A very different man from this, one shrewd in counsel and valiant in war, was Abroo, known also as Family-Man. He had kept to one woman for years, and kept together the children born to them, so that they constituted a family. The children of his children were also recognized, and they, with his other relatives were bound together in a kind of clan. He favored this group, and sought to gain every advantage for it from the other men. They kept their fruits together, and lived in common. A few others were, indeed, admitted to their number, and all together they formed a “set,” and the social distinction thus made was the foundation of caste. Abroo was the leader, or patriarch, of this group, and all its members adhered together in time of dispute. He acted for them all, which was the beginning of representative government. He considered more what was to their advantage than what was to the advantage of the whole people; and many issues turned on whether the Abrooides or the rest of the Ammi should control. The adherents of Abroo formed a kind of aristocracy. They were high-minded, and, by general consent, deemed better than the average man. Abroo had a great contempt for Pounder, and in a recent quarrel would have been killed by the latter, had not his clansmen interfered to save him. Abroo proposed that they fight by clans, saying that he would lead his own hosts; but the suggestion did not prevail, as most of the Ammi were not grouped in families, and did not even know their relations. Abroo, however, persisted in keeping his party together in war, as in peace, and in directing their movements. There were many other valiant men who went up in this march, and some women. Among the latter was Watch-the-girls, who protected females from the embraces of the stronger sex. She beat Spread-Mouth almost to death for trying one of his smiles on a young girl in the woods, and pulled bunches of hair out of his back. She scratched an eye out of Goat-strut for his persistent attentions to unwilling females, and even Pounder was afraid of her, not that she could vanquish him in fight, but because other men generally assisted her in a fight against a lascivious lover. She went fearlessly to war, and led many women and young girls to battle. For, as yet, both sexes fought, and not the male only; and Watch-the-girls had more followers than Abroo. Such were the hosts that went up against the Lali. They numbered two thousand, although subsequent accounts placed them at many times this number. They were less numerous, however, than the Lali; but owing to their greater skill and to their arms, they hoped to overcome larger numbers. CHAPTER XXIII. [Illustration]