When all was ordered to his satisfaction, the Chief called Grom to his side. The two stood apart, and watched the tall figure of A-ya moving from the one fire to the other, and tending them reverently, as one performing a rite. Grom's eyes took on a certain illumination at the sight of her, a look which the Chief had never observed in any man's eyes before. But he thought little of it, for his mind was full of other matters. "It is well," said he presently, in a low voice, "that the service and understanding of the Bright One should not be allowed to the people, but should be kept strictly to ourselves, and to those whom we shall choose to initiate. I shall appoint the two best men of my own kin, and two others whom you shall select, as servants of the Bright One. And I will make a law that the people shall henceforth worship only the Bright One, instead of, as heretofore, the Thunder, and the Wind, and the unknown Spirits, which, after all, as far as I can see, have never been able to do much either for or against us. But this Bright One is a real god, such as we can be sure of. And you and I shall be his priests. And only we shall be allowed to understand him." "That is good," agreed Grom, whose brain was busy devising other ways of making the wild flames serviceable to man. "But," he went on, "there is A-ya. She knows as much about it as you and I." The Chief pondered a moment. "Either the girl must die," said he, eyeing Grom's face, "or she must be a priest along with us." "I think she will be a very good priest," said Grom drily, his eyes resting upon her. Then the Chief, ascending a rock between the two fires, spoke to the people, and decreed as he had said. He told a little about the Shining One, just so much as he thought it good for his hearers to know. He declared that the ones he had chosen for the great honor of serving the fires must tend them by turns, night and day, and guard them with their lives; for that, if one or the other should be suffered to die out, some great disaster would assuredly come upon the tribe. "And henceforth," he concluded, "you shall not be called the People of the Little Hills; for these ridges, indeed, are not such hills as those whose bald and windy tops are keeping the bones of our fathers. But you shall be known and feared greatly by our enemies as 'The Children of the Shining One,' under whose protection I declare you." CHAPTER V THE PULLER-DOWN OF TREES