"On some other day—perhaps," muttered Honk-Ah, confusedly.
"To-day, and now, my cousin,—or not at all, and never!" retorted Pŭl-Yūn. "And, bethink thee, it is not now for the war-chieftaincy that thou art bidden to throw—that is lost to thee—but for its reversion. Wilt thou stand third in the tribe by out-throwing my wife?—No!—then thou art nought, just a brave among my braves, no more, whilst she leads the war-parties in my absence."
"That is so,—I say it," said the old chief, stilling the clamour that was arising among the braves. "Here stands my daughter, no foreign woman, but a full member of the tribe; no squaw but a brave, and a very great spearman."
"Witch!" screamed the cousin bounding to his feet and whirling back his spear. In the twinkling of an eye he had quivered and had hurled it at the shapely bosom of Dêh-Yān. But the grey chief stepped before her with upraised hands and lips opening in rebuke that was never to be uttered. Straight betwixt those upraised hands sped the spear, and drove its keen chert head deep through the neck-cordage and into the great throat artery of the father of the tribe.
The bright life-blood spouted high and wide. The stricken man staggered, but kept his feet, composedly folded his arms and stood awaiting his death.
A bitter cry of horror burst from the circle of braves, a shriller wail from the outer ring of women, and as the uproar grew the tall figure of the ancient leader was seen to totter, sway and fall.
Pŭl-Yūn had leaped to his feet snatching right and left for axe and knife in the blind impulse of wrath. Honk-Ah, horror-struck at his impiety, stood for some breaths covering his wide open mouth with his hand, a petrifaction of remorse, whilst his friends fell away from him as from an infected thing; then, seeing his enemy and master, the new chief, in whose hand lay his life and his limbs to torture at his will, bounding across the open circle towards him, he turned and fled with winged feet.
He had yet a chance, not only for life alone, but for far more than life, for the chieftaincy of the tribe! If he could reach covert and maintain himself alive for ten days and ten nights the Headship of the Sun-Men was his.
Such was the Custom of the Tribe. Such was the rule of succession of the Priests of Nemi (Kings of the Grove) down to the times of the Antonines; such, within living memory, was the law of the Red-skins of the Middle States.