Thetime came when Marian had to face the problem of clothing. Every bathing-suit was worn to rags, and everything else was so near it that there was no trusting anything. When the weather was cold they had their wraps, and these covered a multitude of tattered sins, and none of the tribe save Marian herself ever wore anything into the water any more, but even with such economy there was no dodging the issue any longer. Unless she were willing that her flock should revert to extreme savagery in costumes, something had to be done.
Her first attempt was to crochet clothing out of fiber, but it took so long to make a garment that way that she was always eagerly on the alert for other modes. She remembered that soaking skins in wet ashes would remove the hair. Old Mr. Faston had said so once. So she tried it with some rabbit-skins. It worked very well. After being packed in a little hollow of therock with ashes and water all night, the fur was easily pulled off. Then, when the ashes were washed off and the skin was nearly dry, it could be rubbed and worked till it was soft and pliable and Marian could begin dressmaking.
Rabbits were getting scarce in their immediate vicinity, however, and the search for better hunting-grounds took them back to the mainland again. They did not cross the harbor and go to climbing mountains this time, however. They took the raft down the bay and followed one of the windingesterosthat led between mango bushes, off and off, farther and farther, twisting and turning and growing narrower and more and more shallow till they came out into a comparatively level country, with no hills near at hand, but great stretches of mud flats and sandbanks and miles and miles ofpitallaand scrubby brush.
They took the raft as far as they could and tied it to some bushes and proceeded afoot. They wandered several miles, taking care not to lose their bearings. They found wagon-loads of finepitallaand some other wood, rabbits galore, anda few stone or flint arrowheads, but no sign whatever of human habitation.
Delbert shot eight big jack rabbits, Esther got three, and Jennie two, thirteen in all. They decided that the unluckiness of the number was for the rabbits, not for them. They took only the skins home with them, for they did not need the meat, and they had plenty of other things to carry back to the raft.
They loaded it with all the good drypitallathey could pile up and tie on. Down close by the water, half buried in the salty mud, Delbert found a stone hatchet. Once before he had found a broken one, but this was perfect. He held it in his hand with a dreamy look on his face. “How long ago do you s’pose it was, Marian, when they made ’em and used ’em like this one?”
“Mercy! I have no idea; hundreds of years at the least and like as not a million.”
“Well, anyway, it’s mine now,” he said decidedly, as he dropped it into the fiber bag.
“Yes, I think you can keep it with a clear conscience. Now, get on here, all of you. Never mind that crab, Davie; you don’t need it, anyway.”
They did not get home till the moon was well up.
There was probably stuff growing at her hand that would have given those skins a good tan, if Marian had only known what it was and how to use it, but she did not. The soaking in ashes did fairly well; only if the skin got well wet afterwards, it would dry stiff unless it was worked and kept pliable while drying. Of course there was no strength in the rabbit-skins. They tore easily, but they were, nevertheless, a material of which Marian could make simple clothes, so that they should not be entirely naked if any one ever did come along. She made dresses for the little girls first, the simplest style she could think of, eliminating sleeves altogether and not continuing the skirts below the knees.
She crocheted belts of fiber, and used it also to sew with, for her supply of thread was very low indeed. There was no need of buttons; the little girls just slipped the dresses over their heads, slipped their arms through the generous armholes, belted the slight fullness at the waist, and there you were—pretty as pictures, too.
The only foreign articles in the constructionof those robes were the belt-buckles, which Marian had contrived out of the fasteners of their old stocking-supporters. Of course the elastic and the stockings had worn out long ago. Every one was barefoot now except Marian, who was near enough to it, but the soles of her shoes had been very thick and good, and though the tops were worn out she still managed to use the bottoms as sandals and thus had some protection to her feet, which somehow she could never get toughened as the children’s were.
After several more trips up theesteroand more or less success in hunting, they had enough rabbit-skins to make Marian a dress too. She made it just as she had the other two, belting it with her red leather belt, which she had worn for several years, but which was still as strong as new. Her dress came a little below her knees.
The rabbit-skins were not at all satisfactory for Delbert. He was in and out of the water so constantly, and climbed and scrambled over the rocks so much, that a garment that must not be wet and that would not stand strain was not at all what he needed.
He told Marian that all he wanted was a loin-clothsuch as other Indians wore, but Marian was not at all sure how loin-cloths were made or worn. She thought about cutting off an end of one of the blankets, but rather hated to do that; so she worked away with her hook and the banana fiber till she had evolved what satisfied him. And when he donned it and strode along, shirtless and barelegged, his hair stringing over his shoulders and kept out of his eyes by a red rag tied around his forehead, and the rag stuck full of feathers, he certainly looked not unlike an aborigine of some sort.
Davie declined even a loin-cloth; simple nature unadorned suited him to a T.
Thus, between the bananas and the rabbits, Marian managed to keep her family clothed.
They took many trips to the mainland. There were severalesterosthat led far inland, and they explored them all. They became accustomed to going without water. They always hadsomewith them, but it was such a bother to take a lot of bottles along every time they stirred out from home that they trained themselves not to want a drink every little while. They would take a big drink before they left the Island in the morning,and often no one would take another till noon. Also they learned to go without much food in the middle of the day and to eat that little raw.
Children are children the world over, I fancy. These had their little games and plays, which Marian was always ready to foster. The little girls and Davie used to put their dolls to bed every night, tucking them in as carefully as they did themselves. Also the dolls were usually carried with them, if they were making a trip of any great length, lest they should get lonesome and frightened if left too long alone. They traveled in a little fiber bag Jennie crocheted, and were generally hung up on the mast where they were well out of the way of the water, and if they went inland Jennie would wear the bag hung about her neck.
When they went in swimming, the children would play they were fishes and other water creatures and would imitate the different characteristics as well as they could. Davie’s favorite characterization was that of the crab. He would run sideways on all fours and pinch the other children’s toes. He played this so strenuouslythat he often made himself something of a nuisance and had to be tactfully guided into other channels of thought.
They were all perfectly delighted when Marian taught them how to stay under water as long as they pleased. On one of their inland trips they had found some large hollow weed-stalks. They played with them at first by simply blowing bubbles in the water and drawing up mouthfuls of water which they blew out at each other, but when Marian showed them that by holding one of the hollow tubes in the mouth one could stay under water as long as he remembered to breathe always through the mouth and to keep the top of the tube above the water, they invented all kinds of games that the new trick could be used in.
Delbert could do it best. He declared he could lie under the water and go to sleep, it was so easy. Marian did not advise him to try it. “You might get to snoring and drown before you could wake up,” she told him.
Their novel clothing gave new impetus to their Indian play. There was some discussion at first as to which tribe they belonged to.They could not seem to recognize themselves as belonging to any they had yet heard of and they finally invented a new one and called themselves the tribe of the Hawks. Marian had been calling Delbert that for some time, he was always so keenly on the alert for anything to eat. And when he perched himself on a rock and fished patiently,—that was before they lost the hook,—he reminded her of nothing so much as a fish hawk ready to swoop.
They spent more and more time on the trips inland. They began to skirt the hills a little. Davie was so big now that he did not seem to tire out any quicker than Jennie, and the little feet were all so tough that hard roads did not daunt them.
They saw no more cat-tracks, but Marian never forgot that one, and because of it kept the tribe away from the high rocky hills and the thick growth.
The country beyond the largestesterobecame familiar to them for several miles. There was a certain lagoon there that they liked to go to in the rainy season,—and there was no lagoonthere except in the rainy season. There were beautiful blue pond-lilies in it. Marian dug up some roots and planted them on the home Island.
They frequently found arrowheads and sometimes other stones, broken, but showing the work of human hands upon them, all of which spoke with certainty of bygone people, but never anything of modern times. Near the lagoon were several low hills, and on these they found the cotton-tree. This tree in its season produces big pods full of silky white cotton, and though the yield is not so very abundant, nor the quality so very fine, yet they saved every pod they could find, Delbert and Esther often climbing up for those that could not be reached from the ground with a pole.
“Some day I will invent a spinning-wheel and a loom,” said Marian, “and we will make cloth.” And the children, remembering the rope-making machine she had made, never doubted her ability.
Once, when they were about two miles from the end of theestero, they found a good-sized tree that had blown down some years before onthe side of a little hill. It was larger than any tree growing there now and seemed to have been alone among its dwarfish neighbors. It was too heavy to be dragged all that distance, but if they could manage to chop off the few limbs and the roots that stuck up so high, they could roll it down to theesteroand float it home.
It was a big task, but because they had plenty of time on their hands and no pressing social duties, and also because they needed that log in their business, they made trip after trip, starting at daylight and not getting home till nearly dark, chopped and chopped with the hatchet until they had the log smooth enough to roll, and then rolled it over and over all that distance and floated it home in triumph.
Then they set about improving the raft. The new log was a little crooked, but otherwise was about the equal of the one they had captured out in the bay. The three logs together would be much better than the raft as it was. Delbert’s idea was to lash them together as they had been doing, but Marian had thought of an improvement, though it almost seemed as if it could not be done with their limited facilities.They had already accomplished so many tasks that seemed hard, however, and Delbert was such a bright and willing helper, and the little girls were always so willing to contribute their share to any labor, that she told Delbert that at any rate they would have a try at shipbuilding.
CHOPPED AND CHOPPED UNTIL THEY HAD THE LOG SMOOTH ENOUGH TO ROLL
CHOPPED AND CHOPPED UNTIL THEY HAD THE LOG SMOOTH ENOUGH TO ROLL
Long and longingly she looked at the old canoe,but in the end left it where it was in the corral fence. She could think of no way to combine it with the logs to make a more serviceable craft.
The new log was rolled up on the beach beside the one they had found out on the water, and then the raft was taken to pieces, and the log in the middle of it was also rolled up on the beach. After they were all fixed in just the right position, they were kept in place by stakes driven into the ground.
The next thing was to make a new tool. Among the scraps of iron found on the little egg island was one about an inch in diameter and nearly three feet long when straightened out. It was round, an immense bolt maybe, but rusted and bent and twisted. What Marian did first was to heat it to straighten it out.
It was very hard to handle it when it was hot. She had an assortment of green sticks and matted-fiber holders for this purpose. As when they were making the fish-spear, they used a flat rock for an anvil and the hatchet for a hammer, and after many heatings and hammerings they got the iron straight with a blunt point on one end.
But straightening the bar was only the beginning of the work. She kept the fire hot and heated the bar time after time, and burned three holes entirely through the two outside logs and corresponding ones well into the middle log. Then they took six of the toughest stakes they could find, whittled them straight and smooth to the right size, and drove them in through the burned holes like huge nails. Next they burned and whittled a big hole down into the center log as a socket for the mast. Then they picked out the best of the poles that had been in the raft and set it in place and drove in wedges to hold it solid. This got rid of the clumsy lashings and proppings, besides giving them a straight instead of a crooked mast, and it was not difficult then to rig up a sail that could be easily raised and lowered, using, of course, one of the blankets for a sail as before.
The platform that they burned theirpitallaon when spearing next demanded their attention. It was too clumsy and was always needing repairs. Once out on the salt reef they had found a dead sea turtle half buried in the sand. They had fished it out and fastened it with stakeswhere it would not be washed away, though every tide would cover it, and the elements combined with the scavengers of the sea to clean the shell for them. With rocks and the hatchet they broke away the under part of the shell, and the top part, about two and a half feet in diameter, curved and dished, would hold thepitallanicely.
Two stout, widespread crotches were cut and driven tightly into burned holes at one end of the projecting middle log, so that they supported the inverted turtle-shell. It did not, however, rest firmly enough till Marian had wired it to the crotches by means of the bail from the old wooden bucket, which was passed through little holes burned in the shell.
Away off up in the pasture they had found a place where the soil partook of the nature of clay. They brought some from there, mixed it to the right consistency and spread a coating all over the inside of the turtle-shell. It dried without much cracking, and the fire would harden it. This was a vast improvement over the old platform, which, in spite of their best efforts had always been a trifle wobbly and evinced a tendencyto spill the fuel off into the water at the slightest provocation.
Delbert thought they had their task about finished now, but Marian had a great deal more to do to it still. She wanted to build on the other end a platform of some sort, where they could put things and have them stay dry. By burning holes and driving in stakes and then weaving in with small, tough green sticks, she succeeded in making that end of the raft look not unlike a huge basket. Then by filling that same basket with dried seaweed and such material, which was bulky but light, she had a place where things could be carried out of reach of the waves and where a little girl could lie down if she was tired. Of course, the waves slopped up and soaked through the seaweed to some extent when the raft was in use, but when it was moored quietly to the beach the hot sun dried it out pretty well.
When the raft was finished, their third rainy season on the island was past. Marian was learning, and the others along with her, something of the eternal patience of the universe. So long as she was accomplishing her purpose, she did not count much on the time it took to do it.
They all thought the new raft was such a beauty that it deserved a name. Marian suggested everything she could think of from “Fleet Wings” to “Annabel Lee,” but they finally decided on Jennie’s choice, which was “Muggywah.” She said it was Indian and meant something very safe and strong that nobody could conquer. Where she got the name or the notion Marian could not imagine, and she herself could not tell, but the Muggywah became one of the family forthwith.
Out where the center log projected, at the turtle-shell end, Marian burned the name. “Oh, we are getting wonderfully aristocratic,” she told the children. “It is not every family that can have their own private yacht.”
They went on a big spearing expedition when the Muggywah was finished. The tide was just right, and the fish were plentiful. They got three enormous red snappers and a lot of smaller fry, and it was the most satisfactory trip they had ever made.
Marian sat Turk-fashion on the seaweed deck and steered with the broken oar, which had been spliced to make it better to handle, and Daviewas in front of her, dry and warm. When he went to sleep, it was the easiest thing in the world to tie him safely, for some of the stakes of the basketwork had been left high for that especial purpose, and then he did not have to be watched.
Jennie took the spear first, and when, after a while, she grew tired and gave the spear to Esther, who had been teasing for it, she too crept back and crawled in with Davie under the shawls and lay on her back, watching the bright stars above and the mango bushes, weird and grotesque with the flare of thepitallafire and the backward swirl of the smoke. When the game became an old story to Esther, she yielded the spear to Delbert, and, after replenishing the fire from the fuel in the barrel, she too curled down on the deck at Jennie’s feet.
Delbert and Marian then took turns at steering and spearing, and only turned the Muggywah back toward the pier when the fuel was all gone.
Along with their feathers the children took up other modes of Indian decoration of their persons. They did not quite come to war paint,but they wore long strings of beads, principally of theguaymuchelseeds. These are flat black seeds that grow embedded in a thick sweetish pith enclosed in a pod which grows on a big tree. The pithy part is highly prized by the Indians for eating, and the Island Hawks gathered them for that, and saved the seeds, which, when soft, are easily strung.
Then there were the tiny many-colored clamshells that they found so plentiful on the beaches of the bird islands. They bored holes in these with Marian’s big fat darning-needle and strung them into valuable wampum belts. There were other seeds and beans that they strung, but these were the staples.
One Christmas, Marian gave Jennie a string of bone beads. She had found a number of the bones of some big bird, long, smooth, and hollow, and she whittled them into little sections and strung them on a string of her own hair. That same year her gift to Esther was a headdress of pink feathers taken from a dead bird that Delbert had found washed up on the beach one morning. To Delbert she gave a gay feather-trimmed quiver for his arrows and two newarrow-points of bone, and to Davie a number of little toys whittled out of driftwood. The children had remembered their kindergarten lore that year, and each one made Marian a little basket. They were rather loose and ill-shapen, but they were the forerunners of better ones.
With the Muggywah their food problem was still further simplified. They had lived so long on the Island now that they knew the tides, when they would be high and when low, and always took these into consideration along with the wind. With their gay striped blanket for a sail and a paddle of some sort in the hands of each, with their trips planned to have the tide in their favor as much as possible, they could accomplish much more business than formerly. They could take a dishpanful of boiled-down sea-water out to the salt reef, put it into the rock-hollows there, where the sun finished the evaporation for them, and maybe gather up a dish of dry and quite passably clean salt to take back with them; go on to some other place and gather a lot of clams for dinner, or perhaps oysters; go back again to Smugglers’, put up the salt and attend to the clams, and strikeoff across the bay toward some distantestero, which would lead back into goodpitallacountry, or perhaps to apanalwhich they had seen some days before and been too busy to gather in; and by night they would have accomplished several times as much as when they had crept over the water on the old log with only driftwood and poles for paddles, or else had had to stay on land because the water was a little rough. With the new firm mast which was in no danger of falling down, they could utilize a wind that had been much too strong for them to tamper with before, and with the children able to swim like little fishes, they could brave a possible capsize or tumble overboard. Of course Marian was not going to risk the great waves outside in the Gulf, and when the wind blew the water into breakers on the Island, white and thunderous, she kept her tribe busy in the pasture or the garden.
Some time during each day they took their bath and swim. If the water was too rough on the seaward side, they took it in the harbor, where it was quieter, but there were not so very many days when it was too rough. Marianwould keep her eye on Davie if they were out very far, but she had little anxiety about the others. Sometimes they took the Muggywah out into deep water and anchored her with a stone, and had their swim from there.
They had had no storm yet equal to the one on the night of their arrival on the Island, but during the fall after the Muggywah was finished they had one which came nearer to it than any in the three years. It lasted two days and two nights and certainly gave them a miserable time. They turned the little burros out with their mothers to save feeding and milking, and they collected vegetables and bananas in the Cave, which they ate raw, not being able to have a fire to cook by. Indeed, their precious embers were all put out, so that they had to start anew with the fire-sticks when the storm was over.
They snuggled up in the Cave, not going out except when it seemed absolutely necessary, and Marian sang over all the songs she knew and which she had sung to them on rainy days a hundred times before,—or at least it seemed so to her,—and told over all the stories they called for and racked her brains for new ones.
The Cave had never been a roomy chamber, and now it reminded Marian of a nest that is filled to overflowing with nestlings which are ready to fly. Neither of the little girls could stand up in it now, not even in the widest part, and Davie, fast growing up into a big, strong boy, had to be very careful.
The first day dragged, the second crawled, and in the afternoon Marian delivered herself of the emphatic remark, “We are not going to live in this Cave through another rainy season; we will build us a house!”
The children were all struck dumb for a second and then fired volleys of comments and questions.
“You see,” said Marian when quiet reigned again, “this Cave was all right in the first place. You were all little then, and it was the best we could do, but now,—why, see! Delbert is stretching up nearly as tall as I am; Jennie and Esther take up as much room as all four of you did then; we spread out so we can’t keep ourselves covered from the mosquitoes; and I am sick and tired of camping out forever; I want a home.”
“But, Marian,” said Jennie, “don’t you think some one will find us now before long?”
“I think,” said Marian, “that there is no likelihood of any one but Indians coming into San Moros. There is nothing to bring any one else here, and, as you know, we have seen very few canoes in all the time we have been here. I don’t understand it; it seems as if they would all know about there being bananas and good water here and be coming all the time, but evidently there are no settlements anywhere near, and the poor Indian is not going very far from home in his canoe. Clarence must have found out about the place from some old Indian who, I suppose, had happened to stumble on to it somehow, and, as far as I know, Clarence was the only white person who ever came here, but”—she paused and looked impressively at the children—“some day, when we can sail the Muggywah a great deal better than we do now, when Davie is big and strong enough so that I dare risk him out there on the Gulf waves, and when the rest of you are bigger and stronger than you are now, we’ll stock the Muggywah up with provisions and we’ll go back to the Port ourselves. I don’tdare risk it overland and I shall not try it by water so long as there is any risk in it, but if no one comes for us before then, the time will come when you children will be so big that we can go in safety, and then we’ll go.”
“I’d be willing to take some risk,” said Delbert moodily.
“I’m not,” said Marian. “Four children mother left in my care when she went to Guaymas that time, four I shall return to her. Your lives are safe here. If I lost one of you in trying to get back, I should never be happy again.”
“How well shall we have to swim?” asked Esther.
“Better than any of us do now,” said Marian. “We must be able to swim so well that if the Muggywah should swamp or turn turtle out there, we could all get to shore if we had to. It is a good deal, but we can do it in time. Clarence could have done it, but it may take us several years yet. We don’t dare go out of the bay yet, and we all get tired out if we have much hard paddling to do; but to go to the Port in the Muggywah would take several days. Unfortunately, she doesn’t go as swiftly as the launch did.”
“If Clarence was here, he’d make her go better than she does,” said Delbert.
“I think he would,” returned Marian; “but what we don’t know about sailing her we must learn; and meantime, I am tired of living in this little hole in the rocks, and the next job on hand is to build a house. We can do it.”
The first thing to do usually is to select a site. Esther thought a good place to put the new dwelling in would be down by the pier, where the smugglers had had their house. It would be close to the water and the garden. But that took them out of sight of the bay and the distant Gulf, and mosquitoes and gnats were apt to be plentiful there at night, and so it was not to be thought of. Jennie, too, still retained her fear of the water during storms, and the higher they could get the better it would suit her. One thing about the Cave which they meant to improve upon in their new habitation was the fact that their view was cut off by the big rock in front. To see what might be out on the water they had to go clear past it, out of the house, as one might say. Of course, it sheltered them from wind and rain to a great extent, but Marianwanted to be sheltered from the elements and still be able to see out on the water.
From the mound that had been the smugglers’ house projected a crotched timber, and Marian suggested that they dig it out for their new dwelling, though she had not yet decided where to build nor what material to use.
They made some wooden rakes and shovels,—that is, they called them that,—and these did a little better for the work than the old dig-spoon and the little spade. As they dug and scraped, Marian told them of the ancient cities which lay buried for centuries and then were sometimes discovered and excavated and of the wonderful things found in them. The children were very much interested, and straightway they ceased to be Indians and became a band of eminent scientists who had discovered an ancient, oh, a very ancient, city. It was very interesting indeed, for, when you came to think of it, there was really no knowing what you might or might not find.
They finally got the timber out. It was shorter than Marian had hoped, but then the children wanted to go on and dig the whole mound over.They had found a few bits of broken pottery, which they seemed to think very wonderful, and they hoped for more riches.
So, as it seemed a pity to veto anything so exciting, Marian consented to go on with the work. It seemed almost strange that they did not find more things than they did. There were a number of other timbers unearthed, but all but one of them were too rotten to be of use. There was the half of ametatestone[5]which they made a great deal of use of afterwards, and a broken pitcher and more pieces of pottery, but none of it big enough to be of any use. There were some very small fragments of glass and quite a number of bricks; also a few rusty scraps of iron, one of which had been an oarlock and one a knife. The bricks were mixed in with a number of stones, all bearing the marks of fire,—a cooking-place of some sort evidently.
[5]A stone used for grinding Indian corn.
[5]A stone used for grinding Indian corn.
The children were most excited over the pitcher. It had a gay flower on one side of it, and they watched eagerly for other fragments. They found a few and fitted them together, but when all was done there was still a hole in it asbig as Delbert’s fist and a piece gone from the nose, but they took as much pride in that old fragment as if it had been really something valuable.
But to Marian the bricks appealed the most. She meant to have a real fireplace in the new house, and they would aid very much. The crotched timber, short though it was, would also come in very handy, and the ground they had dug over so industriously was in fine condition for a garden.
Every day they took their swimming-lesson. Now they began to practice on long swims. They would take the Muggywah out, and while Marian or Delbert paddled it along, or tended the sail if there was a breeze, the rest would swim by the side. As soon as one got tired, all he had to do was to climb in and take his turn with the paddle. Even Davie was learning a little about paddling, and Jennie and Esther, now eleven and nine years old, could manage very nicely.
Out on the blue water they made a pretty picture,—the Muggywah dancing along with her gay striped sail, Marian in a garmentconstructed of her old brown petticoat which reached to her knees but left neck and arms bare, Davie’s old straw hat tied under her chin, her long braids falling to her waist as she steered with the oar; the four children, their slender bodies gleaming white in the water, splashing each other, laughing, calling, now and again climbing on the seaweed deck to rest a few minutes before plunging down again into the salty waves.
And when they had been out long enough, they would turn the Muggywah and run for Smugglers’, pretending they were fleeing from their enemies,—smugglers escaping from the government revenue men maybe, or Indians returning from striking some decisive blow at their tribal foes.
Always there were the little burros to be tended, a little gardening to be done each day, fresh water to be carried up to the Cave, and wood to be gathered. Marian had learned that as long as she worked with them her tribe did very well, but it was not well to leave them at separate tasks. She still felt, too, the desire to have them within her reach, to know for a certaintywhere each one was and that he or she was safe. So they fished together, gathered wood together, worked together in the garden.
Delbert sometimes went to the pasture alone when Marian was busy with something else, yet as a rule he took Esther with him even there. Jennie was more apt to stay with Marian, to help with the cooking, or maybe just to sit on the rocks gazing out over the sea. As for Davie, he stayed with Marian too. Delbert never wanted him along when he was after game, for the little fellow was sure to make some sort of a noise at the wrong time, which Delbert always found hard to forgive, while Esther, on the other hand, would follow at his heels like a well-trained dog, moving silently, stealthily, and her aim was nearly equal to his own.