The Trail Book by Mary Hunter Austin
page 97 of 261 (37%)
page 97 of 261 (37%)
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"They moved off, and the wind walking on the pine needles covered what they said, but I remembered what I had heard because they smelled of mischief. "Two nights later I remembered it again when the Delight-Makers came out of the dark in three bands and split the people's sides with laughter. They were disguised in black-and-white paint and daubings of mud and feathers, but there was a Dine among them. By the smell I knew him. He was a tall man who tumbled well and kept close to Kokomo. But a Dine is an enemy. Tse-tse-yote had told me. Therefore I kept close at his heels as they worked around toward the house of Pitahaya, and my neck bristled. I could see that the Dine had noticed me. He grew a little frightened, I think, and whipped at me with the whip of feathers which the Koshare carried to tickle the tribesmen. I laid back my ears--I am Kabeyde, and it is not for the Dine to flick whips at me. All at once there rose a shouting for Tse-tse, who came running and beat me over the head with his bow-case. "'They will think I set you on to threaten the Koshare because they mocked me,' he said. 'Have you not done me mischief enough already?' "That was when we were back in the cave, where he penned me till morning. There was no way I could tell him that there was a Dine among the Koshare." "But I thought--" began Oliver, he looked over to where Arrumpa stood drawing young boughs of maple through his mouth like a boy stripping currants. "Couldn't you just have told him?" |
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