The suggestion was equivalent to a command, and all went to eating.
When the meal was fairly begun, Mitla gathered sufficient courage to say:
"Father, tell us about your hunt to-day. From the quantity of game brought in, good luck must have attended you."
"Yes, the day was fine, and brought us extra good luck," he answered, and then paused to indulge his keen appetite for a moment. "Game was plentiful," he went on, "and we secured quite a bunch. There were some fine targets for testing an archer's skill, which would have delighted your heart, child, could you have been with us."
Mitla was the hunter's favorite, as was Oxie the favorite of her mother. The father's preference arose from the fact that Mitla, like himself, loved the mountains and their forest solitudes.
In reply to her father's reference to herself, she said:
"How much it would have delighted me, could I have been with you, I can not express; but you know how dearly I love to use my bow and arrow; let that speak for me. You often tell me, however, father, that I am too tender-hearted to engage in hunting."
"Yes, that's a fact, Mit, and I'm not sorry for it. I would not that ye were disposed to be cruel, for ye are a woman," he replied, in approval of her weakness, or, more fittingly, her innate sympathy.
"Your daughter is a fine archer, I infer?" remarked the Tezcucan inquiringly, addressing the mountaineer.
"Her arrow is true—I might say unerring," replied the father proudly. "And yet few know that she is an archer, at all."