The speaker was a person of some consideration, for when he spoke others held their peace and listened (watching still, be sure).—He was one Honk-Ah, a great-nephew of the old chief, a man of notable activity and more ambition; one who aspired to the deputy-chieftainship; an aspiration which had been kept in check for two years past by the presence of his cousin Pŭl-Yūn, a brave equally active and more popular, less subject to fits of disfiguring passion; a man marked out for leadership as well by his birth—being grandson to the chief-regnant—as by his qualities.
But Pŭl-Yūn had been absent more than six moons, and during the past winter, as the old chief grew stiffer with the rheumatism which is the worst evil of the northern savage, more dreaded than most forms of death,—this youngster had waxed insolent at times, each recurring attack of lumbago might be the last, the one which would tie the old leader into his final knot, reducing him to a helpless, querulous cripple, and leaving the chieftainship open to the bravest and strongest man of his race.
The chief ignored the question, he was at gaze: yes, the strangers had come into view again, were holding a right line towards the camp-smokes, there was no affectation of concealment, no ruse. Who might they be?
Said the sentinel-girl at length, "These are two braves, for they go side by side at times,—one is shorter than the other by a head. Both are carrying something,—spears, I think,—and other things,—robes."
Said the old chief's head-wife in the spirit of prophecy, "It is my grandson!"
"And the small one, the other?" asked Honk-Ah, raising a doubt which no one was as yet in a position to allay.
There is but little twilight south of the Alps: it was in a thick green dusk that the all-but-given-up Pŭl-Yūn strode back into camp with his shorter companion going beside him as an equal and a friend goes. No man of their tribe this;—who then?—a slave? No.—A squaw!
The two, stepping out strongly (they had kept a trot for the avenue) made straight for the tee-pee of the old chief, and saluted the father of the tribe before exchanging a word with any. They also saluted the head-wife, some word of petition and consent passed in dumb show, the skin that hung over the entrance was shifted, in they went and the show was over.
But not the talk. It has been said that the Old English Manorial system assumed that every person in the village was intimately acquainted with the habits, business and doings of every other person in the village—(one might assume the same of villagers to-day with but little injustice). This rule held among those earlier communities from which the mediæval Englishman was remotely descended. Everybody was enormously and unblushingly inquisitive. Why should he not be? When his body was satisfied he had nothing else to think about save the goings-on of his comrades. Hence he (and she) knew to a nicety the precise distance which so-and-so could jump, or swim, or throw; knew the last, least intimate fact about the bodies and minds, the personal peculiarities and habits of each and of all of the tribe, for—and bear this in mind, ye who travel in tubes and have the day mapped out and guarded for you—ignorance of some small particular might at any moment cost life itself.
Your savage is incessantly hunting and being hunted. At any moment in his day his dinner may jump up in front of him and run away. At any moment a huge tawny cat may claim him for her meal. At any moment he may find a spear sticking in the calf of his leg. Such possibilities are calculated to develop the faculty of attention: from his childhood up he is trained by the hard facts of his life to be as observant as a magpie and as pertinaciously inquisitive as a dog.