"I see no smoke," said Alan.
"It would bring down their enemies like buzzards on carrion," said the Basket Woman.
"There is no sound of singing nor of laughter," said the boy.
"Who laughs in the time of war?" said she.
"Is there war?" asked Alan.
"Long and bitter," said the Basket Woman. "Let us go softly and come upon them unawares."
So they went, light of foot, among the pines until they saw the wickiups opening eastward to the sun, but many of them stood ruined and awry. There were only the very old and the children in the camp, and these did not run and play. They stole about like mice in the meadow sod, and if so much as a twig snapped in the forest, they huddled motionless as young quail. The women worked in the growing corn; they dug roots on the hill slope and caught grasshoppers for food. One made a noose of her long black hair plucked out, and snared the bright lizards that ran among the rocks. It seemed to Alan that the Indians looked wishful and thinner than they should; but such food as they found was all put by.
"Why do they do this?" asked the boy.
"That the men who go to war may not go fasting," said the Basket Woman. "Look, now we shall have news of them."
A young man came noiselessly out of the wood, and it was he who had sung the new song on the night of feasting and dancing. He had eagle feathers in his hair, but they were draggled; there was beadwork on his leggings, but it was torn with thorns; there was paint on his face and his body, but it was smeared over red, and as he came into the camp he broke his bow across his knee.