"To you, every day is the best of the year, or at least you say so each morning." She put back her sleeping furs and stood up, naked and young and beautiful. "When we are mated," she said, "I will see that you wake silently, and slide down the tree to find my breakfast while I sleep as long as I wish!"
"What a shrew," I said happily. "What a ruler of men."
"You will see." She slipped her light garment over her head. "I will quiet you down, young Bear-throat!"
"I hope the day is soon, then, for your mating," growled her father from the lower platform of their family's tree. "Perhaps good folk will then be allowed to rest."
Grinning, I hung by my hands from the edge of my platform and dropped to the ground. Fifteen feet from toe to turf is no drop at all to a skilled hunter. The watchers were coming down the glen from their posts of the night, yawning and rubbing their eyes. I hailed them and they answered with waves of their arms.
"Any disturbances?"
"You would have heard, Ahmusk of the keen ears," said their leader. "No, we glimpsed a knifetooth bear traveling his solitary way to the Gray Brook, but if he killed thereafter we were too distant to hear it. No noises save the small animals going and coming, going and coming all night long."
"It is nearly a moon's change since old Halfspoor ranged near the valley," I said. "He will be coming back soon, if I know his ways; and then there will be disturbances in the night."
The leader of the watchers shivered. As far apart as we stood, I saw him shudder. "But do not lose your day's sleep over him," I shouted reassuringly. "This very moment I go to look for his track. If he ranges within our lands I shall know, and a pair of hunters will watch with you."