The girl said, "They have three tommy guns, four automatic rifles, twenty grenades and forty sticks of dynamite." Vivian was impatient. "They had them, now they're ours. It's good, not bad." Jean said doggedly, "These raids are coming more and more often. We've lost ten fighters in less than a year. And each time they come at us they're better equipped and there're more of them." She looked over at Alan. "If it hadn't been for this ... this queer way things worked out, they'd have our husband now and we'd be done for." "Well, it didn't happen that way," Vivian said abruptly, "and we still have our husband and we're going to keep him. This wasn't a bad action at all. They killed three of us, we've got more than forty of them." "Not three, eight," Jean said. "You forget the five girls. In another couple of years they'd have been warriors. And besides, what difference does it make if we've got forty of them? There're always more of them where they came from. There must be a thousand women toward Denver without a husband between them." Vivian quieted. "Let's hope they don't all decide on Alan at once," she said. "I wonder if the Turtles are having the same trouble." "They're having more," Alan said. He had lowered himself wearily into one of the chairs. The two warriors looked at him. "How do you know, sweetie?" Vivian asked him. "I was talking to Warren, a few weeks ago. He's husband of the Turtle clan now, they traded him from the Foxes. Both clans were getting too interbred...." "Get to the point, honey," Jean said, embarrassed at this man talk. "The Turtles are having more trouble than we are. They have a stronger natural fortress at the center of their farm lands, but they've had so many raids that their arsenal is depleted and half their warriors dead or wounded. They're getting desperate." "That's too bad," Vivian muttered. "They make good neighbors." Jean said, "The matriarch told me to let you know there'd be a meeting this afternoon in the assembly hall. Clan meeting, all present." "What about?" Vivian said, her attention going back to the beauty of her captured weapon again. "About the prisoners. We've got to decide what to do with them." "Do with them? We'll push them over the side of the canyon. Nobody thought we'd waste bullets on them did they?" Alan said, mildly, "The question has come up whether we ought to destroy them at all." Vivian looked at him in gentle annoyance. "Sweetie," she said, "don't bother your handsome head with these things. You've had enough excitement to last a nice looking fellow like you a lifetime." Jean said, echoing her chief's disgust, "Anyway, that's what the meeting is about. Alan, here, has been talking to the matriarch and she's agreed to bring it up for discussion." Vivian said nastily, "Sally is beginning to lose her grip. If there's anything a clan needs it's a strong matriarch." "A wise matriarch," Alan amended, knowing he shouldn't.