es, so that Bill-Man and his brothers
and Mesahchie shall by famine be pinched to shadows and die cursing in
the silence and dark."

Cries of delight and relief greeted this, and Howgah, the last of the
Hungry Folk, swarmed up the steep slant and drew himself, crouching,
upon the lip of the opening. But as he crouched, a muffled report
rushed forth, and as he clung desperately to the slippery edge, a
second. His grip loosed with reluctant weakness, and he pitched down
at the feet of Tyee, quivered for a moment like some monstrous jelly,
and was still.

"How should I know they were great fighters and unafraid?" Tyee
demanded, spurred to defence by recollection of the dark looks and
vague complaints.

"We were many and happy," one of the men stated baldly. Another
fingered his spear with a prurient hand.

But Oloof cried them cease. "Give ear, my brothers! There be another
way! As a boy I chanced upon it playing along the steep. It is hidden
by the rocks, and there is no reason that a man should go there;
wherefore it is secret, and no man knows. It is very small, and you
crawl on your belly a long way, and then you are in the cave. To-night
we will so crawl, without noise, on our bellies, and come upon the
Sunlanders from behind. And to-morrow we will be at peace, and never
again will we quarrel with the Sunlanders in the years to come."

"Never again!" chorussed the weary men. "Never again!" And Tyee joined
with them.

That night, with the memory of their dead in their hearts, and in
their hands stones and spears and knives, the horde of women and
children collected about the known mouth of the cave. Down the twenty
and odd precarious feet to the ground no Sunlander could hope to pass
and live. In the village remained only the wounded men, while every
able man--and there were thirty of them--followed Oloof to the secret
opening. A hundred feet of broken ledges and insecurely heaped rocks
were between it and the earth, and because of the rocks, which might
be displaced by the touch of hand or foot, but one man climbed at a
time. Oloof went up first, called softly for the next to come on, and
disappeared inside. A man followed, a second, and a third, and so on,
till only Tyee remained. He received the call of the last man, but a
quick doubt assailed him and he stayed to ponder. Half an hour later
he swung up to the opening and peered in. He could feel the narrowness
of the passage, and the darkness before him took