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Gesnip struggled on, bending under the weight and size of her awkward burden until, with a sigh of relief, she seated herself on a stone to rest while Payuchi, throwing his bundle on the ground, stood up to watch the boys. "See, Nopal is It," he said. Nopal, coming forward, stooped low and rolled a hoop along the ground, which the boys had pounded smooth and hard for the game.
As was the custom with the Indians, the men were served first. Payuchi watched anxiously as his father and the other men took large helpings from the baskets. "Do you think there will be enough for us to have any?" he asked Gesnip. "I am so hungry and they are eating so much. If I were a man, I should remember about the women and children."
No straw stacks were they, however, but houses, the only kind of homes known in southern California at that time. "It was the Indian settlement where Gesnip, Cleeta, and Payuchi lived, and of which their father, Cuchuma, was chief. The jacals, or wigwams, were made of long willow boughs, driven into the ground closely in a circle, the ends bent over and tied together with deer sinews.
"No; you wouldn't if you were a man; men never do," answered Gesnip. "But you need not worry, there is plenty. Mother said there would be some left for breakfast." "Wait for that till I get through," said Payuchi, laughing.
The labors of an Indian mother ceased only while she slept. "Come, Payuchi," said Gesnip, "let us go down to the river and get tules." "All right," replied the boy, readily. "Sholoc is going down too. He is going to show the men how to make log canoes like his instead of the tule canoes our people use. But I like the tule canoes, because I can use my feet for paddles."
"I found such a lot of mussels, great big ones, I wish I could go back and get them," said the little one, looking anxiously at the water. "The waves are coming in higher and higher and it is growing late," said Gesnip; "besides, I have more mussels already than you and I can well carry. The boys have gone toward the river mouth for clams. They will be sure to go home the other way."
Payuchi brought some wild grapevine with which he tied the tule into two bundles, fastening the larger upon his sister's back; for with his people the women and girls were the burden bearers, and a grown Indian would not do any work that his wife could possibly do for him. After they had traveled a little way on the homeward path, Gesnip stopped. "Don't go so fast, Payuchi," she begged.
"But come now and help me gather tules. Father is going to burn down our house and build a new one for winter, and I must make a tule rug for each one of you for beds in the new home. It will take a great many tule stems." "It is cold to wade," said Payuchi, stepping into the water at the edge of the river. "Yes," answered Gesnip, "I don't like to gather tules in winter."
"We are the children of Cuchuma and Macana," replied Gesnip, working her toes in and out of the soft sand, too shy to look her uncle in the face. "Children of my sister, Sholoc is glad to see you," said the chief, laying his hand gently on Cleeta's head. "Your mother, is she well?" "She is well and looking for you these many moons," said Gesnip. The men at once began unloading the boats.
They killed forty before the smoke made them run too." "My dress was made of their skin," said the little girl, smoothing her gown lovingly. "It keeps me so warm." "Did the fire burn long?" asked Gesnip. "No, we beat it out, or it would have gone up the wash into the live oaks; then we boys should have been well punished for our carelessness." Here their mother called to them.
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