She was down again and tore herself from the place. Partake she would not, though nature cried out for food. A brave of her race would have had no qualms, but—a squaw?—No!
Feebly, and with her spirit riding her reluctant flesh as a ruthless rider urges a failing horse, did Dêh-Yān set her face upon that ghost-guarded journey up the valley, nor did wolf, lynx or worse molest her.
Her foes were the tormenting thoughts which, vulture-like, wheel closely around a spirit encumbered by a weakened body.
Was it worth it? Her man had grown cold and silent and strange to her. Twice the agony of wounded affection superadded to crushing bodily fatigue brought her to a stand beneath dark boughs at some rougher gradient. Then with shut eyes and chin driven hard against a labouring bosom she fought it out. The nurse-spirit triumphed.—"If I lie down and sleep here—I shall not awake again, and he—will die, or at best be a lame man for his life." Then, lifting her face again, she would draw a deep breath and set her jaw to endure the anguish of walking, and so, by a series of shortening spurts, reeling and rocking, she reached the foot of the face. But it was a dog-weary girl, without one spark of the pride of victory alight within her, who crawled in over the cave-sill.
FOOTNOTES:
[4] Still given at the breaking-up of a fox, and more ceremoniously, with winded horn as the hallalai at the death of the German stag.