"I do not ask it," replied the young brave. "I demand it; I have
seen the girl and I shall have her."

The old chief sprang to his feet and spat out his refusal. "Keep
your victory, and I keep my girl-child," though he knew he was not
only defying his enemy, but defying death as well.

The Tulameen laughed lightly, easily. "I shall not kill the sire
of my wife," he taunted. "One more battle must we have, but your
girl-child will come to me."

Then he took his victorious way up the trail, while the old chief
walked with slow and springless step down into the canyon.

The next morning the chief's daughter was loitering along the
heights, listening to the singing river, and sometimes leaning over
the precipice to watch its curling eddies and dancing waterfalls.
Suddenly she heard a slight rustle, as though some passing bird's
wing had clipt the air. Then at her feet there fell a slender,
delicately shaped arrow. It fell with spent force, and her Indian
woodcraft told her it had been shot to her, not at her. She started
like a wild animal. Then her quick eye caught the outline of a
handsome, erect figure that stood on the heights across the river.
She did not know him as her father's enemy. She only saw him to be
young, stalwart, and of extraordinary manly beauty. The spirit of
youth and of a certain savage coquetry awoke within her. Quickly
she fitted one of her own dainty arrows to the bow-string and sent
it winging across the narrow canyon; it fell, spent, at his feet,
and he knew she had shot it to him, not at him.