nd heart
beating to mine seduced me from my far dream of things, my man's
achievement, the goal beyond goals, the taking and the slaying of Sabre-
Tooth on the stake in the pit.

Once I wan Ushu, the archer. I remember it well. For I was lost from my
own people, through the great forest, till I emerged on the flat lands
and grass lands, and was taken in by a strange people, kin in that their
skin was white, their hair yellow, their speech not too remote from mine.
And she was Igar, and I drew her as I sang in the twilight, for she was
destined a race-mother, and she was broad-built and full-dugged, and she
could not but draw to the man heavy-muscled, deep-chested, who sang of
his prowess in man-slaying and in meat-getting, and so, promised food and
protection to her in her weakness whilst she mothered the seed that was
to hunt the meat and live after her.

And these people knew not the wisdom of my people, in that they snared
and pitted their meat and in battle used clubs and stone throwing-sticks
and were unaware of the virtues of arrows swift-flying, notched on the
end to fit the thong of deer-sinew, well-twisted, that sprang into
straightness when released to the spring of the ask-stick bent in the
middle.

And while I sang, the stranger men laughed in the twilight. And only
she, Igar, believed and had faith in me. I took her alone to the
hunting, where the deer sought the water-hole. And my bow twanged and
sang in the covert, and the deer fell fast-stricken, and the warm meat
was sweet to us, and she was mine there by the water-hole.

And because of Igar I remained with the strange men. And I taught them
the making of bows from the red and sweet-smelling wood like unto cedar.
And I taught them to keep both eyes open, and to aim with the left eye,
and to make blunt shafts for small game, and pronged shafts of bone for
the fish in the clear water, and to flake arrow-heads from obsidian for
the deer and the wild horse, the elk and old Sabre-Tooth. But the
flaking of stone they laughed at, till I shot an elk through and through,
the flaked stone standing out and beyond, the feathered shaft sunk in its
vitals, the whole tribe applauding.

I was Ushu, the archer, and Igar was my woman and mate. We laughed under
the sun in the morning, when our man-child and woman-child, yellowed like
honey-bees, sprawled and rolled in the mustard, and at night she lay
close in my arms, and loved me, and urged me, because of m