It has been a prosperous and pleasant summer for us, yet somewhat of a dull one, for there had been no conflicts and the older warriors were disposed to grumble at what they termed either indifference to honour or great slothfulness. Had not a band of the Harudes been seen hovering about our southeastern mark, and had not there been a disappearance of some scores of our half-wild cattle? Had not certain most promising bee trees toward the line of the Juthungi been cut down and despoiled, and was not either of these outrages sufficient to demand some sort of raiding in reprisal? It was true that the Juthungi had their home some distance from our borders and that we were not assured that our cattle were taken by the Harudes, but should such small lack of certainty prevent us from displaying our hardihood and prevent us also from acquiring such booty as might come in our way? Such chance, the seasoned veterans declared, would not have been neglected in their own fine youth. I know not why, but all this passed and there was no raiding, it may be because the dulness of the year was somewhat broken by the festivals in honor of the youth who had arrived at the dignity of fighting men, and by the consumption of much mead at these same festivals. A serious occasion, albeit an auspicious and a pleasant one, it was when the youth became of age to be counted among young warriors. This year there was near a score to be thus exalted, which gift of many was counted good as making the families stronger. The youth were trained in warlike exercises, and happy the father who could boast most sons. They were taught a contempt for death and that the tie of kinship was ever to be observed. So strong, indeed, was the need and the desire for kin, that when one lacked a family he sought blood-brotherhood with some other, and, when this was agreed upon, each would cut the palm of the hand and let the blood from the wound run into a little hollow in the ground, so that from the blood commingled might be pledged the brotherhood for life, to which they swore with clasped hands. Kinship and brotherhood meant greater strength, and so it was not strange that when new youth entered the elder ranks there was rejoicing and much ceremony in the bestowal of arms, and afterward much feasting. So it chanced that in this year of which I speak, with many youth to be initiated, the ceremony over one almost overlapped that of another, and that most of the warriors, drinking deeply and boasting of fights which had been and would be, were somewhat careless of the present. I know only that we had been at peace for all the summer, and that, though I had found good hunting and had fortune in the finding and marking of bee trees, I had myself a sense that time was beginning to move with somewhat laggard feet. Moreover, there were certain weapons which I desired renewed for my equipment and which I could not get within the tribe. Yet I held my peace in the debates,