I recalled the Or-tis, who had spoken similarly, and I wondered if, perhaps, they might not be right, but we are a proud people and for generations before my day our pride had been ground beneath the heel of the victorious Kalkar. Even yet the wound was still raw. And we are a stubborn people—stubborn in our loves and our hatreds. Already had I regretted my friendliness with the Or-tis, and now I was having amicable dealings with another Kalkar—it was difficult for me to think of them as other than Kalkars. I should be hating this one—I should have hated the Or-tis—but for some reason I found it not so easy to hate them.
Saku had been listening to our conversation, a portion of which at least he must have understood. “Wait until morning,” he said, “and then she can at least go with you as far as the top of the hills and point out the way for you; but you will be wise to take her with you. She knows every trail, and it will be better for her to go with you to your own people. She is not Kalkar, and if they catch her they will kill her. Were she Kalkar we would hate her and chase her away; but though she is welcome among us it would be hard for her to remain. We move camp often, and often our trails lead where one so large as she might have difficulty in following, nor would she have a man to hunt for her, and there are times when we have to go without food because we cannot find enough even for our own little people.”
“I will wait until morning,” I said, “but I cannot take her with me—my people would kill her.”
I had two motives in remaining overnight. One was to go forth early in the morning and kill game for the little Nipons in payment for their hospitality and the other was to avail myself of the girl’s knowledge of the trails, which she could point out from some lofty hill top. I had only a general idea of the direction in which to search for my people and as I had seen from the summit that the valley beyond was entirely surrounded by hills, I realized that I might gain time by waiting until morning, when the girl should be able to point out the route to the proper pass to my destination.
After the evening meal that night I kept up a fire for the girl, as the air was chill and she was not warmly clad. The little people had only their tents and a few skins for their own protection, nor was there room in the former for the girl, so already overcrowded were they. The Nipons retired to their rude shelters almost immediately after eating, leaving the girl and me alone. She huddled close to the fire and she looked very forlorn and alone. I could not help but feel sorry for her.
“Your people are all gone?” I asked.
“My own people—my father, my mother, my three brothers—all are dead, I think,” she replied. “My mother and father I know are dead. She died when I was a little girl. Six months ago my father was killed by the Kalkars. My three brothers and I scattered, for we heard that they were coming to kill us, also. I have heard that they captured my brothers; but I am not sure. They have been killing many in the valley lately, for here dwell nearly all the pure descendants of Americans, and those of us who were thought to favor the true Or-tis were marked for slaughter by the false Or-tis.
“I had been hiding in the home of a friend of my father, but I knew that if I were found there, it would bring death to him and his family, and so I came away, hoping to find a place where I might be safe from them; but I guess there is no place for me—even my friends, the Nipons, though they would let me stay with them, admit that it would be a hardship to provide for me.”
“What will you do?” I asked. Somehow I felt very sorry for her.
“I shall find some nearly inaccessible place in the hills and build myself a shelter,” she replied.
“But you cannot live here in the hills alone,” I remonstrated.
She shrugged her shoulders. “Where may I live, then?”
“For a little while, perhaps,” I suggested, “until the Kalkars are driven into the sea.”
“Who will drive them into the sea?” she asked.
“We,” I replied, proudly.
“And if you do, how much better off shall I be? Your people will set their hounds upon me—you have said so yourself. But you will not drive the Kalkars into the sea. You have no conception of their numbers. All up and down the coast, days’ journeys north and south, wherever there is a fertile valley, they have bred like flies. For days they have been coming from all directions, marching toward The Capital. I do not know why they congregate now, nor why only the warriors come. Are they threatened, do you think?” A sudden thought seemed to burst upon her. “It cannot be,” she exclaimed, “that the Yanks have attacked them! Have your people come out of the desert again?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Yesterday we attacked their great camp—today my warriors must have eaten their evening meal in the stone tents of the Kalkars.”
“You mean The Capital?”
“Yes.”
“Your forces have reached The Capital? It seems incredible. Never before have you come so far. You have a great army?”
“Twenty-five thousand warriors marched down out of the desert beneath The Flag,” I told her, “and we drove the Kalkars from the pass of the ancients back to The Capital, as you call their great camp.”
“You lost many warriors? You must have.”
“Many fell,” I replied; “thousands.”
“Then you are not twenty-five thousand now, and the Kalkars are like
