The warriors of the leading side might grumble among one another
at the amount of cutting the chiefs did, but they would not dare
to make any protest. However, the chiefs would never cut the
leading side down to an absolute parity with the other. It was
always allowed to retain a margin of the superiority it had won.
The game was now about to begin, and the excitement became
intense. Even the old judges leaned forward in their eagerness,
while the brown bodies of the warriors shone in the sun, and the
taut muscles leaped up under the skin. Fifty players on each
side, sticks in hand, advanced to the center of the ground, and
arranged themselves somewhat after the fashion of football
players, to intercept the passage of the ball toward their goals.
Now they awaited the coming of the ball.
There were several young girls, the daughters of chiefs. The most
beautiful of these appeared. She was not more than sixteen or
seventeen years of age, as slender and graceful as a young deer,
and she was dressed in the finest and most richly embroidered
deerskin. Her head was crowned with a red coronet, crested with
plumes, made of the feathers of the eagle and heron.
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