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By Root 3861 0

took their toll, and it seemed that she would die. Tep and his children tended her, in their careless way, but soon she had descended into a sickly silence and she showed no sign of recovery. After a few days, it was left to Akun to sit with her in the small hut in which Tep left her alone, to keep a fire alight for her and to feed her the warm broth which was the only food she could swallow. Her already meagre body was wasted; some days she shivered uncontrollably and Akun could only shake her head when Hwll asked about her condition. When, at midwinter, a huge blizzard blew into the valley for three successive days so that Akun could not make even the two mile journey from the hill camp to the hut by the river, she assumed that Ulla had died. But somehow she had not. The frail life force that had given her the passive resistance to survive with Tep and his family now enabled her to survive the cruel cold, and after the blizzard she very slowly began to mend.

It was because of her care for Ulla that a new, if somewhat unwelcome, friendship developed between Tep and Akun. One day in early spring she was surprised when the hunched form of the little hunter arrived at the hill camp bearing a large fish which he solemnly handed to her.

“For you,” he explained. “You looked after Ulla.”

She accepted this gift of gratitude with a friendly smile and, as custom demanded, offered him a place at the little fire and gave him food in return.

A few days later, he appeared again, this time with another fish and a hare. Akun was not sure she should accept more gifts from him; but since she did not want to offend him, she took them and once again thanked him with a smile.

Since then, Tep had on a number of occasions continued apparently chance meetings with her, either near the hill camp or in the valley below, and since she spent time with Ulla, who depended on her for company, it was impossible to avoid the foxy-faced hunter. She fell gradually into a polite familiarity with him which seemed to please him, and he continued to give her presents of food from time to time. When she once or twice asked Hwll if she should accept them, he only shrugged and said:

“Tep hunts with me; it is better he should be our friend.”

And so she did not bring the matter up again.

It was one morning in late summer, when Hwll had gone tracking deer with Otter, that she left her baby at the camp with Vata and went down into the valley. In the woods east of the valley entrance there were berries and she knew that by now they would be ripe. As she made her way to the spot, she had the feeling that she was being followed, but though she stopped a number of times, she was unable to see anyone. The place she selected to pick the berries was a small clearing where blackberry bushes abounded, and she had already filled one of the two pouches she had brought with her when, quite suddenly, she realised that Tep was in the clearing with her. He had crept up on her stealthily and now he stood at her side. She could see that he had bathed in the river that morning so that his normally dirty body and straggly beard were less evil-smelling than usual. His shock of grizzled carrot hair stood up briskly from his head.

Although he had surprised her, she greeted him calmly as usual, but there was something in his manner that alarmed her, and as she continued to move along the line of the bush, she found that he was moving beside her. He said nothing. She was not sure what she should do. Then, as she reached out to a high cluster of berries, the sly little fellow slid his hand quickly forward and firmly took her breast.

She froze. Although she was somewhat taller and heavier than the wiry hunter, she feared his strength.

While her body was motionless, her mind was working fast: she realised at once the enormous danger of the situation. For Tep to attempt to steal another hunter’s woman was to risk a fight, probably to the death, and unless Tep had already planned to kill Hwll, which was unlikely, she could not believe that he was deliberately provoking such a crisis.