Whilst he debated the foreign woman stooped, took her husband's bow from the ground, chose her a single dart and approached the crease. She turned and scrutinised the mark, the creel now denuded of the badger's skin. The stake upon which it hung protruded through the wicker for the length of half an arm. Watched by all she stood serenely at gaze, then, threw up her chin and called to a woman at the other end of the lists.
"O woman, there!—thou with the papoose!—I want a mark. Wilt hang something small, say a moccasin, upon the top of that stake? I thank thee, sister!"
A gust of astonished laughter arose, what foolery, what bravado was this?—There hung a child's mitten, an impossible mark, such as no brave had ever set for himself or for his rival. Again arose the clear, mellow woman's voice, using their own tongue with just a touch or two of foreignness in its intonations—
"O my father and chief, may I throw at this mark?—I will throw but once."
The old chief turned first to Honk-Ah, but the man sate mute and glum as though the business was no concern of his. Then to the woman he turned and nodded assent: doubting as did the rest, Pŭl-Yūn excepted.
DREW SWIFTLY, AND AS SWIFTLY LOOSED
Dêh-Yān fitted arrow to string and half bent the great bow, still keeping her eye upon the tiny mark, then with a small sweet laugh she tripped back from the throwing-crease five full strides, drew swiftly and to the ear and as swiftly loosed. Twang! the cord sang shrill in the morning air, the arrow sped, and a whoop of sheer delight broke from the watching tribe, for the shaft had struck the mitten full, had pierced and transfixed it. The archer had watched the flight of her shaft with a hard bright eye, now she turned and tripped back to her husband's side without a side-glance, as if such marksmanship was all in her day's work, a thing of nought. Doubt not that her little heart was high within her bosom, but no vaunting word escaped her lips. Dêh-Yān was great.
The old chief was upon his feet. Would his nephew throw? 'Twas a fair challenge.