. None can now tell the cause of this warfare, but the
supposition is that it was merely for tribal supremacy--that
primeval instinct that assails the savage in both man and beast,
that drives the hill-men to bloodshed and the leaders of buffalo
herds to conflict. It is the greed to rule; the one barbarous
instinct that civilization has never yet been able to eradicate from
armed nations. This war of the tribes of the valley lands was of
years in duration; men fought, and women mourned, and children wept,
as all have done since time began. It seemed an unequal battle,
for the old, experienced, war-tried chief and his two astute sons
were pitted against a single young Tulameen brave. Both factors
had their loyal followers, both were indomitable as to courage and
bravery, both were determined and ambitious, both were skilled
fighters.

But on the older man's side were experience and two other wary,
strategic brains to help him, while on the younger was but the
advantage of splendid youth and unconquerable persistence. But at
every pitched battle, at every skirmish, at every single-handed
conflict the younger man gained little by little, the older man lost
step by step. The experience of age was gradually but inevitably
giving way to the strength and enthusiasm of youth. Then, one day,
they met face to face and alone--the old, war-scarred chief, the
young battle-inspired brave. It was an unequal combat, and at the
close of a brief but violent struggle the younger had brought the
older to his knees. Standing over him with up-poised knife the
Tulameen brave laughed sneeringly, and said:

"Would you, my enemy, have this victory as your own? If so, I give
it to you; but in return for my submission I demand of you--your
daughter."

For an instant the old chief looked in wonderment at his conqueror;
he thought of his daughter only as a child who played about the
forest-trails or sat obediently beside her mother in the lodge,
stitching her little moccasins or weaving her little baskets.

"My daughter!" he answered sternly. "My daughter--who is barely
out of her own cradle-basket--give her to you, whose hands are
blood-dyed with the killing of a score of my tribe? You ask for
this thing?"

"I do not ask it," replied the young brave. "I demand it; I have
seen the girl and I shall have her."

The old chief sprang to his feet and spat out his refusal. "Keep
your victory, and I keep my girl-child," though he kn