nails and fish, was
in the open a hundred yards away. She could not go abroad by day for
fear of the tribe, her brothers and sisters, nor by night for fear of
the beasts, both on his account and hers. So they shared the lion with
the vultures. But there was a trickle of water near by, and Eudena
brought him plenty in her hands.

Where Ugh-lomi lay was well hidden from the tribe by a thicket of
alders, and all fenced about with bulrushes and tall reeds. The dead
lion he had killed lay near his old lair on a place of trampled reeds
fifty yards away, in sight through the reed-stems, and the vultures
fought each other for the choicest pieces and kept the jackals off him.
Very soon a cloud of flies that looked like bees hung over him, and
Ugh-lomi could hear their humming. And when Ugh-lomi's flesh was already
healing--and it was not many days before that began--only a few bones of
the lion remained scattered and shining white.

For the most part Ugh-lomi sat still during the day, looking before him
at nothing, sometimes he would mutter of the horses and bears and lions,
and sometimes he would beat the ground with the first axe and say the
names of the tribe--he seemed to have no fear of bringing the tribe--for
hours together. But chiefly he slept, dreaming little because of his
loss of blood and the slightness of his food. During the short summer
night both kept awake. All the while the darkness lasted things moved
about them, things they never saw by day. For some nights the hyaenas did
not come, and then one moonless night near a dozen came and fought for
what was left of the lion. The night was a tumult of growling, and
Ugh-lomi and Eudena could hear the bones snap in their teeth. But they
knew the hyaena dare not attack any creature alive and awake, and so they
were not greatly afraid.

Of a daytime Eudena would go along the narrow path the old lion had made
in the reeds until she was beyond the bend, and then she would creep
into the thicket and watch the tribe. She would lie close by the alders
where they had bound her to offer her up to the lion, and thence she
could see them on the knoll by the fire, small and clear, as she had
seen them that night. But she told Ugh-lomi little of what she saw,
because she feared to bring them by their names. For so they believed in
those days, that naming called.

She saw the men prepare stabbing-spears and throwing-stones on the
morning after Ugh-lomi had slain the lion, and g