"Your share?"
"Yes." Veena touched meaningly the bow and quiver of arrows, that hung over her shoulder. "I can send an arrow straight as any man in the tribe."
"But women are not supposed to go into battle."
"Why not? If the enemy feels an arrow in his body, does he stop to ask whether a man shot it or a woman?"
"Well, I'll be jiggered!" cried Dan Carter, who had caught the drift of this reply. "Talk about your modern girl! Why this Stone-Age maiden belongs to the Twentieth Century!"
Veena blushed. She knew nothing about either "Stone-Age" or "Twentieth Century" but she guessed that Dan was praising her and the color mounted to the fair skin of her cheeks, while her blue eyes smiled with pleasure.
"Please let me stay, O Master," she begged.
But Dick was not so easily led. "Nothing doing! Go back up the cliff. And get a move on! You're supposed to be with Queen Vanga. This is no place for girls!"
Veena might have argued with anybody else, but Tahara, the king and god of the tribe, was not to be contradicted. Hastily she turned away and ran like a deer to the trail that led up the cliffs.
"We've got to clear out of here right away," said Dick.