four more,
and they continued swiftly to fall, one and two at a time, till but
one remained, and he in full flight with death singing about his ears.
It was Nok, a young hunter, long-legged and tall, and he ran as never
before. He skimmed across the naked open like a bird, and soared and
sailed and curved from side to side. The rifles in the pit rang out
in solid volley; they flut-flut-flut-flutted in ragged sequence; and
still Nok rose and dipped and rose again unharmed. There was a lull in
the firing, as though the Sunlanders had given over, and Nok curved
less and less in his flight till he darted straight forward at every
leap. And then, as he leaped cleanly and well, one lone rifle barked
from the pit, and he doubled up in mid-air, struck the ground in a
ball, and like a ball bounced from the impact, and came down in a
broken heap.

"Who so swift as the swift-winged lead?" Aab-Waak pondered.

Tyee grunted and turned away. The incident was closed and there was
more pressing matter at hand. One Hungry Man and forty fighters, some
of them hurt, remained; and there were four Sunlanders yet to reckon
with.

"We will keep them in their hole by the cliff," he said, "and when
famine has gripped them hard we will slay them like children."

"But of what matter to fight?" queried Oloof, one of the younger men.
"The wealth of the Sunlanders is not; only remains that in the igloo
of Neegah, a paltry quantity--"

He broke off hastily as the air by his ear split sharply to the
passage of a bullet.

Tyee laughed scornfully. "Let that be thy answer. What else may we do
with this mad breed of Sunlanders which will not die?"

"What a thing is foolishness!" Oloof protested, his ears furtively
alert for the coming of other bullets. "It is not right that they
should fight so, these Sunlanders. Why will they not die easily? They
are fools not to know that they are dead men, and they give us much
trouble."

"We fought before for great wealth; we fight now that we may live,"
Aab-Waak summed up succinctly.

That night there was a clash in the trenches, and shots exchanged. And
in the morning the igloo of Neegah was found empty of the Sunlanders'
possessions. These they themselves had taken, for the signs of their
trail were visible to the sun. Oloof climbed to the brow of the cliff
to hurl great stones down into the pit, but the cliff overhung, and he
hurled down abuse and insult instead, and promised bitter torture to
them in