, he judged, for the
awkwardness of honest speech.

All that day they marched. And on the next, when Karduk asked him at
command of Ivan, he said he doubted they would meet with his tribe till
the morrow. But Ivan, who had once been shown the way by Old Kinoos, and
had found that way to lead through the white water and a deadly fight,
believed no more in anything. So when they came to a passage up the
rocks, he halted his forty men, and through Karduk demanded if the way
were clear.

Negore looked at it shortly and carelessly. It was a vast slide that
broke the straight wall of a cliff, and was overrun with brush and
creeping plants, where a score of tribes could have lain well hidden.

He shook his head. "Nay, there be nothing there," he said. "The way is
clear."

Again Ivan spoke to Karduk, and Karduk said:

"Know, strange brother, if thy talk be not straight, and if thy people
block the way and fall upon Ivan and his men, that thou shalt die, and at
once."

"My talk is straight," Negore said. "The way is clear."

Still Ivan doubted, and ordered two of his Slavonian hunters to go up
alone. Two other men he ordered to the side of Negore. They placed
their guns against his breast and waited. All waited. And Negore knew,
should one arrow fly, or one spear be flung, that his death would come
upon him. The two Slavonian hunters toiled upward till they grew small
and smaller, and when they reached the top and waved their hats that all
was well, they were like black specks against the sky.

The guns were lowered from Negore's breast and Ivan gave the order for
his men to go forward. Ivan was silent, lost in thought. For an hour he
marched, as though puzzled, and then, through Karduk's mouth, he said to
Negore:

"How didst thou know the way was clear when thou didst look so briefly
upon it?"

Negore thought of the little birds he had seen perched among the rocks
and upon the bushes, and smiled, it was so simple; but he shrugged his
shoulders and made no answer. For he was thinking, likewise, of another
passage up the rocks, to which they would soon come, and where the little
birds would all be gone. And he was glad that Karduk came from the Great
Fog Sea, where there were no trees or bushes, and where men learned water-
craft instead of land-craft and wood-craft.

Three hours later, when the sun rode overhead, they came to another
passage up the rocks, and Karduk said:

"Look with all thine eye