landers blub-blubbed and thudded against them, but
could not go through, and the men howled their delight But the dark
was at hand, and Tyee, secure of success, called the bales back to the
trenches.

In the morning, in the face of an unearthly silence from the pit, the
real advance began. At first with large intervals between, the bales
slowly converged as the circle drew in. At a hundred yards they were
quite close together, so that Tyee's order to halt was passed along
in whispers. The pit showed no sign of life. They watched long and
sharply, but nothing stirred. The advance was taken up and the
manoeuvre repeated at fifty yards. Still no sign nor sound. Tyee shook
his head, and even Aab-Waak was dubious. But the order was given to go
on, and go on they did, till bale touched bale and a solid rampart of
skin and hide bowed out from the cliff about the pit and back to the
cliff again.

Tyee looked back and saw the women and children clustering blackly in
the deserted trenches. He looked ahead at the silent pit. The men were
wriggling nervously, and he ordered every second bale forward. This
double line advanced till bale touched bale as before. Then Aab-Waak,
of his own will, pushed one bale forward alone. When it touched the
barricade, he waited a long while. After that he tossed unresponsive
rocks over into the pit, and finally, with great care, stood up and
peered in. A carpet of empty cartridges, a few white-picked dog bones,
and a soggy place where water dripped from a crevice, met his eyes.
That was all. The Sunlanders were gone.

There were murmurings of witchcraft, vague complaints, dark looks
which foreshadowed to Tyee dread things which yet might come to pass,
and he breathed easier when Aab-Waak took up the trail along the base
of the cliff.

"The cave!" Tyee cried. "They foresaw my wisdom of the skin-bales and
fled away into the cave!"

The cliff was honey-combed with a labyrinth of subterranean passages
which found vent in an opening midway between the pit and where the
trench tapped the wall. Thither, and with many exclamations, the
tribesmen followed Aab-Waak, and, arrived, they saw plainly where the
Sunlanders had climbed to the mouth, twenty and odd feet above.

"Now the thing is done," Tyee said, rubbing his hands. "Let word go
forth that rejoicing be made, for they are in the trap now, these
Sunlanders, in the trap. The young men shall climb up, and the mouth
of the cave be filled with ston