“Then she is lost.”
“How’s that!” Noashak’s father stopped work, straightened his long back and gazed in astonishment at the speaker.
Guninana had come close. She dropped on a stump wearily, looking at her husband with troubled eyes, but addressing her son: “The child has not been home since she ran to you, Kak. What did she want then? What did she say?”
Both turned for the reply and the lad’s glance fell before his father’s.
“She went to play with the hares and marmots,” he muttered, kicking at a root.
“Into the woods—and you did not prevent her! Oh, son!”
“Well, how was I to know——” Kak began impatiently, and stopped. For he saw something in his parents’ faces that caught at his own heart.
“Foxes, I never thought of it! I’ll go and hunt for her—I’ll call. Don’t you worry, mother. I know all the places she plays in.”
“I have hunted. I have called,” Guninana answered miserably. Then roused herself to cry after the boy. “Don’t go too far. It’s growing dark; and there is no sense in your being lost also.”
Taptuna started at once in another direction, and between them they beat the near woods calling “Noashak!” and calling to each other; keeping in touch. Then, as the twilight deepened, his father ordered Kak home. They both came in gloomy and fatigued and sat down without a word. Okak had finished his supper and brought sticks to replenish the fire. He was silent, observing. Taptuna accepted a horn of soup, but Kak refused. Shame and self-reproach were eating at his heart. He had hunted for Noashak in a fever of remorse, rushing up and down the woods calling her name aloud; promising through set teeth all he would do for her and be to her if she only came back alive. Now he threw himself supperless by the fire and fell asleep.