek, or cover her eyes, but crouched for a spring—if such might be possible; she would give away no fraction of a chance. Her man was doomed; nothing that she could do, nothing that ten men in her place could have done, would save him. But, life is very, very sweet—What of herself? Could she, or could she not, slip past and escape? Yes, it was possible. She was wearing kilt and kaross, she slipped out of both and stood nude and slippery, agile as an eel. Her garments she proposed to toss in the bear's face, then to throw her bison-robe over his head and to dart past him whilst momentarily entangled.