d. The woman's eyes were
closed, and she seemed to be asleep, nothing but her short, quick
breathing showing she was still alive. For some minutes the man stood
thus, then turned and strode out of the hut, picking up his bow as he
passed it, and carrying it with him. Without a word to his wife, who had
begun to cook a piece of the deer meat, and was busily at work over the
out-door fire, he occupied himself with his bow and arrows, testing
the strength of the cord, made of the intestines of a wild-cat, and
examining closely the arrow-heads, tipped with poison, taken from the
rattlesnake; but all in an intermittent way, for every few moments he
raised his head and gazed long and steadily over the plain to the far
distant hills on the southern horizon.

At last his wife called to him that the meal was ready. He went over to
the fire and began to eat, while the woman took some of the broth,
which she had made out of the meat, put it into a small earthen pot,
and carried it to her grandmother, in the hope that she might be able to
force a little of it down her throat. It was of no use: the dying woman
was insensible to all help from food, and lay as in a stupor, from which
it was impossible to rouse her. Mota returned sadly to the fire where
her husband was eating as only a hungry man can eat.

They finished their meal in silence, and after the wife had put away the
remains of the food, she came over to where her husband was sitting
in the opening of the hut, and crouched by his side. There, in the
gathering gloom of the night, he told of the experiences of his search
for food.

"It was a long, long distance I went, Mota," he began. "I journeyed on
and on to the far south, until I reached a river that flows across the
plains toward the sea. It was nearing evening of the second day after I
came to the river, when suddenly I heard a queer sound as of the steps
of a small army of some kind of hard-footed animals. It was far in
the distance when first I heard it; for the air was still as though
listening to the voice of the Great Spirit, its master; and I listened,
rooted to the spot where I stood. What could it be? Never had I heard
the tread of so many animals at one time. Nearer they came, and soon I
heard the voices of men, speaking to each other, but not in any Indian
language I am familiar with, and I know several. But if they were men
I must hide, for they would take me prisoner, if they did not kill me,
should I be s