“Oca,” said the young man, not the least troubled by this curtness nor put out by it, “you have done us as much harm as you could, which is not so much as you wished. I leave you to count the good you have got by it. It was an old quarrel, but it occurs to me that since the chief cause of it has ceased to exist, there is little use in our quarreling. But there is no reason why we should be friends. Do you follow me?”
“You are plain enough.”
“I will be plainer. Not only do we Outliers wish no quarrel with you but we wish never to set eyes on you again, nor so much as to happen on the places where you have been. Therefore if you will choose you out a quarter of this land, which, as you say, is large enough, you and your people will have leave to go seven days in that direction, after which you shall see no more of us. But all this part where we have been, from the Ledge to Broken Tree, is forbidden ground. Neither you nor any generation of yours to set foot in it. We will see to that.”
He spoke with a controlled and quiet energy that fell on the old man’s fury of defeat like steady rain.
“As for us, we shall go south from here a great distance. So,” said Persilope, “if you choose, to-morrow my men will set you on your way, and you shall have no more to do with us except of your own seeking.”
Oca looked back over his people standing sullen and attentive, and read but one thought in them.
“We would go now,” he said.
“As you will. Only choose.”
It was a generous offer, but perhaps Persilope knew his man. Oca looked north and south: he must have had by his wild instinct the better knowledge of the country. He might have seen in that unstinted gaze some trace—pale smoke ascending or pointed roof—that advised him of the neighborhood of men, men to be plotted against, evaded, pilfered from, to give to his life the zest of cunning that it craved. He stretched his hand northward.
“I will go there,” he said.