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The Lonesome Trail

by John G. Neihardt · English · Gutenberg #50464 · 407,061 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Lonesome Trail

Author: John G. Neihardt

Illustrator: Frank E. Schoonover


        
Release date: November 16, 2015 [eBook #50464]
                Most recently updated: June 14, 2020

Language: English

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THE LONESOME TRAIL


[Illustration: _Drawn by F. E. Schoonover_
THE RACE WITH THE FIRE
_See “The Nemesis of the Deuces,” page 300_]


THE LONESOME TRAIL

by

JOHN G. NEIHARDT

   “_In the fell clutch of circumstance
   I have not winced nor cried aloud._”







New York: John Lane Company, MCMVII
London: John Lane, The Bodley Head

Copyright, 1907,
by
John G. Neihardt


                                  TO

                            VOLNEY STREAMER

                      “_Friend of my Yester-age_”




_The stories in this volume have appeared in the following magazines:
Munsey’s, The American Magazine, The Smart Set, The Scrap Book,
The All-Story, Watson’s, Overland Monthly. The author gratefully
acknowledges permission to republish._




  CONTENTS


  CHAPTER                                         PAGE

      I. THE ALIEN                                  11

     II. THE LOOK IN THE FACE                       31

    III. FEATHER FOR FEATHER                        45

     IV. THE SCARS                                  58

      V. THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER                75

     VI. THE ART OF HATE                            93

    VII. THE SINGER OF THE ACHE                    110

   VIII. THE WHITE WAKUNDA                         123

     IX. THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA                       143

      X. THE END OF THE DREAM                      151

     XI. THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP                     168

    XII. THE MARK OF SHAME                         182

   XIII. THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS              194

    XIV. DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN                 204

     XV. THE SMILE OF GOD                          219

    XVI. THE HEART OF A WOMAN                      229

   XVII. MIGNON                                    239

  XVIII. A POLITICAL COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA          255

    XIX. THE LAST THUNDER SONG                     276

     XX. THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES                 288




_THE OLD CRY_


  _O Mourner in the silence of the hills,
  O Thing of ancient griefs, art thou a wolf?
  I heard a cry that shook me—was it thine?_

  _Low in the mystic purple of the west
  The weird moon hangs, a tarnished silver slug:
  Vast, vast the hollow empty night curves down,
  Stabbed with the glass-like glinting of the stars,
  And, save when that wild cry grows up anon,
  No sound but this dull murmur of the hush—
  The winter hush._

                _Hark! once again thy cry!_
  _Thy strange, sharp, ice-like, tenuous complaint,
  As though the spirit of this frozen waste
  Pinched with the cruel frost yearned summerward!_

  _I know thou art a wolf that criest so:
  Though hidden in the shadow, I can see
  Thy four feet huddled in the numbing frost,
  Thy snout, breath-whitened, pointing to the sky:
  Poor pariah of the plains, I know ’tis thou._

  _And yet—and yet—I heard a kinsman shout!
  Down through the intricate centuries it came,
  A far-blown cry! From old-world graves it grew,
  Up through the tumbled walls of ancient realms,
  Up through the lizard-haunted heaps of stone,
  Up through the choking ashes of old fanes,
  The pitiful debris where Grandeur dwelt,
  Out of the old-world wilderness it grew—
  The cry I know! And I have heard my Kin!_




I

THE ALIEN


THROUGH the quiet night, crystalline with the pervading spirit of the
frost, under prairie skies of mystic purple pierced with the glass-like
glinting of the stars, fled Antoine.

Huge and hollow-sounding with the clatter of the pinto’s hoofs hung the
night above and about—lonesome, empty, bitter as the soul of him who
fled.

A weary age of flight since sunset; and now the midnight saw the
thin-limbed, long-haired pony slowly losing his nerve, tottering,
rasping in the throat. With pitiless spike-spurred heels the rider
hurled the beast into the empty night.

“Gwan! you blasted cayuse! you overgrown wolf-dog! you pot-bellied
shonga! Keep up that tune; I’m goin’ somewheres. What’d I steal you
fer? Pleasure? He, he, he, ho, ho, ho! I reckon; pleasure for the
half-breed! Gwan!”

Suddenly rounding a bank of sand, the pinto sighted the broad,
ice-bound river, an elysian stream of glinting silver under the stars.
Sniffing and crouching upon its haunches at the sudden glow that
dwindled a gleaming thread into the further dusk, the jaded beast
received a series of vicious jabs from the spike-spurred heels. It
groaned and lunged forward again, taking with uncertain feet the
glaring path ahead, and awakening dull, snarling thunder in the under
regions of the ice. Slipping, struggling, doing its brute best to
overcome fatigue and the uncertainty of its path, the pinto covered the
ice.

“Doin’ a war dance, eh?” growled the man with bitter mirth, and
gouging the foaming bloody flanks of the animal. “Gwan! Set up that
tune; I want fast music, ’cause I’m goin’ somewheres—don’t know
where—somewheres out there in the shadders! Come here, will you? Take
that and that and _that_! Now will you kick the scen’ry back’ards? By
the——!”

The brutal cries of the man were cut short as he shot far over the
pommel, lunging headlong over the pinto’s head, and striking with head
and shoulders upon the glare ice. When he stopped sliding he lay very
still for a few moments. Then he groaned, sat up, and found that the
bluffs and the river and the stars and the universe in general were
whirling giddily, with himself for the dizzy centre.

With uncertain arms he reached out, endeavouring to check the sickening
motion of things with the sheer force of his powerful hands. He was
thrown down like a weakling wrestling with a giant. He lay still,
cursing in a whisper, trying to steady the universe, until the motion
passed, leaving in his nerves the sickening sensation incident to the
sudden ending of a rapid flight.

With great care Antoine raised himself upon his elbows and gazed about
with an imbecile leer. Then he began to remember; remembered that
he was hunted; that he was an outcast, a man of no race; remembered
dimly, and with a malignant grin, a portion of a long series of crimes;
remembered that the last was horse-stealing and that some of the
others concerned blood. And as he remembered, he felt with horrible
distinctness the lariat tightening about his neck—the lariat that the
men of Cabanne’s trading post were bringing on fleet horses, nearer,
nearer, nearer through the silent night.

Antoine shuddered and got to his feet, looming huge against the
star-sprent surface of the ice, as he turned a face of bestial
malevolence down trail and listened for the beat of hoofs. There was
only the dim, hollow murmur that dwells at the heart of silence.

“Got a long start,” he observed, with the chuckle of a man whom
desperation has made careless. “Hel-_lo_!”

A pale, semicircular glow, like the flare of a burning straw stack
a half day’s journey over the hills, had grown up at the horizon of
the east; and as the man stared, still in a maze from his recent
fall, the moon heaved a tarnished silver arc above the mystic rim of
sky, flooding with new light the river and the bluffs. The man stood
illumined—a big brute of a man, heavy-limbed, massive-shouldered, with
the slouching stoop and the alert air of an habitual skulker. He moved
uneasily, as though he had suddenly become visible to some lurking foe.
He glanced nervously about him, fumbled at the butt of a six-shooter
at his belt, then catching sight of the blotch of huddled dusk that was
the fallen pinto, the meaning of the situation flashed upon him.

“That cussed cayuse! Gone and done hisself like as not! Damn me! the
whole creation’s agin me!”

He made for the pony, snarling viciously as though its exhausted,
lacerated self were the visible body of the inimical universe. He
grasped the reins and jerked them violently. The brute only groaned and
let its weary head fall heavily upon the ice.

“_Get up!_”

Antoine began kicking the pony in the ribs, bringing forth great hollow
bellowings of pain.

“O, you won’t get up, eh? Agin me too, eh? Take that, and that and
_that_! I wished you was everybody in the whole world and hell to
oncet, I’d make you beller now I got you down! Take _that_!”

The man with a roar of anger fell upon the pony, snarling, striking,
kicking, but the pony only groaned. Its limbs could no longer support
its body. When Antoine had exhausted his rage, he got up, gave the pony
a parting kick on the nose, and started off at a dogtrot across the
glinting ice towards the bluffs beyond.

Ever and anon he stopped and whirled about with hand at ear. He heard
only the sullen murmur of the silence, broken occasionally by the whine
and pop of the ice and the plaintive, bitter wail of the coyotes
somewhere in the hills, like the heartbroken cry of the lonesome
prairie, yearning for the summer.

“O, I wouldn’t howl if I was you,” muttered the man to the coyotes;
“I wished I was a coyote or a grey wolf, knowin’ what I do. I’d be a
man-killer and a cattle-killer, I would. And then I’d have people of
my own. Wouldn’t be no cur of a half-breed runnin’ from his kind. O, I
wouldn’t howl if I was you!”

He proceeded at a swinging trot across the half mile of ice and halted
under the bluffs. He listened intently. A far sound had grown up in the
hollow night—vague, but unmistakable. It was the clatter of hoofs far
away, but clear in faintness, for the cold snap had made the prairie
one vast sounding-board. A light snow had fallen the night before, and
the trail of the refugee was traced in the moonlight, distinct as a
wagon track.

Antoine felt the pitiless pinch of the approaching lariat as he
listened. Then his accustomed bitter weariness of life came upon the
pariah.

“What’s the use of me runnin’? What am I runnin’ to? Nothin’—only more
of the same thing I’m runnin’ from; lonesomeness and hunger and the
like of that. Gettin’ awake stiff and cold and half starved and cussin’
the daylight ’cause it’s agin me like everything else, and gives me
away. Sneakin’ around in the brush till dark, eatin’ when I can like
a damned wolf, then goin’ to sleep hopin’ it’ll never get day. But
it always does. It’s all night somewheres, I guess, spite of what
the missionaries says. That’s fer me—night always! No comin’ day, no
gettin’ up, somewhere to hide snug in always!”

He walked on with head dropped forward upon his breast, skirting the
base of the bluffs, now seemingly oblivious of the sound of hoofs that
grew momently more distinct.

As he walked, he was dimly conscious of passing the dark mouth of a
hole running back into the clay of a bluff. He proceeded until he found
himself again at the edge of the river, staring down into a broad,
black fissure in the ice, caused, doubtless, by the dash of the current
crossing from the other side.

A terrible, dark, but alluring thought seized him. Here was the
place—the doorway to that place where it was always night! Why not go
in? There would be no more running away, no more hiding, no more hatred
of men, no more lonesomeness! Here was the place at last.

He stepped forward and stooped to gaze down into the door of night. The
rushing waters made a dismal, moaning sound.

He stared transfixed. Yes, he would go!

Suddenly a shudder ran through his limbs. He gave a quick exclamation
of terror! He leaped back and raised his face to the skies.

How kind and soft and gentle and good to look upon was the sky! He
gazed about—it was so fair a world! How good it was to breathe! He
longed to throw his great, brute arms about creation and clutch it to
him, and hold it, hold it, hold it! He wished to live.

_The hoofs!_

The distant muffled confusion of sound had grown into sharp, distinct,
staccato notes. The pursuers were now less than a mile away. Soon they
would reach the river.

With the quick instinct of the hunted beast, Antoine knew the means
of safety. His footprints led to the ice-fissure. He decided that
none should lead away. He could not be pursued under ice. Stooping so
that he could look between his legs, he began retracing his steps,
walking backward, placing his feet with infinite care where they had
fallen before. Thus he came again to the hole in the clay bluff, and
disappeared. His trail had passed within a foot of the hole, which was
overhung by a jutting point of sandstone. No snow had fallen at the
entrance; he left no trail as he entered.

Stopping upon his hands and knees, he listened and could hear
distinctly the sharp crack of hoofs upon the ice and the pop and
thunder of the frozen surface.

“Here’s _some_ luck,” muttered Antoine. He crawled on into the nether
darkness of the hole that grew more spacious as he proceeded. As he
crawled, the sound of pursuing hoofs grew dimmer. Antoine half forgot
them. His keen sense had caught the peculiar musty odour of animal
life. He felt a stuffy warmth in his nostrils as he breathed.

Suddenly out of the dark ahead grew up two points of phosphorescent
light. Antoine fell back upon his haunches with a little growl of
surprise in his throat. Years of wild lonesome life had made him more
beast than man.

The lights slowly came closer, growing more brilliant. Then there was
a harsh, rasping growl and a sound of sniffing. Antoine waited until
the expanding pupils of his eyes could grasp the situation with more
distinctness. “Can’t run,” he mused. “Lariat behind, somethin’ growlin’
in front. It’s one more fight. Here goes fer my damnedest. Rather die
mad and fightin’ than jump into cold water or stick my head through a
rawhide necktie!”

He crawled on carefully. The lights approached with a strange swaying
motion. Then of a sudden came a whine, a sharp, savage yelp, and
Antoine felt his cheek ripped open with a stroke of gnashing teeth!

He felt for an instant the hot breath of the beast, the trickle of
hot blood on his cheek; and then all that was human in him passed. He
growled and hurled the sinewy body of his unseen foe from him with
a blow of his bear-like paw. He was a big man, and in his blood the
primitive beast had grown large through long years of lonesome hiding
from his kind.

The dark hole echoed a muffled howl of anger, and in an instant man and
beast rolled together in the darkness. It was a primitive struggle; the
snapping of jaws, the rasping of hoarse throats that laboured with
angry breath, snarlings of hate, yelps of pain, growls, whines.

At last the man knew that it was a grey wolf he fought. He reached for
its throat, but felt his hand caught in a hot, wet, powerful trap of
teeth. He grasped the under jaw with a grip that made his antagonist
howl with pain. Then with his other hand he felt about in the darkness,
groping for the throat.

He found it, seized it with a vice-like clutch, shut his teeth
together, and threw all of the power of his massive frame into the
struggle.

Slowly, slowly, the struggles of the wolf became weaker. The lean,
hairy form fell limply, and the man laughed with a strange, sobbing,
guttural mirth—for he was master.

Then again he felt the trickle of blood upon his cheek, the ache of his
bitten hand. His anger returned with double fury. He kicked the limp
body as he lay beside it, never releasing his grip.

Suddenly he forgot to kick. There were sounds! He heard the _thump
thump_ of hoofs passing his place of refuge. Then they ceased. There
were sounds of voices coming dimly; then after a while the hoofs passed
again, and there was a voice that said “saved hangin’ anyway.”

The hoof beats grew dimmer, and Antoine knew by their hollow sound
that his pursuers had begun to cross the ice on the back trail. He
again gave his attention to the wolf. It lay very still. A feeling of
supreme comfort came over Antoine. It was sweet to be a master. He
laid his head upon the wolf’s motionless body. He was very weary, he
had conquered, and he would sleep upon his prey.

He awoke feeling a warm, rasping something upon his wounded cheek. A
faint light came in at the entrance of the place. It was morning. In
his sleep Antoine had moved his head close to the muzzle of the wolf.
Now, utterly conquered, bruised, unable to arise, the brute was feebly
licking the blood from the man’s wound.

Antoine’s sense of mastery after his sound sleep made him kind for
once. He was safe and something had caressed him, altho’ it was only a
soundly-beaten wolf.

“You pore devil!” said Antoine with a sudden softness in his voice; “I
done you up, didn’t I? You hain’t so bad, I guess; but if I hadn’t done
you, I’d got done myself. Hurt much, you pore devil, eh?”

He stroked the side of the animal, whereupon it cried out with pain.

“Pretty sore, eh? Well as long as I’m bigger’n you, I’ll be good to
you, I will. I ain’t so bad, am I? You treat me square and you won’t
never get no bad deals from the half-breed; mind that. Hel-_lo_! you’re
a _Miss_ Wolf, ain’t you? Well, for the present, I’m a Mister Wolf,
and I’m a good un! Let me hunt you up a name; somethin’ soft like a
woman, ’cause you did touch me kind of tender like. _Susette!_—that’s
it—_Susette_. You’re Susette now. I hain’t got no people, so I’m a
wolf from now on, and my name’s Antoine. Susette and Antoine—sounds
pretty good, don’t it? Say, I know as much about bein’ a wolf as you
do. Can’t teach me nothin’ about sneakin’ and hidin’ and fightin’! Say,
old girl, _hain’t_ I a tol’able good fighter now? O, I know I am, and
when you need it again, you’re goin’ to get it good and hard, Susette;
mind that. Hain’t got nothin’ to eat about the house, have you, old
girl? Then, bein’ head of the family with a sick woman about, I’m goin’
huntin’. Don’t you let no other wolf come skulkin’ around! You know me!
I’ll wear his skin when I come back, if you don’t mind!”

And he went out.

Before noon he returned bringing three jack rabbits, having shot them
with his six-shooter. “Well, Susette,” said he, “got any appetite?”

He passed his hand over the wolf’s snout caressingly. The wolf flinched
in fear, but the man continued his caresses until she licked his hand.

“Now we’re friends and we can live together peaceable, can’t we? Took
a big family row, though. Families needs stirrin’ up now and then, I
reckon.”

He skinned a rabbit and cut off morsels of meat.

“Here, Susette, I’m goin’ to fill your hide first, ’cause you’ve been
so good since the row that I’m half beginnin’ to love you a little.
There, that’s it—eat. Does me good to see you eat, pore, sick Susette!”

The wolf took the morsels from his hand and a look almost tame came
into her eyes. When she had eaten a rabbit, Antoine had a meal of
raw flesh. Then he sat down beside her and stroked her nose and neck
and flanks. There was an air of home about the place. He was safe and
sheltered, had a full stomach, and there was a fellow creature near
him that showed kindness, altho’ it had been won with a beating. But
this man had long been accustomed to possessing by violence, and he was
satisfied.

“Susette,” he said in a soft voice; “don’t get mean again when you get
well. I want to live quiet and like somethin’ that likes me oncet.
If you’ll be good, I’ll get you rabbits and antelope and birds, and
you won’t need to hunt no more nor go about with your belly flappin’
together. And I know how to make fire—somethin’ you don’t know, wise as
you be; and I’ll keep you warm and pet you.

“Is it a bargain? All you need to do is just be good, keepin’ your
teeth out’n my cheek. I’ve been lonesome always. I hain’t got no
people. Do you know who your dad was, Susette? Neither do I. Some
French trader was mine, I guess. We’re in the same boat there. My
mother was an Omaha. O Susette, I know what it means to set a stranger
in my mother’s lodge. ‘_Wagah peazzha!_’ [no good white man], that’s
what the Omahas called me ever since I was a little feller. And the
white men said ‘damn Injun.’ And where am I? O, hangin’ onto the edge
of things, gettin’ ornry and nasty and bad! I’ve stole horses and
killed people and cussed fer days, Susette. And I want to rest; I want
to love somethin’. Cabanne’s men down at the post would laugh to hear
me sayin’ that. But I do. I want to love somethin’. Tried to oncet;
her name was Susette, jest like your’n. She was a trader’s daughter—a
pretty French girl. That was before I got bad. I talked sweet to her
like I’m a talkin’ to you, and she kind of liked it. But the old man
Lecroix—that was her dad—he showed me the trail and he says: ‘Go that
way and go fast, you damn Injun!’

“I went, Susette, but I made him pay, I did. I seen him on his back
a-grinnin’ straight up at the stars; and since then I hain’t cared
much. I killed several after that, and I called ’em all Lecroix!

“Be a good girl, Susette, and I’ll stick to you. I’m a good fighter,
you know, and I’m a good grub-hunter, too. I learned all that easy.”

He continued caressing the wolf, and she licked his hand when he
stroked her muzzle.

Days passed; the winter deepened; the heavy snows came. Antoine nursed
his bruised companion back to health. Through the bitter nights he kept
a fire burning at the entrance of the hole. The depth of the snow made
it improbable that any should learn his whereabouts; and by that time
the news must have spread from post to post that Antoine, the outlaw
half-breed, had drowned himself in the ice-fissure.

The man had used all his ammunition, and his six-shooter had thus
become useless. With the skill of an Indian he wrought a bow and
arrows. He made snowshoes and continued to hunt, keeping the wolf in
meat until she grew strong and fat with the unaccustomed luxurious life.

Also she became very tame. During her weakness the man had subdued her,
and through the long nights she lay nestled within the man’s great arms
and slept.

When the snow became crusted, Antoine and Susette went hunting
together, she trotting at his heels like a dog. To her he had come
to be only an unusually large wolf—a masterful male, a good fighter,
strong to kill, a taker of his own.

One evening in late December, when the low moon threw a shaft of cold
silver into the mouth of the lair, Antoine lay huddled in his furs,
listening to the long, dirge-like calls of the wolves wandering inward
from the vast pitiless night. Susette also listened, sitting upon her
haunches beside the man with her ears pricked forward. When the far
away cries of her kinspeople arose into a compelling major sound, dying
away into the merest shadow of a pitiful minor, she switched her tail
uneasily, shuffled about nervously, sniffing and whining.

Then she began pacing with an eager swing up and down the place to the
opening and back to the man, sending forth the cry of kinship whenever
she reached the moonlit entrance.

“Night’s cold, Susette,” said Antoine; “tain’t no time fer huntin’.
Hain’t I give you enough to eat? Come here and snuggle up and let’s
sleep.”

He caught the wolf and with main force held her down beside him. She
snarled savagely and snapped her jaws together, struggling out of his
arms and going to the opening where she cried out into the frozen
stillness. The answer of her kind floated back in doleful chorus.

“Don’t go!” begged the man. “Susette, my pretty Susette! I’ll be so
lonesome.”

As the chorus died, the wolf gave a loud yelp and rushed out into the
night. A terrible rage seized Antoine. He leaped from his furs and
ran out after the wolf. She fled with a rapid, swinging trot over the
scintillating snow toward the concourse of her people. The man fled
after, slipping, falling, getting up, running, running, and ever the
wolf widened the glittering stretch of snow between them. To Antoine,
the ever-widening space of glinting coldness vaguely symbolised the
barrier that seemed growing between him and his last companion.

“Susette, O, Susette!” he cried at last, breathless and exhausted.
His cry was dirge-like, even as the wolves’; thin and sharp and
ice-like—the voice of the old world-ache.

She had disappeared in the dusk of a ravine. Antoine, huddled in the
snows with his face upon his knees, sobbed in the winter stillness. At
last, with slow and faltering step, he returned to his lair; and for
the first time in months he felt the throat-pang of the alien.

He threw himself down upon the floor of the cave and cursed the world.
Then he cursed Susette.

“It’s some other wolf!” he hissed. “Some other grey dog that she’s gone
to see. O, damn him! damn his grey hide! I’ll kill her when she comes
back!”

He took out his knife and began whetting it viciously upon his boot.

“I’ll cut her into strips and eat ’em! Wasn’t I good to her? O, I’ll
cut her into strips!”

He whetted his knife for an hour, cursing the while through his set
teeth. At last his anger grew into a foolish madness. He hurled himself
upon the bunch of furs beside him and imagined that they were Susette.
He set his teeth into the furs, he crushed them with his hands, he tore
at them with his nails. Then in the impotence of his anger, he fell
upon his face and sobbed himself to sleep.

Strange visions passed before him. Again he killed Lecroix, and saw the
dead face grinning at the stars. Again he sat in his mother’s lodge and
wept because he was a stranger. Again he was fleeing, fleeing, fleeing
from a leather noose that hung above him like a black cloud, and
circled and lowered and raised and lowered until it swooped down upon
him and closed about his neck.

With a yell of fright he awoke from his nightmare. His head throbbed,
his mouth was parched. At last day came in sneakingly through the
opening—a dull, melancholy light; and with it came Susette, sniffing,
with the bristles of her neck erect.

“Susette! Susette!” cried the man joyfully.

He no longer thought of killing her. He seized her in his arms; he
kissed her frost-whitened muzzle; he caressed her; he called her
a woman. She received his caresses with disdain. Whereat the man
redoubled his acts of fondness. He fed her and petted her as she ate;
whereat the bristles on her neck fell. She nosed him half fondly.

And Antoine, man-like, was glad again. He contented himself with
touching the frayed hem of the garment of Happiness.

He ate none that day. He said to himself, “I won’t hunt till it’s all
gone; she can have it all.” He was afraid to leave Susette. He was
afraid to take her with him again into the land of her own people.
Antoine was jealous.

All day he was kind to her with the pitiful kindness of a doting lover
for his unfaithful mistress.

That night she consented to lie within his arms, and Antoine cried
softly as he whispered into her ear: “Susette, I hain’t a goin’ to be
jealous no more. You’ve been a bad girl, Susette. Don’t do it again. I
won’t be mean less’n you let _him_ come skulkin’ round here, damn his
grey hide! But O, Susette”—his voice was like a spoken pang—“I wisht—I
wisht I was that other wolf!”

The next morning Antoine did not get up. He felt sore and exhausted. By
evening his heart was beating like a hammer. His head ached and swam;
his burning eyes saw strange, uncertain visions.

“Susette,” he called, “I hain’t quite right; come here and let me touch
you again.”

Night was falling and Susette sat sullenly apart, listening for the
call of her people. She did not go to him. All night the man tossed and
raved. After a lingering age of delirious wanderings, dizzy flights
from huge pitiless pursuers, he became conscious of the daylight. He
raised his head feebly and looked about the den. Susette was gone.
A fury of jealousy again seized Antoine. She had gone to that other
wolf—he felt certain of that. He tried to arise, but the fever had
weakened him so that he lay impotently, torn alternately with anger and
longing.

Suddenly a frost-whitened snout was thrust in at the opening. It was
Susette. The man was too weak to cry out his joy, but his eyes filled
with a soft light.

Susette entered sniffing strangely, whining and switching her tail as
she came. At her heels followed another grey wolf—a male, larger-boned,
lanker, with a more powerful snout. He whined and moved his tail
nervously at sight of the man.

Antoine lay staring impotently upon the intruder. “So that’s him,”
thought the man; “I wisht I could get up.”

A delirious anger shook him; he struggled to arise, but could not. “O
God,” he moaned; it was an unusual thing for this man to say the word
so; “O God, please le’ me get up and fight!”

A harsh growl stopped him. The grey intruder approached him with a
rapid, sinuous movement of the tail. His jaws grinned hideously with
long sharp teeth displayed. The rage of hunger was in his eyes fixed
steadily upon the sick man.

Antoine stared steadily into the glaring eyes of his wolfish rival,
already crouching for the spring.

On a sudden, a strange exhilaration came over the man. He seemed
drinking in the essence of life from the pitiless stare of his
adversary. His great limbs, seeming devitalised but a moment before,
now tingled to their extremities with a sudden surging of the wine of
life. His eyes, which the fever had burned into the dulness of ashes,
flamed suddenly again with the eager lust of fight.

He raised himself upon his haunches, beast-like, and with the lifting
of a sneering lip that disclosed his grinding teeth, he gave a cry that
was both a snarl and a sob. In that moment, these many centuries of
artificial life were as a vanished dream. From the long-slumbering dust
of the prehistoric cave-man came a giant spirit to steel the sinews of
its far removed and weaker kin.

Antoine met the impetuous spring of the wolf with the downward blow
of a fist, and sprang whining upon his momentarily worsted foe. Never
before had he fought in all his bitter pariah life as now he fought for
the possession of his last companion.

His antagonist was larger than Susette, the survivor of many moonlit
battles to the death in the frozen, foodless wilderness of hills.

Antoine struggled not as a man; he was now merely the good, glorious,
fighting beast—masterful, primitive, the keeper of his own. Lacerated
with the snapping of powerful jaws, bleeding from his face and hands,
the man felt that he was winning. With a whining cry, less than half
human, he succeeded in fixing his left hand upon the hairy throat,
crushed the wolf down upon its back, and with prodigious strength,
began pressing the fingers of his right hand in between the protruding
lower ribs. He would tear them out! He would thrust his hand in among
the vitals of his foe!

All the while Susette, whining and switching her tail, watched with
glowing eyes the struggle of the males, and waited for the proof of the
master.

At this juncture she arose with a nervous, threatening swaying of the
head, approached the two cautiously, then hurled herself into the
encounter. She leaped with a savage yelp upon him who had long been her
master.

The man’s grip relaxed. He fell back and threw out his arms in which
once more the weakness of the fever came.

“Susette!” he gasped; “I was good to you; I——”

His voice was choked into a wheeze. Susette had gripped him by the
throat, and the two were upon him.

She had gone back to the ways of her kind—and the man was an alien.




II

THE LOOK IN THE FACE


IT was after one of the Saturday night feasts at No-Teeth Lodge that I
drew my old friend, Half-a-Day, to one side where the shadows were not
broken by the firelight.

“Tell me another story, Half-a-Day,” I said.

He grunted and puffed at his pipe in silence.

“Have I not given much cow meat to the feast and did I not throw silver
on the drums?”

“Ah,” he assented.

“Then I wish to hear a story.”

“You are my friend,” he began with majestic deliberation, speaking in
his own tongue; “for we have eaten meat together from the same kettle
and looked upon each other through the pipe smoke. It will therefore
make me glad to tell you a story about buffalo meat——”

“Ah, about a hunt?”

“And a _me-zhinga_ [girl]——”

“Oh, a love story!”

“And a man whom I wished to kill.”

“Good! And did you kill him?”

“My brother is like all his white brothers, who leap at things. Never
will they wait. If I said yes or no, then would I have no story.”

“Then give me a puff at the pipe, Half-a-Day, and I will be patient.”

Half-a-Day gave me the pipe and began, with eyes staring through the
fire and far away down the long trail that leads back to youth.

“Many winters and summers ago I was a young man; now I am slow when
I walk and my head looks much to the ground. But I remember, and now
again I am young for a little while. I can smell the fires in the
evening that roared upward then, even tho’ they are cold these many
moons and their ashes scattered. And I can see the face of Paezha
[flower], the one daughter of Douba Mona, for my eyes are young too.
And Douba Mona was a great man.

“Paezha was not so big as the other squaws, and could never be so big,
because she was not made for building tepees and bringing wood and
water. She was little and thin and good to see like some of your white
sisters, and there was no face in the village of my people like her
face. Her feet touched the ground with a light touch like a little wind
from the south; her body bent easily like a willow; I think her eyes
were like stars.”

I smiled here, because the simile has become so trite among us white
lovers. But Half-a-Day saw me not; he looked down the long trail that
leads back to youth, leading through and beyond the fire.

“And I looked upon her face until I could see nothing else—not the
sunrise nor the sunset nor the moon and stars. Her face became a
medicine face to me; because I was a young man and it was good to see
her. And also, I was a poor young man; my father had few ponies, and
her father had as many as one could see with a big look.

“But I was strong and proud and in the long nights I dreamed of Paezha,
till one day I said: ‘I will have her and I will fight all the braves
in all the villages before I will give her up. Then afterwards I will
get many ponies like her father.’

“So one evening when the meat boiled over the fires, I went down to
the big spring and hid in the grass, for it was the habit of Paezha to
bring cold water to her father in the evenings, carrying it in a little
kettle no bigger than your head covering, for she was not big.

“And I lay waiting. I could not hear the bugs nor the running of the
spring water nor the wind in the willows, because my heart sang so loud.

“And I heard a step—and it was Paezha. She leaned over the spring,
and looked down; then there were two Paezhas, so my wish for her was
doubled and had the strength of two wishes.

“I arose from the grass. She looked upon me and fear came into her
eyes; for there was that in my face which wished to conquer, and I was
very strong. Like the _tae-chuga_ [antelope] she leaped and ran with
wind-feet down the valley. I was without breath when I caught her, and
I lifted her with arms too strong, for she cried.”

Half-a-Day reached toward me for the pipe and puffed strongly. His
eyes were masterful, with the world-old spirit of the conquering male
in them.

“Then as I held her, I looked upon her face and saw what I had never
seen before: a look in the face that was sad and weak and frightened,
begging for pity. Only it was not all that; it was shining like the
sun through a cloud, and it was stronger than I, for I became weak and
could hold her no longer. A little while she looked with wide eyes upon
me; and then I saw what makes the squaws break their backs carrying
wood and water and _zhinga zhingas_ [babies]; also what makes men fight
and do great deeds that are not selfish.

“Then she ran from me and I fell upon my face and cried like a _zhinga
zhinga_ at the back of a squaw—I know not why.”

Half-a-Day puffed hard at his pipe, then sighing handed it to me.

“Have you seen that look in the face, White Brother?” he said, staring
upon me with eyes that mastered me.

“I am very young,” I answered.

“But when you see it, it will make you old,” continued Half-a-Day; “for
when I arose and went back to the village I was old and nothing was the
same. From that time I could look into the eyes of the biggest brave
without trembling, for I was a man and I had seen the look.

“And it was in the time when the sunflowers die, the time for the
hunting of bison. So the whole tribe made ready for the hunt. One
morning we rode out of the village on the bison trail; and we were
so many that the foremost were lost in the hills when the last left
the village. And we all sang, but the ponies neighed at the lonesome
lodges, for they were leaving home.

“Many days we travelled toward the evenings, and there was song in me
even when I did not sing; for always I rode near Paezha, who rode in
a blanket swung on poles between two ponies, for she was the daughter
of a rich man. And I spoke gentle words to her, and she smiled—because
she had seen my weakness in the valley of the big spring. Also I picked
flowers for her, and she took them.

“But one day Black Dog rode on the other side of her and spoke soft
words. And a strange look was on the face of Paezha, but not the look
I had seen. So I drove away the bitterness of my heart and spoke good
words to Black Dog. But he was sullen, and also he was better to look
upon than I. I can say this now, for I have felt the winds of many
winters.

“Many sleeps we rode toward the places of the evening. The moon was
thin and small and bent like a child’s bow when we started, and it hung
low above the sunset. And as we travelled it grew bigger, ever farther
toward the place of morning, until it was like a white sun. Then at
last it came forth no more, but rested in its black tepee after its
steep trail.

“And all the while we strained our eyes from many lonesome hilltops,
but saw no bison. Scarcer and scarcer became the food, for the summer
had been a summer of fighting; we had conquered and feasted much,
hunted little.

“So it happened that we who were strong took less meat that the weaker
might live until we found the bison. And all the time the strength of
Paezha’s face grew upon me, so that I divided my meat with her. It made
me sing to see her eat.

“One day she said to me: ‘Why do you sing, Half-a-Day, when the people
are sad?’ And I said: ‘I sing because I am empty.’ And Black Dog, who
rode upon the other side, he did not sing. So she said to him: ‘Why do
you not sing, Black Dog? Is it because we do not find the bison?’ And
Black Dog said: ‘I do not sing because I am empty.’

“All day I was afraid that Paezha had judged between us, seeing me so
light of thought and deed.

“One evening we stopped for the night and there was not enough meat
left to keep us three sleeps longer. The squaws did not sing as they
pitched the tepees. They were empty, the braves were empty, and the
_zhinga zhingas_ whined like little baby wolves at their mothers’
backs, for the milk they drank was thin milk. No one spoke. The fires
boomed up and made the hills sound as with the bellowing of bulls, and
the sound mocked us. The dark came down; we sat about the fires but we
did not speak. We groaned, for we were very empty, and we could not eat
until we had slept. Once every sleep we ate, and we had eaten once.

“That night the wise old men gathered together in the tepee of the
chiefs and sang medicine songs that Wakunda [God] might hear and see
our suffering; then might he send us the bison.

“I heard the songs and I felt a great strength grow up out of my
emptiness. Then I said: ‘I will go to the fathers and they will send
me in search of the bison; and I will find the bison for Paezha that
she may not starve.’ I had forgotten myself and my people. I knew only
Paezha, for that day I had heard her moan, having nothing more to give.

“And I went to the big tepee. I stood amongst the fathers and lifted
a strong voice in spite of my emptiness: ‘Give me a swift pony and a
little meat and I will find the bison!’

“And the old men sighed as they looked upon me. And Douba Mona, her
father, being one of the wise men, said: ‘I see a light in his eye and
hear a strength in his voice. Give him the swift pony and the little
meat. If he finds the bison, then shall he have Paezha, for well I see
that there is something between them. Also he shall have many ponies; I
have many.’

“And these words made me full as though I had sat at a feast.

“So the next morning I took the swift pony and the little meat and
galloped toward the evening. The people did not take the trail that
day, for toil makes hunger.

“Two sleeps I rode, singing songs and dreaming dreams of Paezha. And
on the evening of the third sunlight I stopped upon a hill, and turned
my pony loose to feed. I was sick and weak because my emptiness had
come back upon me and I had not yet found the bison. I fell upon my
face and moaned, and my emptiness sent me to sleep.

“When I awoke, someone sat beside me—and it was Black Dog. He breathed
soft words. ‘I have come to watch over Half-a-Day,’ he said, ‘because I
am older and a bigger man.’

“I spoke not a word, but my heart was warm toward Black Dog, for my
dreams of Paezha had made me kind.

“‘Well I know,’ he said, and his voice was soft as a woman’s; ‘well I
know what Half-a-Day dreams about. And I have come to watch over him
that his dream may come true.’

“Then being a young man and full of kindness, I told Black Dog of the
look I had seen in the face of Paezha. And he bit his lips and made a
sound far down in his throat that was not pleasant to hear. And I fell
to sleep wondering much.

“When I awoke, the ponies were gone, the meat was gone, Black Dog was
gone. I grew strong as a bear. I shrieked into the stillness! I shook
my fists at the sun! I cursed Black Dog! I stumbled on over the hills
and valleys, shouting, singing, hurling big words of little meaning
into the yellow day.

“Before night came I found the body of a dead wolf, and I fell upon it
like a crow. I tore its flesh with my teeth. I called it Black Dog. I
ate much. It smelled bad. I found a little stream and drank much. It
was almost lost in the mud. I slept and dreamed of Paezha. I awoke,
and it was day again. I found the dead wolf again. I ate. Then I was
stronger and I went on into the empty yellow prairie.

“Toward evening I heard a thundering, yet saw no cloud. It was the dry
time. Still it thundered, thundered—yet no cloud. I ran to the top of a
hill and gazed.

“Bison! Bison! The prairie was full of bison, and they were feeding
slowly toward the camp of my people.

“I turned, I ran! I did not make a sound, tho’ I wished to cry out. I
needed all my strength for running, for I had no pony. I ran, ran, ran.
I fell, I got up, I fell. Night came; I walked. Morning came; still I
walked. Night came; I stumbled. And in the morning I was creeping.

“I do not know when I reached the camp of my people, I remember only
a shouting and a sudden moving of the tribe. And then, after many bad
dreams, I was awake again and the people were feasting. They had found
the bison.

“Then, when we were on the home trail, I learned of the treachery of
Black Dog. He had told my people how he had found Half-a-Day dead
upon the prairie, but was too weak to bring him back. And the people
believed for a time. And Black Dog spoke soft words to Paezha, brave
words to Douba Mona, until I was almost forgotten.

“But now I was a great man among my people, and Black Dog could not
raise his head, for he had seen hate in the people’s eyes.

“And in the time of the first frosts we reached our village and Paezha
became my squaw. Also I got the ponies.”

Here Half-a-Day paused to fill his pipe.

“It is a good story, Half-a-Day,” I said. Half-a-Day lit his pipe,
stared long into the glow of the embers, for the fires had fallen, and
sighed.

“I have not spoken yet,” he said; “for one day in the time of the first
snow, Paezha lay dead in my lodge, and my breast ached. Black Dog had
killed her at the big spring. At the same place where I had first seen
the look, there he killed her.

“I remember that I sat beside her two sleeps and cried like a _zhinga
zhinga_. And my friends came to me, whispering bitter words into my
ears. ‘Kill Black Dog,’ they said. And I said: ‘Bring him here to me,
and I will kill him; my legs will not carry me.’

“But the fathers of the council would not have it so. And when they had
buried her on the hill above the village, I awoke as from a long sleep,
a very long sleep, and I was full of hate. They kept me in my lodge.
They would not let me kill. I wished to kill! I wished to tear him as I
tore the stinking wolf with my teeth! _I wished to kill!_”

Half-a-Day had arisen to his feet, his fists clenched, his eyes
shining with a cold light. He made a tragic figure in the dull, blue
glow of the embers.

“Come, Half-a-Day,” I said, “it is long passed, and now it is only a
story.”

“It is more than a story!” he said. “I lived it. I wished to kill!”

He sat down again, and a softer light came into his eyes.

“And the time came,” he went on with a weary voice, “when Black Dog
should be cast forth from the tribe, according to the old custom. I
said, ‘I will follow Black Dog, and I will see him die.’ And he was
cast forth. I followed, and it was very cold. The snow whined under my
feet, and I followed in the night.

“But Black Dog did not know I followed. I was ever near him like a
shadow. I did not sleep; I watched Black Dog. I meant to see him die.

“In his first sleep I crept upon him. I stole his meat; I stole his
weapons. Now he would die, and I would be there to see. I would laugh,
I would sing while he died.

“In the cold, pale morning I lay huddled in a clump of sage and I saw
him get up, look for his meat and weapons, then stagger away into the
lonesome places of the snow. And I sang a low song to myself. The time
would come when I would see Black Dog die. I did not feel the cold; I
did not grow weary; I was never hungry. And in the evenings I was ever
near enough to hear him groan as he wrapped himself in his blankets.
Often I crept up to him and looked upon his face in the light of the
stars, and I saw my time coming, for his face was thinner and not so
good to look upon as in the time when the sunflowers died.

“I could have killed him, but then he could not have heard me sing, he
could not have heard me laugh. So I waited and followed and watched. I
ate my meat raw that Black Dog might not see my fire. Also I watched to
see that he found nothing to eat; and he found nothing.

“One day I lay upon the summit of a hill and saw him totter in the
valley. Then I could be quiet no longer. I raised my voice and shouted:
‘Fall, Black Dog! Even so Half-a-Day fell when Black Dog stole his meat
and his pony!’

“And I saw him get up and stare about, for I was hidden. Then his
voice came up to me over the snow; it was a thin voice: ‘I know you,
Half-a-Day! Come and kill me!’

“‘Half-a-Day never killed a sick man nor a squaw,’ I shouted, and
then I laughed—a cold, bitter laugh. Then Black Dog shook his fists
at the four corners of the sky and stumbled off into the hills, and I
followed. Now my time was very near, for Black Dog felt my nearness and
he knew that he would die and I would see him.

“And one evening my time came. Black Dog was in the valley by a frozen
stream, and he fell upon his face, sending forth a thin cry as he
fell—thin and ice-like. He did not get up. He lay very still.

“I ran down to where he lay—and I laughed, laughed, laughed. I heard
him groan. I rolled him over on his back and looked upon his face.

“I wish I had not looked upon his face!

“He opened his eyes and they were very dim and sunken. His face was
sharp. I sat down beside him. I said, ‘Now die, and I will sing about
it.’

“Then his face changed. It became a squaw’s face—_and it had the
look_!—a look that was sad and weak and frightened and begging for
pity. And it seemed to me that it was not the face of Black Dog any
more. _It had the look!_ I had seen it in the face of Paezha by the
spring!

“Now since I have many winters behind me, I wonder if it was not a
coward’s face; but then it was not so. I grew soft. There was a great
springtime in my breast. The ice was breaking up. I wrapped my blankets
about him. I gave him meat. He stared at me and ate like a wolf. I
spoke soft words. I made a fire from the brush that was on the frozen
stream. I warmed him and he grew stronger. All night I watched him and
in the morning I said: ‘Take my bow and arrows, Black Dog; I wish to
die. Go on and live.’ For I had lost the wish to kill; I only wished to
die. And he said no word; but his eyes were changed.

“I staggered away on the back trail. I had no meat, I had no blankets,
I had no weapons. I meant to die.

“But I did not die. When I lay down at night, worn-out and half
frozen, someone wrapped blankets about me and built a fire by me. In
the mornings I found food beside me. And so it was for many sleeps
until at last I came to the village of my people, broken, caring for
nothing. And I was thin, my face was sharp, my eyes were sunken, my
step was slow.

“And the people looked upon me with wonder, saying: ‘Half-a-Day has
come back from killing Black Dog.’

“But the truth was different.”

       *       *       *       *       *

When Half-a-Day had finished, he stared long into the fire without
speaking.

“Do you think Black Dog was all a coward?” I asked at length. “Perhaps
he only loved too much.”

“I do not know,” said Half-a-Day; “I only know sometimes I wish I had
not looked upon his face.”




III

FEATHER FOR FEATHER


TUM-UM-UM, tum-um-um, went the drums beaten by the hands of the old
men—too old for wars, but now grown momentarily youthful with the
victory of the young men who were returning from battle.

Tum-um-um, tum-um-um! So sang the drums—great, glad buckskin drums,
exultant beneath the staccato blows of the old men’s drumsticks.
Tum-um-um, tum-um-um! Now the women, dressed in their gayest garments
of dyed buckskin, radiant in beads, with the spirit of song upon their
painted faces, came forth in a long file from a lodge and approached
the centre of the open space about which were grouped the mud lodges of
the village.

There, in the centre, sat the old men. The drums were singing a
glad song, in sullen tones, in this hour of victory, for a runner,
breathless with his speed, had brought the good news when the sun was
halfway down the sky, and now the slowly setting sun was blazing on the
evening hills.

Soon the whole victorious band, fresh from their fight with the Sioux,
would come over the hills like an eager, dusty wind, clamorous with
glad tongues and thunderous with the driven hoofs of captured ponies.

So the drums sang and the women came forth and circled about them,
peering beneath hands raised browward, into the deepening shadows of
the valley down which the band would sweep.

They swelled the song of victory, the song of welcome to the victors,
and the look of welcome was already upon their faces as they searched
the deepening shadows.

There came a rumble over the hills as of a hidden storm in time of
drouth, thundering mockingly in the rainless air. The drummers lifted
their sticks with trembling hands and listened—with one accord they all
listened for the shouts and the hoof beats.

Now the faint treble of distant shouting pierced the growing rumble of
the thunder. It was the braves! They were returning with much glory and
many ponies. The drumsticks fell snarlingly upon the taut buckskin, but
the sound seemed only a whisper, for the entire village was shouting
with a tumult that made the grazing ponies snort upon the hillsides and
gallop away with ears pricked wonderingly.

“They come! They come!”

The villagers thronged upon that side of the village that looked toward
the hills from whence the thunder deepened. A dust cloud gathered
behind the hills. It grew until it caught the horizontal sunlight and
seemed a scintillating tower of victory. Suddenly the hill above the
valley was thronged with mounted braves, waving their weapons above
their heads and shouting, and a sunlit cloud of glory seemed about them.

The band swept down the hillside and down the valley, and the dust
cloud thickened under the impetuous hoofs that beat the parched and
yellow prairie. When they drew near the opening in the circle of
lodges, the foremost hurled his panting pony back upon its haunches and
the others reared and halted behind, champing at the restraining thongs.

“A-ho!” shouted the foremost, holding his weapons above his head. “We
come from the Sioux! We have many ponies and also scalp-locks! Sing!
For we have fought a good fight and we are not ashamed!”

A great shout went up from the village, and the drums snarled. Slowly,
majestically, the circle of women began moving about the drums, keeping
time to the rhythmic beats with a sideward shuffling of their feet in
the dust. In a monotonous minor key the singing of the women began—at
first like the crooning of an Indian mother to a restless child when
the camp fires burn blue, and all the braves are snoring in the dark.

Then it rose into the mournful wail of a wife looking upon a dead
face—a wordless, eloquent song. Then, with a burst, it rose into a
treble cry, and words became dimly recognisable amid the ecstasy.

“We come, we come, and we are not ashamed!” sang the women to the
snarling of the drums. “Let the fires roar and the bison meat be
cooked, for we have fought, and now we wish to eat!

“Let the women dance and sing that we may be glad after our fighting!
A-ho! A-ho! We travelled far—one sleep, two sleeps, three sleeps, but
we slumbered not! We came upon our enemies. They were hidden in the
grass like badgers. They were dressed in yellow grass that they might
hide. We saw them and we shouted with joy, for we were not afraid! The
enemy trembled like wolves who have come to the end of the ravine and
the hunters follow behind!”

As the women sang, shuffling about the circle, the braves rode in
single file into the enclosure of the village and formed a circle about
the dance.

“I saw a big man among my enemies,” sang the women, for so their
song ran. “He was strong as a bear and terrible as an elk. His head
was proud with eagle feathers, for many men had he killed. I did not
tremble when he rushed at me; I raised my club and struck him, and he
fell with his eagle feathers. He whimpered like an old woman when she
becomes a child again. He said, ‘I have many ponies for you, and my
children will cry if I do not go back. Spare me!’ But behold! I have
his scalp lock!”

“His scalp lock! His scalp lock!” shouted the braves, as the words of
the song were drowned again in the minor drone that followed the snarl
of the drums. And they waved scalp locks above their heads—the locks of
the fallen Sioux.

Out of the droning the song of the women grew again. It became more
ecstatic, running the gamut of human passion—from the shrill shriek of
defiance to the mournful wail for those who had fallen in the battle.
And then the shuffling stopped; the song died away into a drone and
ceased, like the song of a locust at the end of a sultry evening. The
drums snarled no more, a great silence fell, the sun had sunk beneath
the hills.

Then, in the silence and the shadows of the evening, one came forth
from among the circle of braves, and, with a slow, majestic bending of
the knees, danced in a circle about the women and the drums, that began
again as an accompaniment to the song that he would sing.

Round and round the circle he danced, improvising a song to the rhythm
of the drums, in which he sang his prowess, and the whole village
shouted when he reached the end of his song, for he told of a good
fight and a strong arm, and he had been great in battle.

Then, amid the shouting, another came forth to dance and sing, for he
too had done great things. It was White Cloud, and he was great among
his people. Round and round the circle he danced to the tune of the
drums, dodging imaginary arrows, leaping upon imaginary foes, striking
huge blows at the heads of warriors hidden in the shadow.

“See!” he shouted in his song, and his voice was loud and masterful,
for a murmur of praise had passed among the people. “See! White Cloud
brings the scalp lock of a chief. He took it alone with his strong
hand. The scalp lock of a big Sioux chief! Who has done a greater deed
than White Cloud? Then let the old men place the eagle feather in his
hair that he may be known among his people.”

Once again the dancing stopped and the drums ceased their droning.
White Cloud approached the old men, who slowly placed the eagle feather
in his hair.

But one among the assembled braves did not give his voice to the shout
that ensued.

His gaze narrowed with hatred as he looked upon White Cloud, and his
body trembled as a strong tree that stands alone in the path of a
tempest.

Then as White Cloud strode proudly to the inner rim of the circle of
braves, with the tall eagle feather in his hair, another came forth
bearing with him his bow and his arrows. It was he who had found no
voice in which to celebrate White Cloud’s valour.

He was tall and sinewy, and he had the clear-cut, cruel face of a hawk,
now dark with a darkness deeper than the shadow of the evening. It was
Little Weasel.

Erect, quivering like a strong bow in the clutch of a mighty warrior,
he walked into the open space, and the drums once more began their
wailing. But Little Weasel raised one trembling hand and commanded
silence.

“Fathers,” he said, and his voice was low, vibrant with the growl of a
wounded beast in it, “Little Weasel needs no drums to help him fill the
stillness.”

The people bent forward, hushed, because there was something deeper
than shadow in the face of Little Weasel as he turned his hawk’s gaze
upon the bowed head of White Cloud.

“Little Weasel has words to utter, but they are not song words nor
dance words. Let the women and cowards sing and dance!”

Still the head of White Cloud was bowed, and Little Weasel laughed a
strange laugh.

“Who took the scalplock of the big Sioux chief?” shouted Little Weasel.
“I, Little Weasel, took it! One sleep, two sleeps, I kept it close
beside me; for I am a young man and I wanted to hear the shouts of my
people. But in the third sleep a great heaviness came upon me, and when
I awoke my Sioux scalp lock had been stolen from me. Now I know the
badger who crept upon me in my heaviness and stole my honour from me.
Look! You have placed the eagle feather in his hair!”

In the hush that filled that shadowed place naught but the heavy
breathing of the people was heard. Little Weasel fitted a feathered
arrow to his bow.

“See!” he cried. “I do not cry about my stolen feather. I give another!”

The bow-thong twanged, the arrow sang, and lodged deep in White Cloud’s
breast.

“Let White Cloud wear that feather in his breast so that the black
spirits will know him! For look! Already he is among them!”

White Cloud had fallen upon his face. Little Weasel dropped his bow
upon the ground, and, raising his hands above his head, he shouted into
the stillness: “Fathers, I have given feather for feather!”

Then a great cry broke from the assembled braves and the women
shrieked. But Little Weasel shouldered his way through the throng and
went to his lodge, laughing bitterly.

That evening the fires of the feast did not roar upward into the night.
There was no song; there was no babble of glad voices; there was no
bubbling of kettle nor scent of meat.

For a member of the tribe had been murdered by a tribesman, and the
murderer, according to an ancient custom, would be driven forth that
night from the circle of the lodges into the prairie. And the people
sat speechless at the dark doors of their lodges awaiting the signal.

After a long and wordless waiting in the dark, the people saw the
door-flap of the big council lodge swing open, and they held their
breaths, for the time of the casting forth had come.

Through the hush of the starlit night came Little Weasel, pacing slowly
about the circle of the village, and the fathers of the council, slow
with age, followed behind.

Three times the outcast made the rounds, and when he began the fourth
and last circle (for four is a medicine number), the old men who
followed raised their faces to the starlit sky and breathed these words
into the quiet:

“Let the people look upon Little Weasel, our brother, for he has killed
a brother and must suffer. Four times shall the bears bring forth their
cubs; four times shall the lone goose fly; four times shall the frogs
sing in the valleys; four times shall the sunflowers grow; and he must
wander, wander. Then shall Little Weasel return and his deed shall be
forgotten. _Wah-hoo-ha-a-a-a!_”

Then when Little Weasel came the fourth time to the opening in the
circle of lodges, looking toward the place of sunrise, he saw one
standing in the dark who held a pony by a thong. And Little Weasel
leaped upon the pony, laughed a loud, unpleasant laugh, and urged it
southward into the night.

Throughout the night the people in the village heard strange sounds.
For at times somewhere in the darkness of the hills, something laughed
a loud, unmirthful laugh.

“Do you hear it?” the people whispered. “It is a wolf. For sometimes in
the lonesome nights they laugh so.” But the people muffled their ears
in their blankets, for it is not good to hear a wolf laugh almost like
a man.

All night long Little Weasel wandered upon the hills, holding his
grazing pony and looking down upon the starlit village of his people.
He laughed loudly at times, for he was not one of those who sadden
with trouble.

“How can I get revenge upon my people?” he asked himself. And as yet he
could not answer.

The pale dawn found him sitting upon the hills. Then he arose and
mounted his pony and the three went southward—the pony, the man, and
the question.

A light wind blew upon his back.

“How can I get revenge upon my people?” he sang aloud in endless
variation until his question wove itself into a song—a battle song, for
Little Weasel had not eaten, and hunger feeds anger. But the light wind
sighing at his back made no answer.

“I will go to the country of the Pawnees and make them angry with my
people,” he said to himself, and this seemed the answer to his question
until the sun had reached its highest in the sky and the wind had
fallen and the yellow prairie had become parched and bare.

In the afternoon he stopped in the glare of the sun and held one wet
finger above his head that he might learn the source of the wind.

There was a faint breath from the south. As he stood it increased,
coming in little puffs, hot and fitful and dry. Suddenly it came with a
great puff and boomed in the arid gulches.

Little Weasel shouted with joy.

He had heard his answer in the booming of the sudden wind. He
dismounted, and, with a flint and some dry grass, lit a little fire.

The great wind fed it and it grew. Then Little Weasel collected a bunch
of grass, lit it and rapidly set fire to the dry prairie.

Long, yellow flames leaped up from the sun-cured buffalo-grass, howled
in the wind that grew stronger and stronger, and raced northward toward
the valley where the circled lodges of the Omahas lay.

“Now I will go back,” said Little Weasel, “and the fire shall go with
me.” He kicked his pony in the ribs and pointed its head northward.
The wave of flame preceded him, skimming the surface of the grass with
great leaps, gaining strength and fleetness as the dry wind lashed it
from behind.

“_Aha-ha-he-ha-ha-ha-ha!_” sang Little Weasel, and the pony, straining
its wiry limbs to keep pace with the yellow giant that ran before,
wheezed and coughed an accompaniment to the song, for the ashes were in
his nostrils.

Over hills, through valleys, across gulches the pony ran, with the wall
of flame ever a strong man’s bow-shot ahead of him.

Now the Omahas, who had been deprived of their feast of victory the
evening before, had made the feast fires roar upward throughout the
village that day and much meat had been eaten.

Weary with much dancing and singing and heavy with meat, the evening
twilight found them sleeping heavily. And the night deepened and still
they slept.

But there was one upon whom the feast had laid but a light hand, and
who awoke suddenly in the night with a smell in his nostrils, a
roaring in his ears, and a great light in his eyes. He marvelled, for
the feast fires were dead in their ashes.

He arose, and when he reached the door of his lodge he gave a cry that
woke the sleeping village and brought the people clamouring into the
open air.

Half the earth and half the sky were aflame. The stars had fled before
the great burning. Booming in the strong wind, a wave of flame was
coming over the hills and reaching long, spiteful arms toward the
village in the valley.

Spellbound, the people gazed. Then of a sudden a cry ran among them,
for they had seen, through a momentary rift in the flame and smoke,
high upon the eminence of a peaked, fire-blackened hill, a man
standing upon a pony’s back, with his arms above his head. He looked
prodigiously big and seemed to ride upon a flood of fire.

Then the flames closed in, the smoke hid the peaked hill, and
frantically the people fled from their village to a nearby creek, where
they huddled in the stream, and where the loud flame passed over them,
booming on into the north.

When the gray of morning fell upon the blackened prairie, the people
returned to their village. But at the opening in the circle of lodges
stood a mounted man. Both he and his pony were blackened as with fire.
It was Little Weasel.

As his people drew near he raised a wheezing voice and said: “Behold
Little Weasel, whom the fire-spirits love! All day I rode across the
hills, thinking of my people’s unkindness. In the evening a great fire
grew up about me. It was not a common fire; it was a medicine fire. It
grew up about me and my pony, and lifted us like the waters of a flood.
And I was frightened till I heard a voice that thundered, and it said:
‘Little Weasel has been punished by a foolish people. The spirits of
fire will take him back and his people will take him in again.’ And lo!
here I am, Little Weasel. I want my eagle feather.”

And the people, believing many strange things, took him in with a great
feasting.

And from that day they called him by another name—Paeda-Nu, the
Fire-Man.

And he was great among his people.




IV

THE SCARS


MY friend, the old frontiersman, poked an extra supply of cobs into the
stove, meditatively watched the sudden flame lick about the husks, then
began this monologue after his usual manner:

       *       *       *       *       *

Yes, I’ve got a nice place here—nice ranch. Didn’t work for it
either—lied for it!

Now, I’m not given much to that sort of thing, as you will grant; but
when I see a place where a good manly twisting of the truth can sweeten
matters up a bit, I’m not so scrupulous.

Back in the late fifties I was living in St. Louis, pretty nigh broke,
for all I’d lived a hard, industrious life up and down the river. One
day I got a note bearing the postmark of some California mining town,
and it informed me that I had a considerable credit with a certain St.
Louis bank. I never heard directly where the money came from, but I
thought I knew. I bought this place with some of that money, you see.
And there’s a little story attached to this.

For a number of years I was employed by the American Fur Company as
expressman. Every winter I made the trip from St. Louis to Fort
Pierre, a distance of about a thousand miles. Carried messages from
headquarters to the posts and from the posts back to headquarters. From
St. Louis to Pierre the trip was made on horseback, and from there up,
other expressmen carried the mail on dog sleds.

Great days, those! Sometimes when I get to thinking over old times, I
wonder if the railroads haven’t taken some of the iron out of the blood
of men.

In the winter of ’50—that was the year the gold fever was raging, you
know—I got to Pierre about the middle of February. When I had delivered
the mail and was making ready to start south again with the returns,
old Choteau, the factor of the post, called me into the hut he called
his office, and made an unusual request of me. “We’ve got a half-breed
here,” said he, “who’s got to be elevated. Understand? Killed a man
in the most atrocious manner. He’s due at a necktie party down at St.
Louis about next spring, and I’d rather not keep him at the post; can
you take him down?”

I was somewhat younger in those days, and ready for most anything
new. Also, I had found the trail a little lonesome at times. Riding a
preoccupied broncho through hundreds of miles of white silence, hearing
the coyotes yelp, dodging Indians, and bucking blizzards weren’t ever
calculated to be social functions, you know. So I was glad to have
company on the trail, even if it had to be the company of a criminal.
Anyway, I had been so taught in the great rough school of primitive
men, that I had not that loathing for a killer of his kind that is felt
by this generation.

“Certainly,” said I to the factor. “Put him on a mule, and I’ll see him
into the government corral at St. Louis.” So it was arranged that I
should take the man to the authorities.

I did not hear his name spoken and I didn’t take the trouble to ask.
It seemed to me that a man who was being shipped out with a tag on him
reading “Nowhere,” had little use for a name. No one was apt to dispute
his identity.

Well, they put him on a mule, handcuffed, with a chain to his ankles
passed around the belly of the mule. He was, of course, unarmed, and
I drove him on ahead of me to break trail. He was a powerfully built
fellow, neither tall nor short, and close-knit. He had a face that was
not so bad, showing the French and Indian strains in him plainly. When
we had been riding along silently for several hours, I called to him to
stop and rode up beside him.

I looked into his eyes, and that look satisfied me that I was safe in
doing what I had thought of. His eyes were large and black and quiet.

“I am going to take the cussed irons off your legs and arms,” I said;
“you can’t keep warm this way.” He watched me taking them off and said
nothing. I threw the irons away. “Go on,” I said. And he went, giving
me a look that thanked me more than words could have done.

He had the eyes of a brave man. I was never much afraid of a brave man;
it’s the cowards you have to watch, you know.

All day we rode, saying nothing. In the evening we made a shelter with
our blankets in the bend of a creek where the plum bushes were thick.
The man was a good hand at the business, and seemed anxious to please
me.

We cooked and ate supper, then rolled up in our blankets. I put my two
six-shooters under my head for fear that I might have somehow misread
the man’s eyes.

When I awoke in the morning, he had breakfast cooked and the nags
saddled. When we were eating I said: “Why didn’t you take my horse and
run away? I could never have caught you with the mule.”

He searched me for a moment with his eyes.

“Because I’m not a coward,” he said.

And all day we rode again in silence, until, toward evening, he set up
a wild sort of a song—a _chanson_ of his fathers, I suppose—in a voice
that was strong but sweet.

“You sing!” said I.

Breaking off his song and turning about on his mule, he said quietly,
as though he were discussing the best way to make biscuits when you
haven’t any soda: “Did you ever see a dead liar?”

“Perhaps,” said I; “but none in particular.”

“And that is why you never sing.”

That was the last word that day. Up to this time the weather had been
rather too warm for winter—an ominous sort of a warm, you know. A mist
hung over the country, drifting with a light wind from the southeast.
During the night the wind whipped into the northwest, and in the
morning we had a genuine frank old blizzard howling around us; one of
those fierce old boys that nobody cares to face. We had camped in a
wooded nook on the south side of the river bluffs and were pretty well
protected, so I decided to lay up there until things brightened up a
bit.

The man, for I had not yet learned his name, which was not necessary,
as the mail I carried attended to that, volunteered to gather wood; and
so I lay in the tent near the fire that roared in front, smoking my
pipe and swapping cusses with myself on account of the delay.

After a while the man came in with a big arm load of wood, whistling
merrily. “Well, you beat ’em all,” I said. “I say a man who can whistle
like that on his last trip is a game one. What’s your name and who are
you? Here, want to smoke?”

I gave him my pipe. He took it and blew rings meditatively for a while.
“Well,” said he, “the name doesn’t matter much, and I’m the fellow
who’s elected to be elevated!”

We both laughed strangely, and I began to open my stock of yarns,
truthful and otherwise, to relieve the tedium of the day. I had told a
number of stories when the man seemed to brighten up all at once. His
eyes became on a sudden unusually brilliant.

“I know a story that’s a fact,” said he. “It’s about a friend of
mine—one of the best friends I ever had, I reckon. At least he never
went back on me. Shall I tell it?”

“Go ahead,” said I.

And this is the story he told me:

“My friend’s name is Narcisse. I knew him when he was just a little
shaver. I knew his mother and his father. In fact I was, at one time,
just like one of the family.

“Narcisse was a wild sort of a boy always, though I do think his heart
was in the right place, as they say. Never betrayed a friend, never
stole, and never knuckled to an enemy. But he was a wild boy and
didn’t stay at home much after he was in his first ’teens. Knocked
about the world considerable, Narcisse did, and wound up out here in
this God-forsaken end of creation. Worked on a cordelle gang, handled
mackinaws, hammered pack mules, fought Indians, starved and feasted,
froze and toasted, like all the others who come out here. Entered the
fur trade as _engagé_ of the Company, and was sent to a post up river.

“Now if there was a weak spot in Narcisse, it was his leaning toward
womenfolks. None of your fooling, though! Narcisse loved just like he’d
fight—pretty serious, you know. When he said a thing, Narcisse he
meant that; and when he wanted to do something real bad, he did that—O,
spite of hell he did that! You know the breed? Well, that was Narcisse.

“There was an old French trader living at a post further up—old man
Desjardins. He had a daughter—Paulette—by an Indian woman who died when
the girl was just a baby, and the old man raised her somehow—God knows
how—till she grew to be about the prettiest girl you’d see anywhere in
a year’s tramp, being a good walker. Old man doted on the girl, and
until she was full-grown there wasn’t anybody could come nigh enough to
her to make a sweet grin effective. But once Narcisse and his friend,
Jacques Baptiste, got snowed in there on one of their trips.

“Now them two, Jacques and Narcisse, was about the best friends you
ever saw, I reckon. They never had any secrets from one another; and
many’s the time they had split the last bit of grub on long winter
trails, and made a feast of that little; because there isn’t any feast
better than a little grub split between friends, is there?

“Now Paulette was a slender little creature with black eyes and lots
of black hair. Lots of hair! That makes a woman fetching, don’t you
think so? Well, Narcisse and Jacques sang old French songs during the
blizzard, and kind of got into the old man’s heart like. Nothing like
old-time songs to fetch a man when he’s got to that place where there
isn’t any way to look but back. So the old man made ’em welcome and
said for ’em to come back when they could.

“On the trip from old man Desjardins’ place to Pierre, them two friends
talked pretty frank, like they always did. Both of ’em was in love, and
neither of ’em was ashamed of it. Told each other so.

“When they camped the first night they talked it all over and Narcisse
said: ‘Jacques, we’ve always split even, but here’s where we can’t.
It’s for one of us all right, but one of us has to go without. How
about this?’

“And Jacques puffed at his pipe a long time, and after a while he said:
‘Let’s agree that we’ll always go up there together, and let her take
her pick.’ And Narcisse agreed; so that’s the way they fixed it.

“Managed to drop in pretty often after that. But there wasn’t any way
of telling which was it. One visit she’d smile more at Jacques than at
Narcisse, and they’d think it was settled; and then next time it was
t’other way.

“It was a game, and both of ’em played it like a game. They were too
good friends to slip a bower or ace up their sleeves. They let Paulette
deal the hands and they played ’em the best they could, same as honest
poker, you know. And all the time old man Desjardins looked on like the
man that runs the game, a-raking in the ante, which was the singing
and the laughing they did and the things they brought up with ’em, for
they never came empty-handed.

“Well, the next fall came; the game was still on and neither of ’em
had stole a hand nor a chip that wasn’t his. And along about the first
of September the factor of Pierre sent the two friends on a trip to
Benton. They went up on the last boat and were to drop down again in a
maciknaw before the winter set in, after doing a little business for
the Company.

“On the trip up Narcisse and Jacques had a quiet little game, which was
poker. They didn’t play for money—played for Paulette. Sort of made a
jackpot out of the girl, and it took Jacks or better to open. One deal
and a draw and the high hand could go to see the old man by himself and
close the game that had hung on so long.

“Narcisse insisted on having Jacques deal.

“‘Well,’ said Jacques, after the draw, ‘the jackpot’s mine!’

“Narcisse throws down three aces. Jacques gasps a little gasp and
throws his cards face up on the table, turns white and walks away. He
had two pairs—kings and queens!

“There wasn’t anything more said about it; but Jacques wasn’t the same
man at all. Acted like he was thinking, thinking all the time. Face got
that peaked look that comes of too much thinking; eyes always looking a
long ways off.

“How do I know this? W’y, Narcisse told me.

“Hurt Narcisse like everything to see this; but hadn’t he won fair?
Friends can split even on grub and follow the same trail for years, but
there comes a time when they must smoke their last pipe together at the
forks. But it’s all part of the game and a man oughtn’t to grumble if
he don’t get a pat hand, as long as the deal’s fair.

“Narcisse and Jacques got to Benton, and when they got ready to start
back, the river had frozen up, because the winter came down early that
year. So they had another winter trail to follow together before they
reached the forks. The factor at Benton gave ’em a couple of good dogs
to carry their bedding and they started out afoot.

“Jacques didn’t have much to say. With that peaked, set look on his
face he went a-trudging on in the snow from sunup to sundown. Narcisse
couldn’t help feeling a little happy, because Paulette was the
prettiest girl that ever haunted these parts since the river was dug.
It wasn’t any more than human, and he’d won fair.

“Well, they passed Union and they passed Les Mandanes and they passed
Roubideaux’, and then there was a long stretch of lonesome country
ahead of ’em till they got to Brown’s Landing, about two hundred miles
above Pierre.

“One day it came on to blow and snow, and they made a camp in the
bluff just like we did here. That’s what reminded me of the story.
Jacques made camp while Narcisse was chopping wood. He cut down a dead
cottonwood and when it came down, he tripped up in the deep snow and
the tree fell on him. Broke his leg above the ankle. Well, there he was
a couple hundred miles toward Nowhere in November with one leg.

“Pretty hard on Narcisse, wasn’t it? But Jacques all at once began to
be his old self again. Set the leg as good as he could and tied it up
so it would stay in place, and joked and was kind to Narcisse.

“‘Seems like old times, pard,’ said Narcisse to Jacques. ‘Danged if
I wouldn’t be glad it happened if we wasn’t so far from somewheres;
because we mustn’t let the trail fork, old pard. I knew you’d be the
same again when I was hard run.’

“And Jacques smiled and said there never was any hard feeling, he
guessed. But the peaked look didn’t go away, nor the far-away look in
the eyes.

“When the weather cleared up, Jacques said he’d leave a plenty of wood
and grub for Narcisse and he’d make a run for Brown’s Landing and come
back with dogs and a sled. And that made Narcisse’s heart warm toward
Jacques, because it was just like he was before the girl came between
’em.

“And Jacques left before sunup one morning, and when it came day
Narcisse went to fix him some breakfast, and there was only enough grub
left for five or six days. That scared him, because it was a long trip
to Brown’s and back, and he couldn’t walk.

“But he didn’t cuss Jacques. He just said to himself: ‘He didn’t go to
take so much, and it was dark when he left.’ And then he just took the
hand that was dealt him and began playing against a run of hard luck.
The grub lasted only about a week, and close picking at that. Jacques
had plenty of wood chopped up, and Narcisse sat all day by the fire
with his leg aching and his stomach a-gnawing, a-looking down the white
waste towards Brown’s. And night ’d come and no dog sled. Then day ’d
come and he’d begin looking, looking. And when the grub was all gone,
he soaked up all the leather there was about him and sucked that. And
then he’d begin looking, looking, looking into the white waste, till he
got so’s he could see dozens of dog sleds coming and vanishing, coming
and vanishing.

“But he didn’t cuss Jacques. He said: ‘The poor devil’s been killed
like as not; he wouldn’t go back on his pard.’ And one day he felt he
was getting too weak to watch much more, and so he set a pole in the
snow with a strip of blanket tied to it; and that tuckered him out so’s
he couldn’t hardly crawl back to shelter. And with the last strength he
had, he dragged the wood that was left up close to him where he could
reach it, because he knew that in another day he couldn’t get up.

“And then he began forgetting everything ’most, and having bad dreams
that scared him, all the time a-worrying about the fire like as if he
was half asleep, and hearing dogs barking, and trying to get up.

“And then at last he didn’t know anything, till he was on a dog sled
with the feel of hot soup in his belly. And when he came to, he said:
‘I knowed you’d come, Jacques; it was hard sledding without the grub,
though.’

“And then he found out it wasn’t Jacques at all; only some Jesuit
missionaries travelling from the North. They’d seen his signal of
distress a-flying, and had come and got him.

“And still Narcisse didn’t cuss Jacques. He said: ‘Poor devil’s got
killed or something.’

“And by and by the Jesuits got him to Brown’s Landing, and he laid up
there till the last of December, getting so he could walk. There wasn’t
anybody at Brown’s who had seen Jacques; and Narcisse’s heart ached; he
thought sure Jacques was dead.

“And when Narcisse got well, he borrowed a horse from the factor at
Brown’s and went south to Pierre. It was night when he got to the post.
He rode up to the cabin where he and Jacques bached together, and tied
his horse. There was a cheery light coming out of the windows, and
that seemed odd, seeing that Jacques was likely dead somewheres up the
trail. And what seemed stranger, there was someone singing inside, and
every now and then a woman’d laugh. God! man, did you ever hear a woman
laughing when your heart had been aching for weeks?

“‘Beats the devil!’ Narcisse thought, ‘how quick folks fill your place
when you’re dead!’ Gave him a tight feeling in the throat to think how
someone was laughing inside, and Jacques somewheres up trail with the
coyotes sniffing at him and the snow blowing over him all day and all
night!

“Then Narcisse slips up quiet as could be to the window and peeps in.
He falls back like someone had hit him hard in the face. But nobody
had. All he saw inside was Paulette and Jacques!

“Narcisse leans against the cabin, dazed like, for quite a spell.
Seemed like he couldn’t get it all through his head at once. Then he
saw it all—the cards had been stacked on him. He should’ve been dead
and he wasn’t. That was the trouble.

“Didn’t cuss Jacques even then, Narcisse didn’t. Wasn’t mad—just ached
in his chest like. And by and by he goes up to the window and taps
on it with his fingers. And Jacques comes out into the starlight,
whistling.

“When he runs into Narcisse a-tottering around the corner like a
drunken man, he gasps and leans against the cabin, a-holding on to it
and staring.

“‘Good God!!’ he wheezes. ‘Good God!’

“‘Old pard,’ says Narcisse; and his voice was like it had smoke in it,
‘you win; I pass; mine’s a bob-tail flush; but you stacked the deck!’

“‘For Christ’s sake, Narcisse,’ whispers Jacques, ‘don’t let her see
you! Don’t let her hear you! Come on!’

“And he takes down toward the river, a-walking like the devil was after
him; but it wasn’t anybody but Narcisse, limping a little with the bad
leg.

“And when they came to the river Jacques didn’t seem to have anything
to say but ‘O, it’s a devil of a mess! A hell of a mess!’ Said it over
and over like he was half crazy. And Narcisse said: ‘Last fall I’d have
killed the man who’d said this about you, Jacques. It isn’t the girl so
much, Jacques; but you and I have starved and frozen together many’s
the time, and we always split fair till now. It was hard sledding up
there without the grub and with only one leg. You stole the cards on me
this deal, Jacques; but I’m not going to call for a new deal. I’ll play
the hand.’

“Just that way Narcisse said it. And with Jacques muttering, ‘O, it’s
a devil of a mess,’ they came to an air hole where the black water was
gurgling and chuckling.

“And all at once Jacques flared up and snarled: ‘Why in hell didn’t
you die?’ And slashing out with a long knife, he made a long gash in
Narcisse’s scalp, and gave him a shove toward the hole. But he didn’t
go in, Narcisse didn’t. He’s got that scar yet, but he’s got a deeper
one where nobody sees.

“And then Narcisse somehow forgot the long trails they’d tramped
together and the starvings and the freezings together. Couldn’t think
of anything but the sting of the knife and the trickle of the blood.
And the white starlight swam round him like water in a suck hole, and
got red like blood, and buzzed and hummed. And he was a better man
than Jacques—better fighter. And when the light quit swimming around
and got white again and the stillness of the frozen night came back,
Narcisse found himself sobbing and turning his heel round and round in
somebody’s mouth. And it was Jacques.

“And what does Narcisse get?”

The man, after finishing his tale, took a handkerchief from his pocket,
carefully placed it about his throat like a halter, threw his head to
one side and simulated strangulation.

       *       *       *       *       *

We didn’t tell any more stories after that. When night came we rolled
up in our blankets, after having made a rousing fire. I did not sleep
much that night. The man did, however. He was the coolest I ever saw.
Went to sleep like a child, knowing full well that he too had a noose
awaiting him.

When I was sure that he was sound asleep, I got up and carefully took
off his bearskin cap, which he had not removed night or day since we
had been together.

I saw by the blue glow of the falling embers that which I had expected
to see—a long, ugly gash running across his scalp. It was not yet quite
healed.

In the morning, as the storm had died in the night, we saddled up. “You
take the mule and go on ahead,” I said; “I’ll probably catch up with
you by noon.”

The man obeyed. I did not expect to catch up with him, but along about
noon I overtook him.

“You seem determined to travel my way,” I said. He stared at me for
some time, and then said quietly: “I’m not a coward just because I’m
going to hang.”

And we rode on together.

The next morning when we had saddled up, I said: “_Narcisse_, here is
one of my six-shooters and some ammunition. There is the grub. If you
travel west far enough, you will come at last to the gold country. Ever
think of going to the gold country?”

The man gasped and placed his hand to his head. “When did I have my cap
off?” said he.

“You have a good mule there,” continued I, evading his question. “You
have grub, a gun and ammunition. Why don’t you go west?”

“Why are you saying that?” he said.

“Because,” I answered, “because I have seen _both scars_!”

A light came into his eyes.

“And you?” he questioned.

“I?” said I; “well _I_, while conducting a prisoner southward, was
attacked by Indians. The prisoner was killed while defending me with
unusual bravery. I lost all my grub, one gun, some ammunition and a
mule. I barely escaped with my life, and rode like the very devil to
get to the next post. _Go!_”

I pointed west. The man slowly fastened the grub sack on his mule,
mounted, gave me a look which I have never forgotten, and rode west.

I have never seen him since. As for me, I got into the next post that
evening with a worn-out horse and a tale of calamity.




V

THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER


SHE was only a timid little Omaha maiden with a pair of pensive eyes,
dark like the thunder clouds, and like them, fraught with a potential
fire that seemed ever about to spend its fury in the weakness of tears.
She passed her childhood hours beside the singing streams and in the
lonesome places where the silence lingered. The sunrise and the sunset
found her where the wild flowers clustered, or where the noises of the
nesting birds disturbed the stillness of the thickets. For hers was a
timorous soul, and the dumb kindness of the green things was sweet to
her.

So, as she grew in this wise toward that mysterious time when the
immaturity of the girl bursts into the magic of the woman, her people
said: “She talks with the things that talk not; she plays with the wind
that sleeps and moans in the shadowy place.” And that is why they named
her Shadow Flower.

In the long, mysterious nights of the winter, Shadow Flower wept with
fear at the mournful cry of the coyotes, and often through the droning
days of the summer did the harsh warning of the startled rattlesnake
send her trembling in terror to her mother’s breast. Yet, huddled
close to the group about the evening fire, she loved to listen to the
warriors’ tales of the strong arm and the fierce heart; and her eyes
glowed with an unwonted light as her kinsmen recounted the wild swoop
of the ambushed foe or the silent pursuit, swift and relentless.

All the glowing ideals of manly prowess that her maiden heart had
conjured, were centred in the person of the fearless brave, Big Axe;
for had he not the eagle glance that went to the heart of an enemy like
an arrow? Was not his the shaggy head of the buffalo bull that strikes
with fear the boldest hunter? The breath of his sinewy breast was like
a whirlwind when the battle cry awakened in his throat! There was no
arm in all the circled tepees that could hurl a tomahawk so straight
and far; and none that could heave above the anger of the battle a war
club more ponderous!

“Ah,” she would say to herself, while wandering alone with her musings,
“Big Axe is so great a man!”

When a band of warriors rode out of the village, bent upon some petty
conquest somewhere beyond the blue hills that undulated the horizon
with their summits, Shadow Flower would become very lonely, and she
would stand for long hours upon some larger hill, scanning the dim sky
line for the returning warriors; for where the battle was, there was
Big Axe. And when at last she would catch sight of the returning band,
shouting with the great joy of a battle won, how proudly she stared,
and with what a light in her eyes, at her graceful warrior astride his
swift pony! How anxiously would she search the headdress of her brave
for the fresh eagle feather that should speak of some late deed done by
the strong arm—her strong arm!

Yet her timorous little soul alone knew of the great overflowing
passion that she treasured for Big Axe; unless, perhaps, the birds and
the green things understood her, for hers was a passion that little
words could not carry.

Thus did the frail flower long for the golden kisses of the sun!

There was war between the Omaha and Ponca tribes. So it happened one
morning, in the time when the deer tear the earth with their horns,
that Shadow Flower, hunting late blossoms upon the sere hills where the
young Dawn danced, heard below her the impatient stamp of ponies, and
beheld the mounting of braves, for Big Axe was leading a party of a
hundred warriors against the enemy.

The purple spikes of the ironweed and the yellow plumes of the
golden-rod dropped from her fingers as she gazed upon the sight below
her. What a sight! It was as the marshalling of the incarnate Winds
from the circle of the heavens. Out of the dust cloud that arose from
the dry earth where four hundred nervous hoofs fretted with impatience
beneath the restraining thongs, she caught the dazzle of the sleek and
vari-coloured hides of the ponies; some white with the brilliance of
the summer sun when it glares upon the false lakes of alkali; some
spotted and wiry as the wild cat; some tawny as the mountain lion; some
black like the midnight when the storm clouds fly.

Their gaunt flanks were heaving with the joy of speed and power. Their
nostrils were distent with the influx of prairie winds that know no
restraining hand save that of the great invisible Master. They snorted
and reared as if about to plunge in a wild heat down the winds. Their
neighing was the shout of the tempest in the rocks, and their gusty
manes were as clouds that tatter in the storm.

And amid this _mêlée_ of dust and noise and dazzle trembled the gaudy
headdresses of the warriors, bright with the painted wing feathers of
the eagle and the hawk.

Now a shout drowns the neighing and the snorting. A hundred braves
leap to the backs of the plunging ponies. The dust cloud thickens and
sweeps down the valley like a whirlwind. A far glint of brandished
weapons; a dying shout; the band swoops about the base of a hill. Then
the sultry day drones and drowses on the prairie. The grasshopper
breaks the slumber of the stillness with his snapping noise; a lone
hawk skirts the ground with slow, circling flight. But Shadow Flower
stands and stares beneath a shading hand into the brilliance where the
warriors vanished. Her ears hear not the snarl and hum of the drowsy
bugs, nor the shrill chatter of the sly gopher as it rears its striped
body from the grass and peers about. She sees not the circling hawk and
scarcely does the glitter of the yellow grass hurt her eyes. For her
ears are filled with the shout that has died, and in her eyes a sinewy,
masterful brave urges a black pony down the valley.

After a while her hand dropped from her eyes, and catching sight of the
circling hawk, she cried: “O you who are so keen of eye, tell me, can
you not see into the heart of Muzape Tunga [Big Axe]? O you who are so
keen of thought, tell me, does he think of Pazha Hu [Shadow Flower]?”

But the hawk circled far away and the day droned on.

Among the hills, hidden from one who looked and saw not, the war party
rode on with the noses of its ponies to that portion of the sky from
which the red sun of summer springs, for in that direction lay the
village of the Poncas, perched upon the yellow bluffs of the great
muddy river.

On the evening of the second day the air grew soft with the scent of
flowing waters, and the Omahas, checking their ponies upon the brow of
a hill, beheld to their right the swirling stream, red with the last
light of the day; and before them, across a deep hollow, the village of
the Poncas, upon the summit of a bluff.

But while their eyes wandered over the misty stretches of the river,
a wild shout startled the calm of the scene, while from the village
on the opposite summit a line of mounted warriors issued, taking the
precipitous hillside at a brisk gallop.

The sudden shout and the beat of flying hoofs hurled the weary ponies
of the Omahas back upon their haunches. Yet scarcely had the echoes of
the shout cried their last among the distant bluffs, when a hundred
Omaha bow thongs twanged and a hundred arrows shrieked their shrill
death-song in the quiet evening air. A second and a third flight of
arrows, and the rushing Poncas were thrown into confusion. Those in the
rear were thrown by the floundering bodies of the wounded ponies in the
front, the fury of their momentum hurling them pellmell into the valley
below. Then the Omahas swept down the valley, as the eagle sweeps, with
the battle cry upon their lips, and the remnant of the attacking Poncas
turned and fled up the steep hillside to their village.

The village of the Poncas, in addition to its strong position, was
further fortified by stockades, constructed of saplings driven into
the ground with their tops sharpened. The fugitives having gained
the protection of this barrier, were safe from further pursuit, and
emboldened by their protection, they hurled such a flight of arrows
into the ranks of the enraged Omahas that the latter were obliged to
withdraw beyond arrow flight, contenting themselves with taunting their
besieged foes by displaying the dripping scalps of the fallen.

Now the influence of the fading evening cooled the anger and hushed
the shouting. From the height whither the assaulting band withdrew to
camp, one could hurl the triumphant gaze unnumbered bowshots westward,
athwart the brown hills that seemed to have been stricken motionless in
liquid turbulence by the enchantment of the sunset, marvellous with the
pomp of streamers, violet, purple, saffron, sanguine, dun!

Far up the river the blue haze of the sky-fringed woodland blended
into the purple shadow beneath the contrasting yellow of the bluffs,
that looked down into the smooth waters, upon their own scarred and
wrinkled images crowned with golden crowns by the last scant sunlight.
The cottonwoods placed their long shadows like soothing fingers on the
muddy madness of the central stream. The Night awakened in the east and
stretched its long black arms into the west, and the glory vanished.
The distant woodland and the bluffs grew into indistinguishable masses.
The river became a faint film above a lower concave of dawning stars.
The camp fires in the village reared long towers of light into the
darkness, then fell back into a sleepy glow.

One dreaming out a sunset on the prairie cannot wonder at the exquisite
hyperbole of the Omaha language; that tongue nurtured amid marvellous
possibilities of fury and calm, of beauty and terror, all within the
sight-tiring circle of stupendous distance.

The dawn came, and by the first light the Poncas beheld their enemies
camped across the valley. Upon one side the bluff fell sheer to the
river; upon the other lingered a cruel and patient foe. So it happened
that after many days, moans of suffering arose from the lodges on the
bluff; and the Omahas laughed in their tepees, for the sound of an
enemy’s wailing is sweet. The sweltering suns of the prairie September
beat upon the bare summit where the village pined, and the lips of the
Poncas burned with thirst, while their eyes drank of the copious floods
far below them.

So it chanced one day, when a cry went up through the village: “Our
children are dying of thirst; let us beg mercy of our enemies!” that an
unarmed brave passed out of the village and across the valley toward
the camp of his foes. With tottering step he approached the tepee
before which Big Axe waited. His lips were swollen and cracked; his
eyes were bleared and sunken, yet they glared as the eyes of a wolf
from the darkness of a cavern.

In a hoarse, inarticulate whisper he spoke to the chief: “Pity my
people, for they are dying of thirst!”

There was lightning in the eyes of Muzape Tunga. “Badger!” he hissed;
and he struck the suppliant down before him.

The sun burned down the glaring blue of the west. A continuous wail
arose from the suffering village like the cry of pines in a gentle
wind; while from the tepees of the besiegers came the sound of merry
laughter that mocked like the babble of inaccessible waters.

But when the red sun touched the tops of the far hills, another form
left the enclosure of the village and took its way down the hillside.
As it came nearer, a hush of awe fell upon the Omahas. The form was
that of a squaw! With an unfaltering movement she approached, seeming
to hover through the mist that arose from the valley. Slowly she
climbed the hillside. Not a sound passed the lips of the beholders.
They seemed the figures of one dream gazing at the central idea of
another. The form emerged from the mist and stood, swathed in the
chromatic radiance of the evening before the motionless figure of
Muzape Tunga. The eyes of the woman and the chief met in unwavering
stare. Had the glance of the former become vocal, it would have been
a song with the softness of the mother’s lullaby, but with a meaning
terrible as the battle cry of a brave.

With a langorous movement the woman raised her arms, thus allowing
the many-coloured skin that hung about her shoulders to slip to the
ground, exposing all the dumb eloquence of her brown breasts. Out of
the silence her voice broke like the voice of a sudden wind that rises
in the night.

“Nunda Nu [Man-Heart] fears not Muzape Tunga!”

The chief saw the lithe young form, heard the soft, caressing voice and
shivered with great passion.

A swift smile crossed the face of the young woman, soft as a last ray
of sunlight on a hill. Again the voice grew out of the hush.

“The heart of Muzape Tunga is strong like his arm and kind like his
eye; he will spare my people.”

The chief’s great breast heaved with the pleasure of his eye and ear.
“Nunda Nu has the heart of a man and the eye of a woman,” he said; “her
voice is soft like the song of a forest stream; Muzape Tunga spares her
people.”

Nunda Nu turned her face to her village and made a signal with her
uplifted hands. Soon an unarmed Ponca, manifestly a chief by his
garments, was seen taking his way down the hillside.

“Come!” said Nunda Nu, turning to Big Axe; “my father bears the pipe of
peace; let us meet him in the valley.”

Without a word the chief followed the young woman, while his warriors
stared after in wonderment. In the valley, midway between the village
and the camp, the chiefs met. Then both sitting cross-legged upon the
grass, the Ponca lit the pipe of peace, and having puffed silently for
a while, handed it to his conqueror. The sweet smoke of the red willow
arose slowly over the silent three, and Big Axe stared abstractedly
into the mounting vapour. The evening grew old. The sunlight left the
summits of the hills and the shadows deepened. Still Big Axe did not
speak, but gazed with wide eyes into the ascending cloud of smoke. The
heart of the terrible warrior had grown tender; a light softer than the
twilight was in his eye. It seemed that he could hear the slumberous,
singing voice of a squaw and the prattle of children about the door of
his lodge. There were pictures for him in the rising smoke.

Suddenly he took the pipe from his mouth and returned it to the Ponca
chief.

“We will bury the tomahawk,” he said; “our ponies shall sweat no more
in the battle, but in the paths of the bison. No more shall our faces
be cruel with warpaint.”

Again there was silence but for the rhythmic puffing of the Ponca’s
pipe. Again Muzape Tunga spoke, and his voice was sonorous with passion.

“The eyes of Nunda Nu are deep and dark as a mountain lake; her voice
is a song that the slow winds sing in the willows. Give me Nunda Nu
that my lodge may be filled with laughter; give her to Muzape Tunga
that peace may be everlasting between us!”

There was a silence. The Ponca forgot his pipe; he puffed deliberately
and at long intervals. The ascending smoke dwindled to a thin grey
thread. With steadfast gaze the smoker looked before him into the
darkness, for his thoughts were deep.

At length he laid the pipe upon the grass and arose to his feet,
extending his hand to Big Axe. His voice was tremulous as he spoke.

“Muzape Tunga asks a great thing of his conquered brother; had he asked
for a hundred ponies, with feet fleet as the winds in winter, his
brother would have laughed at the little gift. Nunda Nu is my life; I
give my life to my brother.”

Already the night had spread into the west and the darkness hid their
parting.

       *       *       *       *       *

Some days afterward at sunset, an Omaha maiden stood upon a hill near
her village. With hand at brow she peered into the blue distance.
Suddenly a cry of delight trembled on her lips. A cloud of dust had
grown far away upon the verge of a hill to the northeast, slowly
resolving itself into a long line of warriors approaching at a gallop.
The column drew nearer. The face of the watching maiden grew darker
with anxiety, as a brilliant cloud darkens when the twilight fails. She
beheld the masterful form of Big Axe mounted upon a black pony, riding
in advance of the band; yet her face darkened. Her brows lowered with
the strain of her intense gaze. Was it a squaw that rode upon a pony
white as a summer cloud beside her warrior?

A shout went up from the village below. The speed of the ponies was
increased to a fast gallop; the band swept up the valley. A strange
low cry fell from the lips of the maiden; a stifled cry like that of
a sleeping brave who feels the knife of the treacherous foeman at his
heart.

In the village was the sound of many glad voices; but in the darkness
of the hill above, a frail form buried its face in the dry bunch grass
and uttered a moan that no one heard.

       *       *       *       *       *

The autumn passed: the cold winds came down from the north, shaking the
snow from their black wings, and the people of the village began to
look upon Shadow Flower with awe. For never a word had she spoken to
anyone since the returning of the band in the fall. With a dull light
in her eyes she wandered about muttering to herself: “It was summer
when they left; now the prairie is so cold and white, so cold and
white.”

Absent-mindedly she would dwell upon the bitter words, gazing beneath
an arched hand into the cold, white glare of the horizon. Then her
eyes, at times, would blaze with gladness. “Shonga saba! Shonga saba!”
(a black pony) she would cry ecstatically; and for one intense moment
her frail form would be erect and quivering with joy. Then the light
in her eye would fade as the fires fade in a camp that is deserted; a
cry of anguish would fall from her lips, her hand would drop lifelessly
from her brow. “No,” she would sigh languidly; “no, it is only a cloud!
O, the prairie is so cold and white, so cold and white!”

And the old people shook their heads and whispered to each other:
“The soul of Pazha Hu has followed the summer, for her soul loved the
flowers; can you not hear her body crying for her soul?”

When the warm winds came again and the hills were green, the crying of
a young child was heard in the lodge of Muzape Tunga. The simple heart
of the stern warrior throbbed with gladness as a cold seed throbs with
the blowing of the south wind.

But the sound of the infant’s voice brought no summer to the heart of
Nunda Nu. The touch of its little brown hands stung her breasts, and as
she looked upon its face, placid or expressive as its dreams took form
or slept, a cold shudder ran through her veins as when one gazes on a
snake, for it was the child of an enemy.

All through the long winter a slow hate had sapped the kindness
from the heart of the future mother; and when she felt the new life
throbbing into form, her thoughts grew bitter. So now the unforgotten
moaning of the children of her people, dying with thirst upon the
barren summit, was loud enough to drown the prattle of her enemy’s
child, which should have wrought enchantment in her blood.

One night a noiseless shadow passed among the tepees hushed in slumber
beneath the moonlight. It crept up to the tepee of Muzape Tunga and
crouched beside it in an attitude of listening. The bugs chirped and
hummed, the frogs croaked, the wolves howled far away; save these and a
sleeper’s heavy breathing, there was silence.

Suddenly there was a faint sound as of someone moving in the tepee;
the shadow outside arose and the moonlight fell upon its haggard face,
the face of Shadow Flower. She placed her eye to a small opening in
the skins that covered the poles. Now she would gaze upon the child of
Muzape Tunga!

Through the opening at the top of the tepee the moonlight entered with
intense brilliance and fell upon three faces. One was the face of her
once sweet dream and the face that trembled through the visions of her
madness, Muzape Tunga’s. One was the beautiful, cruel face of her who
came upon a pony white as a summer cloud that autumn evening when the
sunlight left the prairie. One was a face that she had not seen before,
yet her poor heart ached as she looked upon it. It was the face of his
child, her child. Ah, it should have been the child of Shadow Flower,
she thought, and her brain reeled with sudden madness.

As she looked, the woman in the tepee raised herself upon her elbow.
She gazed upon the peaceful face of Big Axe. The moon lit up her
features in clear relief. Her eyes were terrible with hate; the lids
drawn closely about them until they had the small beady appearance of
the snake’s. Her lips were drawn closely cross her white teeth in a
cold grin. Her form trembled as with a chill, yet the night was warm.
Then she arose, and with a noiseless step, sought for something that
hung upon the side of the tepee. She returned clutching a tomahawk. The
light caught her whole form, making it stand out, clear-cut like a
statue, the statue of a prairie Judith.

Then she bent over the sleeping Muzape Tunga for one moment. There was
a dull sound as the weapon entered the sleeper’s skull; but more than
this there was no sound, no groan. And the one who stood like a shadow
without the tepee was stricken dumb with fright.

The woman within turned to the sleeping child and raised the dripping
tomahawk; but her arm seemed to freeze in act to strike, and the blow
did not fall. A strange soft light crept over the face of the woman.
She lowered her arm and laid the weapon aside. Then with the step of a
wild-cat she crept to the entrance of the tepee and, gazing cautiously
about for a moment, slipped silently into the haze of the moonlight,
and was engulfed in the darkness of the valley.

As the dim outline of the fleeing squaw mixed itself with the uncertain
haze and vanished, a great happiness leaped into the stagnant veins of
Shadow Flower, and her blood rushed like a stream when the ice melts
with the breath of the south wind.

Even the thought that Big Axe lay dead within the tepee did not quell
her happiness, for she said to herself: “Now Pazha Hu shall have her
warrior; he shall be all hers.”

She crept into the tepee and, kneeling, put her lips to the chilling
lips of Big Axe. He did not breathe. She placed her arms about his
body, her face against his breast, yet he did not move. He lay quietly
with the intense moonlight upon his face. She did not sob, she was
almost happy; for did she not at last possess that for which she had
pined?

Her musings were broken by the crying of the child. She took it in her
arms and held it to her breast, humming a low lullaby, half-persuaded
that the child was her own. But the child was frightened by the strange
voice and cried piteously. Then Shadow Flower thought, “It cries for
its father, yet its father has gone.” “Hush!” she said to the child;
“we will go and find the soul of Muzape Tunga; it cannot be far away.”

She wrapped a blanket about the infant, muffling its cries, and tied
it about her shoulders. Then she went silently through the village and
out into the open prairie, weird with the blue haze of the moon and the
lonesome cries of the wolves.

A rabbit hopped past and stopped near her as if gazing at the maiden.

“O Rabbit!” cried Shadow Flower, “tell me, have you seen the soul of
Muzape Tunga?”

The rabbit, awed by the strangeness of the voice, moved its long ears;
then it hopped away into the shades. The maiden followed and was
swallowed in the moonlit mist.

       *       *       *       *       *

When the sun looked into the village, the women were stricken with
terror and the men with anger. The wise people shook their heads by
which to say: “Ah, yes; we thought such things of Nunda Nu.”

The days passed; the moons came and went; yet Shadow Flower did not
return. There was a common thought concerning her disappearance which
was never spoken aloud; but when the fires burned low and the night
grew late, it was often whispered with awe:

“She has gone in search of her soul; it fled last year with the
summer.”




VI

THE ART OF HATE


MANY tales have been told of noble sacrifice for love, and I have seen
such in my time; but I have in mind an instance in which a man reached
a sublime height through the least exalted of human passions—hate.

There are some who argue that love is born at first sight. However that
be, I am certain that it is often thus with hate. I have seen men in my
time the first sight of whom was an insult to me—sudden, stinging like
a slap on the cheek. It is a strange thing, and I have never heard it
explained satisfactorily. Sometimes in my own case I have attributed
it to even so slight a thing as a certain turn of the nose, a curve
of the lip, a droop of the eye. And again I have felt that it was due
to nothing visible about the man, but rather to some subtle emanation
from the very soul of him, that maddened me as though I had inhaled the
fumes of some devilish drug. Have you ever felt this?

Well, I am telling you about Zephyr Recontre.

He was a little, wiry half-breed, with a French father and a woman of
the Blackfeet tribe for a mother. Quite a promising combination, if you
think it over! I came across him ’way up at Fort Union in the early
’30’s, when I was in charge of a keel boat of the American Fur Company.
He was employed at the Fort as interpreter, being a fluent speaker of
several Indian tongues as well as English and French.

His forehead was a narrow strip of brown between his wiry black hair
and the continuous streak of black that was his eyebrows. His eyes were
large and black and quiet. His cheek bones were prominent and his jaw
was so heavy as to throw his whole face out of balance, as you might
say. The face of a stayer, you know. Never said much except as his
duties demanded, and then he went straight to the point with a quiet
directness that left little need for a question.

Superb little animal he was, too; had the maximum strength with the
minimum weight, and a cool head to run it with. I never saw him
impelled by sudden anger except once, and that is where the story
begins.

In the spring of ’39 I took charge of the steamboat _Yellowstone_, as
captain. We were loaded with supplies for the American Fur Company’s
posts on the upper Missouri, and carried a number of _engagés_ of the
Company, and a certain Frenchman, Jules Latour, who had been appointed
_bourgeois_ of the old Fort Union, and was going up to take charge.

If there ever was an emperor in this country it was J. J. Astor, the
head of the Company at that time, and his empire was spread pretty
much all over the white space on the map of the West as it stood then.
The _bourgeois_, masters of the trading posts, were the proconsuls, and
they acted the part.

The _engagés_, humble servants of the empire, were as dogs about the
feet of these Western princes, who stalked through their provinces,
mountain-high in aristocratic aloofness.

Latour outprinced princeliness. He felt his dignity and dressed it; his
presence on the boat was like a continual blowing of trumpets going
before a conqueror. A capital “I” swaggering in broadcloth—that was
Latour!

Recontre was going back with us, having dropped down to St. Louis the
fall before on Company business. I happened to be near when master and
man first met on the forward deck. They stared upon each other for only
a moment; but there were years of hate condensed in that bit of time,
the master casting a contemptuous glance from beneath lids scornfully
drooped, and the servant meeting this with a sudden glare of black fire.

Not a word was passed; Recontre made no sign of obeisance, passing on
with a sullen swing, his jaws set firmly, his eyes brilliant as with a
smouldering fire blown by a gusty wind into a baleful glow.

It was a plain case of hate at first sight. A week later, after we
had passed St. Mary’s, I was standing on the hurricane deck, gazing
downstream where the colours of a quiet sunset swept the waters. I
heard an angry snarl below me, and looking down, I saw Recontre lift
the struggling Latour in his arms and hurl him into the river.

I immediately stopped the boat and ordered a crew to man the yawl and
rescue Latour, at the same time having Recontre seized.

Latour came aboard coughing and spitting, a most ludicrous object.
But to my surprise, he immediately commanded that Recontre should be
released. I wondered much at this at the time; but ten years later I
had a talk with Recontre, which threw some light on the subject. He was
leaving the country, and, as we had become close friends, he did not
hesitate to tell me what he had kept a close secret for years.

We were taking a friendly glass together at a St. Louis bar, when I
purposely brought up the name of Jules Latour, who had starved to death
some years before in a mackinaw boat that got caught in the ice far up
the river. I had heard stories of how Recontre, who was with Latour on
the trip, had shown a faithfulness to his master equalled only by the
faithfulness of a dog to a man. This had always seemed strange to me,
and so I brought up Jules Latour.

At the sound of the name I saw the black fire grow up in my companion’s
eyes, just as I had seen it ten years before on the forward deck of the
_Yellowstone_.

“You got that story, too, did you?” he said dreamily, staring straight
ahead of him as into a great distance. “Well, it’s all over now, and
for the first time, I am going to tell the truth about the death of
Latour and my great faithfulness. When I first saw that man, I felt as
though he had struck me between the eyes with his white fist. I hated
him as I had never hated before, and as I hope never to hate again. It
hurts to hate; it eats into a man like some incurable blood disease.

“You saw me throw him into the water. I can hardly explain why I did
that; only, the man spoke to me in a way that insulted me more than
if he had blackguarded my mother. It wasn’t in the words, for I have
forgotten what he said.

“We hated each other. I knew how much I hated, but I did not know how
great was his hate until he smilingly ordered my release. I knew then
that his hate was a great hate—stronger than love can be. And also I
knew that this hate would grow until one of us was killed. And it did.”

“What!” said I; “did _you_ kill Latour?”

Recontre smiled one of his enigmatic smiles and said quietly: “_Nature_
killed Latour; _I_ merely helped Nature!”

And then he laughed softly, while the black fire grew again in his eyes.

Recontre led the way to a table in the back of the room and we sat
down, when he began talking rapidly, never hesitating in his story, and
seeming, at times, wholly unconscious of my presence.

“When we arrived at Fort Union,” said he, “no one could have guessed
the hate that we nursed for each other. Being a new man in the country,
Latour consulted me upon many phases of the business, and we were much
together. The whole post considered me a most favoured person; little
knowing, as I did, that hate can bind two persons as closely as love.

“My hatred for the man made his a most fascinating personality to me;
and I often found him studying my face with a diabolical fondness.

“Latour heaped favours upon me, and I received them with a strange
gladness of heart that even now I cannot explain. One day in November
he sent for me to come to his office. I found him in a mood seemingly
most agreeable. His face beamed with a light that any other would have
taken for kindness. I saw in it only the ecstatic anticipation of
triumph. And when he spoke I knew that I was right.

“‘My dear Recontre,’ said he, ‘it seems that I am forced to fall back
upon you for everything. I have a difficult task on hand, and you are
the one man to perform it; I know of no other so peculiarly fitted
for it. I shall carefully lay before you the dangers of the mission I
have in mind, leaving you free to consent or refuse just as you see
fit. Perhaps the undertaking is impossible. It may be that no man is
sufficiently equipped with strength and daring to do what I wish. You
shall decide.’

“You see he imagined that he was wheedling me through my vanity. He
then stated that he wished to open trade with the Blackfeet tribe.
He drew strongly upon his imagination to explain the great dangers in
store for him who should undertake the task. The Blackfeet were at that
time deadly enemies of the whites. They had killed and mutilated a
number of traders. I would of course stand a poor chance of coming back
alive. He was convinced of that.

“‘Will you go, Recontre?’ said he, staring steadily into my eyes.

“I was dumbfounded at the audacity of the man. I saw the light of doubt
wavering in his eyes; but I did not wish to flinch before my enemy.

“‘Certainly,’ said I; ‘and I will go alone!’

“I saw the triumph glisten in his eye.

“‘Very well,’ said he; ‘you may start in the morning. Make your own
arrangements. I give you full power to transact the business in hand as
your wisdom may dictate.’

“And I started in the morning. Two weeks later I returned, successful
beyond all hope. I not only brought back a band of the leading men of
the tribe for a council, but I brought also a young woman for my wife.
I called her Pelagie after one of my sisters.

“As I think of it now it seems miraculous that I succeeded. I am half
convinced that I was inspired from out the profundity of my hate to do
and say the right things.

“Latour played skilfully the part of gratitude and joy, but I saw,
nevertheless, the deep, devilish disappointment that he felt. And I was
very glad, for I had conquered in this first combat; and also Pelagie
was a pleasant woman.

“As the winter deepened, Latour and I became more and more inseparable.
We outdid each other in acts of seeming kindness, until all the post
was jealous of my intimacy with the master.

“They little guessed how we played a ghastly game that would be
finished only when one of us could smirk and flatter no more.

“The winter grew bitter; heavy snows fell. And I wondered much what
great honour Latour would heap upon me next, seeing that I was so
capable and willing. Near Christmas Latour called me to his office, and
the light of anticipated triumph was upon his face.

“‘My friend,’ said he; ‘I do not wish to impose upon you, but I have
in mind a great service that you may render me, as a friend, mind you,
Recontre. I am sure that you will succeed unless you freeze to death or
get killed by the Indians. None but a brave man would attempt what I
shall mention. I have a very important communication to forward to the
office at St. Louis. It must be there before the middle of March or the
Company will suffer heavy losses. If you can get this there at the time
stated, you shall be advanced considerably, with a raise of wages. Now
how would you like being my private clerk?’

“I stared into Latour’s eyes and saw all hell deep down in them.

“‘Give me a good dog to carry my bedding,’ said I, ‘and I will be at
St. Louis by the middle of March,’ and then I thanked him extravagantly
for this last and greatest of favours. All the time I hated the man
more pitilessly than ever before because of his shallowness in hoping
to flatter me into getting myself frozen to death.

“I started the next day with 1700 miles of frozen prairie before me. I
felt a strange joy at the thought of my hardships. Once again I would
have the joy of seeing disappointment in the eyes of my enemy, and
my soul could laugh again. I say I was glad to go, even though I was
obliged to leave Pelagie behind at a time when the post was ravaged
with the smallpox.

“It was a trip to make one love hell by comparison. Nothing but my hate
sustained me. On March 10th I delivered the written message to the
official at St. Louis. He read it wonderingly.

“‘What!’ said he; ‘have you walked from Union to deliver _this_?’

“I stated that I had and he shook his head, frowned and dismissed me. I
never knew what was in that message. I surmise that it was nothing of
much importance.

“When the first boat started up the river for the North I went with
it and arrived at Fort Union in late June. Latour was at the landing
when the boat pulled in. He threw his arms about my neck and actually
kissed me upon the cheek. He then and there made me his private clerk
with my former salary doubled. He treated me as a brother.

“But I saw in the depth of his eyes the soul-fret of a wounded beast.

“When we reached his office walking arm in arm, he gently told me of
the serious sickness of Pelagie, and how he had looked after her like a
brother through the hard winter.

“I hurried to my home. I found Pelagie delirious with the fever of
smallpox. All that night I sat beside her, my heart aching, for I felt
that she would die.

“And for the time I forgot my hate for Latour, until, in her feverish
tossing about, she threw her bare arm over the side of the bed. Then
I saw that which made me shiver with a desire to kill. There was a
scratch on the arm, and the flesh about it was swollen and blue. It
came to me that Latour had caused her to be inoculated that she might
die before my return, and thus make my heart sore that he might see.

“I grasped the dirk and ran wildly out of the house in search of
Latour. I reached his door. Then I faltered. It was not fear that made
me falter. It was that I knew my revenge could not be completed in this
way. I wanted to see him suffer more than I had ever suffered. Also I
wished to come away with clean hands. I did not know how it could be
done then, but I trusted to some mysterious power that had seemed to be
with me all through my terrible winter tramp.

“I stole back to the bedside of Pelagie. She died at dawn.

“Latour mourned with me. He wept and spoke touchingly of his own wife.
I gritted my teeth and strained every nerve to keep from choking him.

“The summer passed. Latour was so kind that I often found it an effort
to keep alive my belief in his treachery. And at other times, I was
obliged to leave him abruptly, feeling a madness in my blood for
striking him down, trampling him, tearing him with my teeth and nails.

“Oh, all the great actors have not appeared upon the stage! I must
confess that Nature and Zephyr Recontre killed a great actor!

“The fall came, and our friendship did not abate. I began to fear that
my chance would never come, and I would be obliged to kill him as one
brute kills another. Many nights I lay awake shaping impossible schemes
of revenge that were rejected in the sanity of the morning.

“In the first week of October I had occasion for a great joy. Latour
called me to his office and stated that certain conditions of the trade
which had been wholly unforeseen, made it necessary that he should
be in St. Louis before the winter set in. Unfortunately, the last
steamboat had left Fort Union for the South, making it necessary that
the trip be made in a mackinaw boat. Would I, his dearest friend,
consent to accompany him on the trip?

“With a studied reluctance that hid my insane joy, I consented. Latour
left a clerk in charge of affairs, and we started. We made very slow
progress, as we depended almost entirely upon the current, having no
oars, and there being little wind to fill the square sail we carried.

“This was as I wished it to be. I kept longing for the ice to come down
and shut us in. Time and again I managed to run the boat aground on
bars in order to kill time. Latour seemed not to notice this. In fact,
he was unusually pleasant in his bearing toward me.

“We had a small hut built on the mackinaw, fitted with two bunks, and a
small box stove for cooking. When we tied up to the shore for the night
and turned in, I was often obliged to choke back laughter at the comedy
that we played—a grim comedy. Each of us would at once feign deep
slumber, ever now and then opening our eyes to see how the other slept.
Once our eyes chanced to meet in the dim candle light of the room, for
Latour insisted upon the candle. We both grinned and rolled over.

“Our understanding seemed perfect; and yet, owing to the devilish
refinement of our mutual hate, neither really feared any vulgar act of
violence from the other. We knew that the thing would not be done in
that way.

“We had made about five hundred miles down stream into the very heart
of the wilderness, when the ice began running. Within twenty-four hours
after that, we were frozen in. A heavy snow began falling and continued
for a week. It lay three feet deep upon the level, and was so light as
to make it impossible to take the trail.

“Latour and I merrily set about to chop wood, not knowing how long we
might be forced to live in the little cabin of the mackinaw.

“We had brought only about half enough provisions for the trip, having
depended upon hunting for much of our food, as there was a great deal
of game in those days. The deep snow made it impossible to get much
game, so that in less than two weeks our little supply of lyed corn was
almost exhausted.

“One morning Latour said that he was sick, and remained in his bunk. At
first I looked upon this with suspicion, thinking that he thus sought
to throw the duties of seeking game wholly upon me, who had proved
myself so capable and willing. But the next morning I knew it was no
sham, for he had a high fever, and was delirious at times. You see, he
had been used to luxury, and his feeble constitution had not been equal
to the thorough soaking we got while chopping wood in the deep snow.

“Often in his delirium he linked my name with bitter curses. At last
he had betrayed his hate, and I smiled, knowing that he would lose the
game at last, since he no longer had the cunning to continue it.

“Again it began to snow; it was a hard winter. Much as I might have
wished to seek game for my sick enemy, I could not even seek it for
myself. Nature had taken a hand in the game; I began to feel her
master-touch in the bitter scheme of things. She seemed determined to
starve us both; but I knew that I could last longer than Latour with
his constitution weakened by too much easy life.

“So I blessed the snow as it deepened. Latour would die before my eyes;
and then afterward I too would die, the winner of the game. It would
be a most sublime revenge, it seemed to me; for I think I was hardly
sane when I was near Jules Latour. It would be like Samson crushing his
enemies and himself together. No one could blame me, should our bodies
be found. I would have had my revenge and still none could blame me.

“There was a small quantity of lyed corn left. I ate sparingly of this,
carefully saving Latour’s share for him when he should wish to eat.

“One morning he awoke from his delirium; he asked for food.

“‘I have saved your share for you,’ said I. ‘I might have eaten it, for
I think we shall starve to death in a week or so. The snow is too deep
and soft for hunting. Still I have divided fair with you, remembering
your great kindness to Pelagie, remembering your great kindness in
allowing me to distinguish myself among the Blackfeet, remembering your
generosity in allowing me to take your message to St. Louis. Do you
remember?’

“He groaned, and his eyes became cold and savage, like a starved wolf’s.

“I gave him his lyed corn and he ate. His delirium returned. He cursed
Recontre bitterly. He clenched his feverish, white hands about the
imaginary neck of Zephyr Recontre; and I smiled.

“In two days more all the lyed corn had been eaten. In the meanwhile
the surface of the snow had hardened with the intense cold. I could
have hunted, for I was not yet too weak, and there was a gun and
plenty of ammunition. But I did not go hunting. I saw Latour weakening
rapidly. He might die during my absence, and I would thus lose the
sweetness of my revenge. It seemed to me that this would be like
selling my birthright for a mess of pottage.

“I could have taken the gun and gone south over the snow to Fort
Pierre, several hundred miles down the river. But I did not go. Latour
had not died yet After he died, if I could still walk, I might go.

“All day I sat beside the little box stove, gazing upon Latour. At
night I slept lightly, awakening often to see how fever and hunger
dealt with Latour. He might die while I slept.

“One day in December, I cannot remember just when, for I myself was
often delirious with hunger, Latour again awakened from delirium.

“‘Food, food!’ he gasped. ‘For God’s sake, Recontre, don’t let a man
starve like this! Let’s make it up between us; only give me something
to eat!’

“His voice was thin like a sick woman’s. His face was the face of a
damned man.

“‘Make what up?’ I said sweetly. My voice was also thin. I struggled
continuously with a terrible giddiness. I felt as one in a nightmare.
I, too, was starving.

“Latour stared upon me with tears in his faded eyes, and groaned. I,
too, fetched tears; it was easy to weep in my weakened condition.

“‘I have no food,’ said I; ‘neither can I go in search of any. I am
starving, and the snow is deep. Would I not go if I could? Would I not
go for _you?_ Can I forget Pelagie and the Blackfeet trip? Can I forget
the winter trip to St. Louis?’

“Latour fainted. I shouted feebly with an insane joy; I thought he had
died.

“In a few moments he revived, and again begged piteously for food. I
wept, and said there was none. Then he became delirious and cursed me
like a devil. I never heard such cursing before nor since.

“And the strange thing about it all was that I pitied Latour. But my
hate had become a mania; I could not relent.

“What passed after that hour I cannot remember with distinctness.
Dreams were real, and reality was a dream. I only remember in a vague
way, as though it had happened in a nightmare, that Latour died cursing
me; that I sang and shouted; that I crawled out of the hut on my hands
and knees, laughing and shouting, and that I saw a band of men coming
over the frozen snow from the direction of Fort Pierre. I remember
hearing them call my name as with the voices of a dream. I remember
that I cried out, ‘Latour has just died!’ And then I remember laughing
and crying, not knowing why I did.

“I remember that these men gave me food—warm food—and that after a long
sleep I awoke and saw a Jesuit missionary kneeling at my bedside.

“It was then that I tasted the full sweetness of my triumph. The priest
was _blessing me!_ He spoke of the Christlike kindness of Zephyr
Recontre, who had not deserted his sick master.

“I did not see Latour again. The Jesuit’s party had chopped a hole in
the ice and had given his body to the river.”




VII

THE SINGER OF THE ACHE

_The Old Omaha Speaks_


NOW this is the story of one who walked not with his people, but with a
dream.

To you I tell it, O White Brother, yet is it not for you, unless you
also have followed the long trail of hunger and thirst—the trail that
leads to no lodge upon the high places or the low places, by flowing
streams or where the sand wastes lie.

It shall be as the talking of a strange tribe to you, unless you also
have peered down the endless trail, with eyes that ached and dried up
as dust, and felt your pony growing leaner and shadow-thin beneath
you as you rode, until at last you sat upon a quiet heap of bones and
peered and peered ahead.

Moon-Walker was he called—he who walked for the moon. But that was
after he had called his pony from the grazing places and mounted for
the long ride. Yet was there a time when he ran about among the lodges
laughing very merrily with many boys and girls, who played with hoop
and spear, made little bloodless wars upon unseen peoples, and played
in little ways the big, sad games of men. And then he was called by
many names, and all of the names, though different, meant that he was
happy.

But once his mother and his father saw how that a man began to look out
of his eyes, began to hear a man talking in his throat; and so they
said: “It is the time for him to dream.”

So they sent him at nightfall to the hill of dreams—as is the custom of
our people.

_Wahoo!_ the bitter hill of dreams! Many have I seen go up there
laughing, but always they came down with halting feet and with sadness
in their faces. And among these many, lo! even I who speak—therefore
should my words be heard.

And he of the many names went up into the hill of dreams and dreamed.
And in through the mists that strange winds blow over the hills of
sleep burst a white light, as though the moon had grown so big that
all the sky was filled from rim to rim, leaving no place for sun and
stars. And upon the surface of the white light floated a face, an awful
face—whiter than the light upon which it floated; and so beautiful to
see that he of the many happy names ached through all his limbs, and
cried out and woke. Then leaping to his feet, he gazed about, and all
the stars had grown so small that he looked thrice and hard before he
saw them; and the world was shrunken.

And frightened at the strangeness of all things, he fled down the
hillside into the village. His mother and his father he wakened with
bitter crying.

“How came the dream?” they whispered; for upon the face of him who went
up a boy they saw that which only many years should bring; and in his
eyes there was a strange light.

“A face! a face!” he whispered. “I saw the face of the Woman of the
Moon! Whiter than snow, it was, and over it a pale flame went! Oh,
never have I seen so fair a face; and there was something hidden in it
swift as lightning; something that would be thunder if it spoke; and
also there was something kind as rain that falls upon a place of aching
heat. Into the north it looked, high up to where the lonesome star
hangs patient.

“And there was a dazzle of white breasts beneath, half-hidden in a
thin blanket of mist. And on her head, big drifts of yellow hair; not
hanging loose as does your hair, O mother, but heaped like clouds that
burn above the sunset. My breast aches for something I cannot name. And
now I think that I can never play again!”

And there was a shaking of heads in that lodge, and a wondering, for
this was not good. Not so had others, big in deeds, dreamed upon the
hill in former times. Always there had been a coming of bird, or beast,
or reptile, wrapped in the mystery of strange words; or there had been
the cries of fighting men, riding upon a hissing of hot breaths; or
there had been a stamping of ponies, or the thin, mad song of arrows.

But here it was not so, and the mother said:

“Many times the false dreams come at first, and then at last the true
one comes. May it not be so with him?”

And the father said: “It may be so with him.”

So once again up the hill of dreams went the boy. And because of the
words of his father and mother, he wept and smeared his face with dust;
his muddy hands he lifted to the stars. And he raised an earnest voice:
“O Wakunda! send me a man’s dream, for I wish to be a big man in my
village, strong to fight and hunt. The woman’s face is good to see,
but I cannot laugh for the memory of it. And there is an aching in my
breast. O Wakunda! send me the dream of a man!”

       *       *       *       *       *

And he slept. And in the middle of the night, when shapeless things
come up out of the hills, and beasts and birds talk together with the
tongues of men, his dream came back.

Even as before the moon-face floated in a lake of cold white fire—a
lake that drowned the stars. And as he reached to push it from him, lo!
like a white stem growing downward from a flower, a body grew beneath
it! And there was a flashing of white lightning, and the Woman of the
Moon stood before him.

Then was there a burning in the blood of the boy, as she stooped with
arms held wide; and he was wrapped about as with a white fire, through
which the face grew down with lips that burned his lips as they
touched, and sent pale lightnings flashing through him.

And as the dream woman turned to run swiftly back up the star-trails he
who dreamed reached out his arms and clutched at the garments of light
that he might hold the thing that fled, for dearer than life it seemed
to him now.

And he woke. His face was in the dust. His clutching hands were full of
dust.

_Wahoo!_ the bitter hill of dreams! Have you climbed it, O White
Brother, even as I?

And in the morning he told the dream to his father, who frowned; to his
mother—and she wept. And they said: “This is not a warrior’s dream, nor
is it the dream of a Holy Man; nor yet is it the vision of a mighty
bison hunter. Some strange new trail this boy shall follow—a cloudy,
cloudy trail! Yet let him go a third time to the hill—may not the true
dream linger?”

And the boy went up again; his step was light; his heart sang wildly in
his breast. For once again he wished to see the Woman of the Moon.

But no dream came. And in the morning the pinch of grief was upon his
face and he shook his fists at the laughing Day. Then did he and a
great Ache walk down the hill together. All things were little and
nothing good to see. And in among his people he went, staring with eyes
that burned as with a fever, and lo! he was a stranger walking there!
Only the Dream walked with him.

And the sunlight burned the blue, much-beaded tepee of the sky, and
left it black; and as it burned and blackened, burned and blackened,
he who dreamed the strange dream found no pleasure in the ways of men.
Only in gazing upon the round moon did he find pleasure. And when even
this was hidden from him for many nights and days he went about with
drooping head, and an ache was in his eyes.

And in these days he made wild songs; for never do the happy ones make
songs—they only sing them. Songs that none had heard he made. Not such
as toilers make to shout about the camp fires when the meat goes round.
Yet was the thick, hot dust of weary trails blown through them, and
cries of dying warriors, and shrieks of widowed women, and whimpering
of sick _zhinga zhingas_; and also there was in them the pang of big
man-hearts, the ache of toiling women’s backs, the hunger, the thirst,
the wish to live, the fear to die!

So the people said: “Who is this _nu zhinga_ who sings of trails he
never followed, of battles he never fought? No father is he—and yet he
sings as one who has lost a son! Of the pain of love he sings—yet never
has he looked upon a girl!”

And it was the way of the boy to answer: “I seek what I do not find,
and so I sing!”

And the nights and days made summers and winters, and thus it was with
the Singer of the Ache. He grew tall even to the height of a man—yet
was he no man. For little did he care to hunt, and the love of battles
was not his. Nor his the laughter of the feast fires. Nor did he look
upon the face of any maiden with soft eyes.

And the father and mother, who felt the first frosts upon their heads,
said: “Our son is now a man; should he not build a lodge and fill it
with a woman? Should we not hear the laughter of _zhinga zhingas_ once
again before we take the black trail together?”

And because his father had many ponies, many maidens were brought
before him for his choosing. But he looked coldly upon them and he
said: “The stars are my sisters and my brothers, and the Moon is my
wife, giving me songs for children. Soon shall there be a long trail
for me.”

Thereat a cry went up against him and more and more he walked a
stranger. Only the Dream walked with him; and he sang the songs that
ache.

Harsh words the father spoke: “Does the tribe need songs? Can hungry
people eat a silly shout, or will enemies be conquered with a singing?”

But the mother wept and said: “Say not so of him. Do not his songs
bring tears, so strange and sweet they are at times? Does a man quarrel
with the vessel from which he drinks sweet waters, even if it be broken
and useless for the cooking?”

And the father frowned and said: “Give me many laughers, and I will
conquer all the enemies and fill all the kettles of the feasts! Let the
weepers and makers of tears drag wood with the women. Always have I
been a fighter of battles and a killer of bison. This is not my son!”

And it happened one night that the Singer stood alone in the midst of
his people, when the round Moon raised a shining forehead out of the
dark, and grew big and flooded all the hills with white light. And the
Singer raised his arms to it and sang as one who loves might sing to a
maiden coming forth flashing with many beads from her tepee.

And the people laughed and a mutter ran about: “To whom does the fool
sing thus?”

Soft, shining eyes he turned upon them, and he said: “Even to the Woman
of the Moon! See where she looks into the North with white face raised
to where the lonesome star hangs patient!”

And the people said: “This is the talk of a fool—no woman do we see!”

And then the Singer sang a new song through which these words ran
often: “Only he sees who can—only he sees who can!”

So now he walked a fool among his people, singing the songs that ache.

_Wahoo!_ bitter it is to be a fool! And yet, O White Brother, only they
who have been fools are wise at last!

And it happened one summer that the village was builded in the flat
lands by the Big Smoky Water. And there came snoring up the stream a
_monda geeung_, the magic fire-boat of the palefaces. Up to the shore
it swam, and they who guided it tied it to the sand, for its fires were
hungry and there was much wood in our lands.

And all the villagers gathered there to see the magic swimmer of the
palefaces; and among them came the lonesome singing fool.

And it happened that a woman of the palefaces came forth and stood high
up, and looked upon us, smiling. White as a snowfall in the late spring
was her face, and her hair was like the sun upon a cloud. And we all
stared wide-mouthed upon her, for never before had her kind come into
the prairies.

Also stared the fool. Even long after all the people had gone he
stared; even until the smoky breath of the fire-boat writhed like a big
black serpent out of the place where the stream runs out of the sky.

And then he laid his head upon his knees and wept; for a longing,
bigger than the wish to live, or the fear to die, had come upon him.

Very early in the morning, when the sleep of all things is deepest,
he arose from sleepless blankets. He called his pony from the grazing
places, and he mounted for a long ride. Into the North he rode, and
as he rode he talked to himself and to the silence that clung about
him: “It was the Woman of the Moon! Into the North she went, even unto
the quiet place where the lonesome star hangs patient. There shall I
ride—there shall I ride! For there do all my songs take wings and fly;
and there at last their meanings await me. There shall I ride—there
shall I ride!”

And the fires of the day burned out the stars and died; downward and
inward rushed the black, black ashes of the night. And still he rode
toward the North.

And like the flashing of a midnight torch through a hole in a tepee
flashed the days and passed. And still he rode.

Through many villages of strange peoples did he ride, and everywhere
strange tongues and strange eyes questioned him; and he answered: “Into
the North I ride to find the Woman of the Moon!”

And the people pitied him, because he seemed as one whose head was
filled with ghostly things; and they fed him.

Further and further into the waste places he pushed, making the empty
spaces sweet and sad with his singing; and the winter came. Thin and
lean he grew, and his pony grew lean and thin.

And the white, mad spirits of the snow beat about the two. And now and
then snow ghosts writhed up out of the ground and twisted and twirled
and moaned, until they took on the shape of her he sought. And ever he
followed them; and ever they fell back into the ground. And the world
was bitter cold.

_Wahoo!_ the snow ghosts that we follow, O White Brother!

And the time came when the pony was no longer a pony, but a quiet heap
of bones; and upon this sat the man who walked for the moon. Then did
the strength go out of him, and he turned his sharp face to the South.
He sang no more for many days, for his body was as a lodge in which a
fair woman lies dead with no mourners around. And at last he wakened in
a strange lodge in a village of strangers.

       *       *       *       *       *

And it happened when the green things pushed upward into the sun again
that a young man who seemed very old, for he was bent, his face was
thin, his eyes were very big, hobbled back into the village of his
people.

And he went to a lodge which was empty, for the father with his
frowning and the mother with her weeping had taken the long trail, upon
which comes no moon and never the sun rises—but the stars are there.

Many days he lay within the lonesome lodge. And it happened that a
maiden, one whom he had pushed aside in other days, came into the lodge
with meat and water.

So at last he said: “I have sought and have not found; therefore will I
be as other men. I will fill this lodge with a woman—and this is she.
Henceforth I shall forget the dream that led me; I shall be a hunter of
bison and a killer of enemies; for after all, what else?”

And this he did.

So all the village buzzed with kindly words. “The fool has come back
wise!” they said.

And as the seasons passed there grew the laughter of _zhinga zhingas_
in the lodge of the man who walked no more for the moon.

But a sadness was upon his face. And after a while the dream came back
and brought the singing. Less and less he looked upon the woman and the
children. Less and less he sought the bison, until at last Hunger came
into that lodge and sat beside the fire.

Then again the old cry of the people grew up: “The fool still lives! He
sings while his lodge is empty. His woman has become a stranger to him,
and his children are as though a stranger had fathered them! Shall the
fool eat and only sing?”

And a snarling cry grew up: “Cast out the fool!”

And it was done.

So out of the village stumbled the singing fool, and his head was
bloody with the stones the people threw. Very old he seemed, though his
years were not many. Into the North he went, and men saw his face no
more.

But lo! many seasons passed and yet he lived and was among all peoples!
For often on hot dusty trails weary men sat down to sing his songs; and
women, weeping over fallen braves, found his songs upon their lips.
And when the hunger came his strange wild cries went among the people.
And all were comforted!

And this, O White Brother, is the story of the fool who walked for the
moon!




VIII

THE WHITE WAKUNDA


HE was the son of Sky-Walker’s oldest squaw and he was born in the time
when the lone goose flies (February). It was a very bitter winter, so
that many years after the old men spoke of it as “the winter of the big
snows.”

Sky-Walker, his father, was a seer of great visions, and he had a power
that was more than the power of strong arms. He was a thunder man, and
he could make rain.

And when Sky-Walker’s oldest squaw bore a son there was much wonder in
the village, for she was far past her summer and the frost had already
fallen on her hair. Also, she was lean and wrinkled.

So the old men and women came to the lodge of Sky-Walker and looked
upon the newborn child. They looked and they shook their heads, for the
child was not as a child should be. He was no bigger than a baby coyote
littered in a terrible winter after a summer of famine. He was not fat.

“He can never be a _waschuscha_ [brave],” said one old man; “I have
seen many _zhinga zhingas_ [babies] who grew strong, but they were not
like this one. He will carry wood and water.”

And Sky-Walker’s old squaw arose from the blankets where she lay with
the child, and sat up, fixing eyes of bitterness upon those who came to
pity, and she said:

“He will be more than a killer of men or a hunter of bison. Wakunda
sent him to me, for I am old and past my time. See, I am lean and
wrinkled, and it is already winter in my hair. Also I had visions. Let
my man tell you; he knows.”

And Sky-Walker, sitting beside the old mother, gave words to the old
men and women, who knew his little words to be bigger than the big
words of most men.

“The woman speaks true. She is past her time, and she has seen things
that made me wonder, and I am wise. She had visions, but in them there
was no singing of arrows, nor drumming of pony hoofs, nor dancing of
braves in war paint, nor cries of conquered enemies; neither was there
any thunder or lightning.

“There was only the soft speaking of quiet things—the sound of the
growing of green things under the sun. And before the last moon died,
once she wakened me from my sleeping, for she had had a dream. She saw
her son walking a mighty man among the tribes, yet he had no weapons.

“And a great light, greater than sunlight, was about him. This she told
me. Many times have we seen together the drifting of the snows, and
always her words were true words.

“And see, it is a boy, even as she dreamed. Also he has come in the
time when the lone goose flies. I see much in this. He shall be alone,
but high in loneliness, and he shall go far, far! Look where he gazes
upon you with man-eyes! Are they the eyes of a _zhinga zhinga_?”

The old folks looked and pitied no more, for the eyes were not as other
eyes. They had a strange light, making the old ones wonder.

So the word passed around and around the circle of lodges that
Sky-Walker’s oldest squaw had a son who was not a common _zhinga
zhinga_. And as the talk grew, the name of the child grew with it. So
he was called Wa-choo-bay, “the Holy One.”

And as Wa-choo-bay grew, so grew the wonder of the people, for he never
cried, and he talked soon. Also from the first he appeared as one over
whom many winters had passed.

When he reached that age when he should have played with the other
boys, he did not play, but was much alone upon the prairie without the
village. He never took part in the game of Pawnee _zhay-day_, the game
of spear and hoop, which made the other boys laugh and shout.

One evening in his fifth year, his father, Sky-Walker, said to him:

“It is the time for the coming of the dreams to Wa-choo-bay. Let him
go afar into a lonesome place without food and lift his hands and his
voice to Wakunda. Four sleeps let him stay in the lonesome place, that
his dream may come.”

So his mother smeared his forehead with mud and muttered to the spirits:

“Thus shall you know Wa-choo-bay, who goes forth to have his first
dream. Send him a good dream.”

And Wa-choo-bay went forth into a lonesome place without food.

And on the morning of the fifth day, when the squaws were making fires,
he returned, and as he entered the village and went to the lodge of
his father the squaws gazed upon his face, seeing that which was very
strange.

They wakened the sleepers in the lodges, saying:

“Wa-choo-bay is come back with a strange medicine-look upon his face!
He has had a great dream; come and see.”

And the village awoke and crowded about the lodge of Sky-Walker, who
came forth and said:

“Go away! Something great has happened to my _nu-zhinga_ [boy], and he
is about to tell me his dream.”

And the people went away, awed and silent.

In the stillness of his lodge Sky-Walker gazed upon the boy’s face and
said:

“What has Wa-choo-bay seen?”

And Wa-choo-bay said:

“I went far into a lonesome place; there was nothing but the crows and
the prairie and the sky. I lifted my hands and my voice as you told me.
I said the words you told me. Then I slept, and when I awoke this is
what I remembered; the rest was like big things moving in the mist.

“I was on the shore of the Ne Shoda [Missouri], and a little canoe
came up to me, and I got in, for a voice told me to get in. Then the
canoe swam out into the water and went fast. I went toward the place of
summer. I rode far, many sleeps, and then as I was about to come to the
end of my long riding, I awoke. Four times I saw this, and then I came
here. What does it mean?”

“I do not know,” said Sky-Walker. “I must think hard, and then maybe I
will know.”

And Sky-Walker shut himself in his lodge and thought hard for four
sleeps. And when the fifth morning came he said to Wa-choo-bay:

“I have thought hard, and now I know that it is the big things moving
in the mist that you must see. Go forth and dream again in the lonesome
place.”

And so Wa-choo-bay went forth with the mud on his brow, crying to the
spirits that he might see the big things that moved in the mist. He
slept and dreamed. Again he was in the canoe and he rode far.

Then at last the river tossed him upon the sand, and lo! there was a
big, big village before him, and the lodges of it were strange and very
big. Then the big village wavered like the picture of something in a
pool that is disturbed, and vanished. And the sun was on the hills.

So Wa-choo-bay went back to his father and told him what he had seen,
and Sky-Walker said:

“This is very strange. After many sunlights of flowing, the big muddy
water comes to a place where a big new tribe has its lodges. And the
faces of the tribe are white. Something it is about this tribe that you
have dreamed. And I am afraid, for Wakunda meant that all faces should
be of the colour of the earth. Let the sunlight pass, and then we shall
know the meaning of this dream.”

The days grew into years, and Wa-choo-bay sat at the feet of the old
men, learning much.

He learned the names of the thunder spirits that are never spoken
aloud. He learned the songs that the thunder spirits love. He learned
to call the rain. He learned the manner of the rite of _Wazhinadee_, by
which one may kill a man without the use of weapons. And when he had
grown to be a tall youth, he was taken into the sacred lodge where the
holy relics are kept. For it seemed plain that Wakunda meant him for a
great medicine-man.

But it was in the summer when he had reached the height of a man that
Wa-choo-bay did that which marked him for the lonesome way.

It happened that the summer had been one of peace and plenty; so the
Omahas called in the Pawnees and the Poncas for a powwow, which is a
great feast and a talking.

And the two neighbouring tribes had taken the peace trail and come
to the Omaha village. Then there was much painting in the colours of
peace, and the village that the three tribes made was more than one
could see with a look.

In a great circle it lay in the flat lands of Ne Shoda, with an opening
to the place of morning. And in the centre there was built a large
semicircular shade of willow boughs, in which the braves would dance
and sing, giving away presents of ponies, furs, hides, and trinkets
that please the eye.

One day there was a great dancing and a great giving away. Many ponies
had been led into the sunny centre of the semicircular shade, and given
away to those whom the criers called.

And Wa-choo-bay was there, standing tall and thin, alone amid all the
revellers, for more and more as the sunlights passed he thought deep
thoughts.

Among the Poncas sat a young squaw who was good to see, for she was
slender and taller than a common brave. And upon her forehead was the
tattooed sunspot that marked her for the daughter of the owner of many
ponies. She was called Umba (Sunlight), and she was the best to see of
all the daughters of the assembled tribes.

To-day she sat amid the revelling and saw none of it. She saw only the
tall youth, standing alone like a beech tree among a cluster of scrub
oaks. And her eyes grew soft as she looked.

And when the centre of the place of shade had cleared, she arose and
walked into the centre. There she stood, a stately figure, with soft
eyes fixed upon Wa-choo-bay.

At length she raised her arms toward him and sang a low, droning song,
like that a mother sings to her child in the evening when the fires
burn blue.

And all the people listened, breathless, for she was fair, and the
song, which was a song of love, was sung to Wa-choo-bay alone, standing
thin and tall and deep in thought.

Then when her song had ceased, she took off her blanket of dyed
buckskin, and, holding it at arm’s length toward Wa-choo-bay, she said:

“I give my blanket to the tall and lonesome one. Let him come and take
it, and I shall follow him on all his trails, even if they be hard
trails that lead to death!”

And Wa-choo-bay raised his eyes and gazed with a sad look upon the
Ponca woman. His voice came strong, but soft:

“I cannot take the blanket; neither shall I ever take a squaw. For I am
a dreamer of dreams. I shall never hear _zhinga zhingas_ laughing about
my lodge. I am going on a long trail, for I follow a dream. Yet have
I never seen a woman so good to see. There is an ache in my breast as
I speak. Let this woman follow one who kills enemies and hunts bison.
I dream dreams, and a long trail is before me, and its end is in the
mist.”

Then Umba moaned and walked out of the circle with her head bowed.

And Sky-Walker, seeing this, said:

“It is even as I said. He was born in the time of the lone goose. He
shall be alone, but high in loneliness; and he shall go far, far.”

And the time came when the tribes took the homeward trail. Then one day
Wa-choo-bay raised his voice among the people and said:

“My time is come to go. I take a long, lonesome trail, for a dream
dreamed many times is leading me.”

Then he went down to the great river where a canoe lay, and the people
followed.

They said no word as he pushed the canoe into the current and shot
downstream, for a white light was upon his face, and the dream rode
with him.

Then Sky-Walker and his old squaw climbed a high bluff and watched the
speck that was Wa-choo-bay fading in the mist of distance.

“This is the last I shall see,” said the old woman, “for I am old and
the winter is in my hair. But great things will happen when I am gone.”

And under the shade of a lean hand raised browward she saw the black
speck vanish in the blue of distance.

       *       *       *       *       *

Summers and winters passed. Sky-Walker and his old squaw died; the name
of Wa-choo-bay became a dim and mystic thing. Yet often about the
fires of winter, when the wind moaned about the lodges, the old men
talked of the going away of the Holy One, making the eyes of the youths
grow big with wonder.

And often the old men and women gazed from the high bluff down the dim
stretches of the muddy river, wondering when Wa-choo-bay would come
back, for it was said that great things would happen at his coming.

It happened many years after the going away of Wa-choo-bay that the
Omaha tribe had its village in the valley on a creek near the big muddy
water.

It was the time when the sunflowers made sunlight in the valleys and
when the women were busy pulling weeds from the gardens.

One evening a band of youths, who had been playing on the bluffs
overlooking the far reaches of the river, came with breathless speed
and terror-stricken faces into the village.

“_Monda geeung_ [devil boat]!” they cried, pointing to the river. “A
big canoe breathing out smoke and fire is swimming up Ne Shoda.”

The whole village scrambled up the bluffs, and what they saw was not
forgotten for many moons. It was a boat, but it was not as other boats.
It breathed smoke and fire. It grunted and puffed like a swimmer in a
heavy current.

It had a great arm that reached before it. Also it had two noses, where
the smoke and fire came out. It had eyes along its side that sparkled
in the evening sunlight. There was none to paddle it, yet it moved
steadily against the current.

The people stood bunched closely together and shivering with fear as
the monster approached. With a chugging and a swishing and a coughing,
it swam, turning its head towards the bluff where the people watched
and reaching out its one big arm toward them.

“It sees us! It wishes to eat us!” cried the people, and like a herd of
frightened bison they ran and tumbled down the bluff. They hid in their
lodges with their weapons grasped in their hands. They made no noise,
lest the monster should find them.

But the devil-swimmer did not come. The people listened. At length the
sound of the mighty breathing stopped, then it began again and grew
dimmer and dimmer until it died away far up the stream.

And when the people came forth cautiously from their hiding, a man,
tall, thin, with a strange look upon his bronze face, stood in the
centre of the village.

Awed by the mien of the stranger, the people stared in silence. The sun
had fallen and the shadows of the evening were about him. Also he wore
garments that were not as Wakunda meant garments should be.

The stranger cast a long gaze about him, then raised his arms and said
in a voice that was strong but soft:

“I breathe peace upon my people.”

The words were Omaha words, yet they sounded strange.

Again the voice was raised in the shadows and passed like a wind among
the people, shaking them.

“I am Wa-choo-bay—he who followed the long dream-trail—and I am come
back with a great wisdom for the tribes.”

But the people only trembled, and the old men whispered:

“It is not Wa-choo-bay, but his spirit. Well is the face remembered,
but the words are not man-words.”

Then the stranger passed about the circle of the wondering people,
touching them as he went, for he had heard the whispering of the old
men. And the people shrank from him.

“I am Wa-choo-bay,” cried the stranger again. “I am the son of
Sky-Walker. I am a man, and not a spirit. Give me meat, for I am
hungry.”

And they gave him meat, and he ate. Then only did the people know him
for a man.

In the days that followed, Wa-choo-bay told many strange things of the
white-faced race whose camp fires were kindled ever nearer and nearer
the people of the prairie. Also he said words that were not common
words. They were medicine-words.

And before many moons had grown and died these things travelled far and
wide across the prairie, until in many tribes the wonder grew. Around
many camp fires was told the tale of how an Omaha had come back after
being many years in the lands that lay toward the place of summer;
also of the devil-boat in which he came, and of the new wisdom he was
talking.

So there was a great moving of the tribes toward the village of the
Omahas. The Poncas, the Pawnees, the Osages, the Missouris, the
Otoes—all heard the strange tale and took the trail that led to the
village lying in the flat lands of Ne Shoda.

And in the time when the prairie was brown there was a great gathering
of the prairie peoples in the flat lands.

The cluster of villages that they made was so broad that a strong man
walked from morning until the sun was high before he reached the other
side. Then one morning when the tribes had gathered Wa-choo-bay went
to the top of a bluff that stood bleak against the sky, and the people
followed, sitting below him upon the hillside, for they wished to hear
the strange words that would be spoken that day.

Wa-choo-bay, standing thin and tall against the sky, raised his arms
and his face to the heavens, breathing strange words above the people,
upon whom a great hush fell.

And it happened that in the hush a tamed wolf among the people near
the summit of the bluff raised its snout and mourned into the sudden
stillness.

And its master beat it for the noise it made until it cried with pain.

Then a strange thing happened. Wa-choo-bay walked in among the gazers
and laid caressing hands upon the wolf, calling it by gentle names
until it licked his hands.

And when he returned to the summit, the wolf followed, licking the feet
of Wa-choo-bay as it went.

Then Wa-choo-bay raised his voice, and it went even to the farthest
listener, though it seemed a soft voice.

“This is the first I shall teach you: be kind to everything that lives.”

And the people wondered much. This was a new teaching.

In the hush of awe that fell, Wa-choo-bay spoke again, while the wolf
sat by him, licking his feet. He told of his being in the lands that
lay toward the summer; of the great white-faced race that lived there;
of the great villages that they built, having lodges bigger than half a
prairie village.

He told of the strength of this great white-faced race; of how they
were moving steadily toward the people of the prairie. And then he told
in quaint phrases the story of Christ and His teachings of kindness.

“These things I learned from the great medicine-men of the white-faced
race, and they are wise men,” said Wa-choo-bay. “It is this that has
made their people great. So I have come to say: Have no more fighting
on the prairie; be one great tribe, even like the white-faces; build
great villages like them, for I have learned that only they who build
great villages and do not wander shall live. The others must flee like
the bison when hunters follow.

“And I will teach you the wise words of the great white Wakunda’s Son,
who died because he loved all the tribes. It is a teaching of peace—a
teaching that we be kind to our enemies.”

Then there arose one among the Osages, an old man, and he said:

“These are big words. Let Wa-choo-bay call down rain upon us if this
big white God loves him.”

Then arose one among the Pawnees, and he cried in broken Omaha:

“I say with my Osage brother, let Wa-choo-bay do some medicine-deed,
that we may know him for a holy one.”

And still another among the Poncas arose and said:

“If this be true that we have heard, how Wa-choo-bay came back in
a holy boat, and that his big white Wakunda is so strong and loves
Wa-choo-bay, let him send the rain, and we will fall upon our faces.”

Then the whole concourse of tribes sent up a shout:

“Give us some medicine-deed!”

And when the shout had died, Wa-choo-bay smiled a smile of pity and
said:

“I am not the big white Wakunda; I am only one who talks for Him and
loves Him, for I have seen a new light. I can do no medicine-deeds.
Neither can anyone among you do medicine-deeds. It is all a
dreaming—and we must awaken.”

Then there was a great crying, an angry storm of voices about the hill.
It beat upon the bleak summit where Wa-choo-bay stood with face and
hands raised to the heavens, breathing a prayer of the white-faces.

There was a breaking up of the concourse and a walking away. But one
among the people hurled a stone with sure aim and struck Wa-choo-bay
upon the side of the face. He staggered, and the blood came. But he
showed no anger.

Turning the other side of his face, he said:

“Let him who threw the stone throw again and strike me here. Even so
the great white Wakunda’s Son suffered.”

But the second stone was not cast, and Wa-choo-bay was left alone with
the wolf upon the summit, kneeling and muttering words of kindness.

The day passed, and still he knelt upon the summit. But when the dark
had fallen, he became aware of someone near him. He raised his head and
saw in the starlight a woman lying upon her face before him, and she
was moaning.

Wa-choo-bay lifted her and looked into her face. It was a face that he
had known of old, only the winters had changed it.

“I am Umba, the Ponca woman,” she said. “Many summers ago I spoke to
you. Do you remember?”

And Wa-choo-bay said: “I have not forgotten.”

Then said Umba, the Ponca woman: “Even now it is the same as then. I
have come to take the hard trail with you, even the trail that leads to
death, for in all these winters and summers I have taken no man.”

And she wiped the blood from his face with her blanket of buckskin.

There was an aching in the breast of Wa-choo-bay as he said these
words, which the Ponca woman could not understand, though her tongue
was one with his:

“From now through all the summers and winters that follow, your name
shall be Mary.”

“Have you heard my words?” he said after a long silence.

“I have heard,” said the woman, “and I believe. I alone among all the
villagers believe.”

“Then shall you follow me on my lonesome trail. I see not its end, for
it is in the mist.”

       *       *       *       *       *

The days when the prairie was brown passed, and the snows came. And
there was one who followed a bitter winter trail.

From village to village he went, speaking words of kindness and doing
good deeds. But everywhere he was driven from the villages. And there
were two who followed him—two faithful disciples—the woman, whose name
was changed to Mary, and the wolf.

And ever the tall thin man, whose face was pinched with hunger and the
cold, gave kind words to those who offered blows.

It happened in the time of _Hunga-Mubli_—the time when the snows drift
against the north sides of the lodges, that a rumour ran across the
prairie—a rumour that a strange sickness had come to the village of the
Poncas. It was the sickness called _Gchatunga_, the sickness of the
big, red sores.

Then Wa-choo-bay and his two disciples turned weary feet toward the
stricken village of the Poncas. It was a hard trail, with little food
and much cold.

And when the three entered the stricken village there was a rejoicing
among the Poncas, for they said:

“Might it not be that this one whom we have spurned is stronger than we
thought?”

But Wa-choo-bay sang no medicine-songs; he performed no mystic rites.
With tender hands he nursed the sick. Also he knelt beside them and
said soft words that were not the words of the prairie.

And it happened that the invisible arrows of the Terror fell thicker
and thicker among the Poncas. The sickness spread, and the village was
filled with the delirious shrieks of the dying.

So a great, angry wail went up against Wa-choo-bay.

“The sickness grows greater, not less,” said those who were still
strong. “This Wa-choo-bay’s words are not true words. There is a black
spirit in him.”

So it happened that arms that were still strong seized Wa-choo-bay
and bound him with thongs of buckskin. Then he was led afar from the
village to the bleak, cold summit of a hill.

There they planted a post and bound Wa-choo-bay to it.

And the woman, whose name was changed to Mary, begged for him, and the
wolf, with its four feet huddled together in the snow, mourned with an
upward thrusting of the snout.

But Wa-choo-bay said:

“Do not wail for me. This is the place where my trail ends. This is
what was in the mist. Let these whom I love do as they will do.”

And when they had bound him to the post they whipped him with elkhorn
whips.

“Where is your white Wakunda?” they cried, and it was a hate cry.

“Here beside us stands the white Wakunda and His Son!” said
Wa-choo-bay; and his brow was wet with the sweat of agony. But the
whippers did not see, and the whips fell harder.

And after some time Wa-choo-bay raised his head weakly to the darkening
heavens, for the sun had fallen, and moaned soft words that were not
prairie words.

Then his head fell forward upon his breast.

The whips fell no more. The whippers departed.

The sky was like a sheet of frosty metal and the stars were like broken
ice.

Against the sky hung the thin figure of Wa-choo-bay lashed to the post,
and beneath him in the shadow huddled two who sent trembling cries of
sorrow into the empty spaces of the snow—a woman and a wolf.




IX

THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA


WHEN Seha had grown to be a tall youth, he said to the old men: “Now
I am almost a man; what shall I do?” For being a youth, he dreamed of
great things. And the old men answered: “That Wakunda knows; therefore,
take yourself to a high hill; there fast and pray until sleep comes,
and with it a vision.”

So Seha arose and laid aside his garments, and naked, went out on the
prairie. When he had gone far, he climbed to the top of a lonely hill,
bare of grass and strewn with flakes of stone that made its summit
white like the head of a man who has seen many winters.

Then he knelt upon the flinty summit, and raising his palms to the
heavens, he cried: “O Wakunda, here needy stands Seha!” Four times he
uttered the cry, yet there was no sound save that of the crow overhead,
and the wind in the short grass of the hillside.

Then he fell into an agony of weeping, and wetting his palms with his
tears, he rubbed them in the white dust and smeared his face with mud.
Then he cast his wet eyes to the heavens, and again raised his hands in
supplication.

“O Wakunda, Seha is a young man; he would do great things like the old
men; send him a vision!”

The night came down and still he held his eyes upon the darkening
heavens, crying for a vision. But only the coyote answered him. The
stars looked out of the east and steadily climbed upward, gazing upon
his tearful face. But when the grey of age began to grow upon the
forehead of the Night, he grew so weary that he fell forward upon his
face and slept.

And lo! the vision came!

It seemed that the skies were black and fierce as the face of a brave
in anger. The lightning glared; and the thunder shouted like a warrior
in the front of the battle! Then the cloud split, and through it rushed
a mighty eagle with the lightning playing on its wings; its cry was
like the shriek of a dying foe and its eyes were bright with the vision
that sees far. Its wings hovered over Seha, and it spoke:

“Seha shall be a seer of things far off. His thought shall be quick as
the lightning, and his voice shall be as thunder in the ears of men!”

Seha awoke, and he was shivering with the dews of morning. Then he
arose and walked back toward his village, slowly, for his thoughts were
great. Four days he went about the village, speaking to no one; and the
people whispered: “Seha has had a vision; do you not see that his eyes
are big with a strange light?”

One night after the four days had passed, Seha arose from his blankets
and, creeping stealthily out of his tepee, he went to the lodge of
Ebahamba, who was a great medicine-man, for Seha wished to tell his
vision into a wise ear.

Pulling back the buffalo robe that hung across the entrance he saw the
great man sleeping in the moonlight that fell through the opening at
the top of the tepee. Entering, he touched the shoulder of the sleeper,
who awoke with a start, and, sitting up, stared at the young intruder.
Then Ebahamba being thoroughly awakened, spoke:

“Seha has come to tell his vision; I knew he would come; speak.”

“You are a great man,” began Seha, “and your eyes are like the sun’s
eyes to see into the shadow. Hear me and teach me.”

Then he told of his vision on the lonely hill.

As Ebahamba listened to the wonderful thing that had befallen the
youth, his heart grew cold with envy; for certainly great things were
in store for Seha, and might it not come to pass that the youth should
grow even greater in power than Ebahamba himself?

So, when the youth had ceased, breathless with the wonder of the thing
he told, the old man said coldly: “Wakunda will teach Seha; let him go
learn of the wind and the growing things!”

Then the youth arose and left the lodge. But the big medicine-man slept
no more that night, for jealousy is sleepless.

At that time it happened that the winds were hot from the southwest,
and the maize grew yellow as the sun that smote it, and the rainless
air curled its blades. And the old man Ebahamba cried to Wakunda for
rain; but the skies only glared back for answer.

Then a great moan went up before the lodge of the big medicine-man,
Ebahamba. “Ebahamba speaks with the spirits; let him pray to the
thunder spirits that we may have food for our squaws and our children!”

And Ebahamba shut himself in his tepee four days, fasting, crying to
the thunder spirits, and performing strange rites. But every morning
the sun arose glaring like the eye of a man who dies of fever, and the
hot wind sweltered up from the southwest, moaning hoarsely like one who
moans with thirst; and the maize heard the moan and wilted.

Then when the people grew clamorous before the lodge of Ebahamba, he
came forth and said: “The thunder spirits are sleeping; they are weary
and drowsy with the heat.” And the hooting of his people drove him back
into his lodge.

Then Seha raised his voice above the despairing murmur of the village,
saying: “Seha is a young man, yet the thunder spirits will hear him,
be they ever so drowsy, for Seha has had a vision. Seha will call the
rain.”

The murmur of the people ceased, for so strange a light was in the
eyes of the youth that they believed.

“Let Seha give us rain,” they cried, “and he shall be a great man among
his people!”

Then Seha strode out of the village and disappeared in the hills. His
heart was loud as he walked, for would he not be a great man among his
people? He believed in his power with that belief which is the power.
All day he walked, and when the red sun glared across the western hills
like an eye bloodshot with pain, he came to a clump of cottonwoods that
sang upon the summit of a bluff.

Now the thunder spirits love the cottonwoods, for they rise sternly
from the earth, reaching their long arms into the clouds, and they cry
back at the storm with a loud voice. Where the cottonwood sings, there
the thunder spirits sleep, and the thunder birds, the eagle and the
hawk, watch with keen eyes.

Under the trees Seha stood, and raising his hands and his eyes to the
heavens, he cried: “Hear Seha! For is he not a thunder man? Did he not
dream the thunder man’s dream? Then I command you, send the big clouds
boiling before the wind; send the rains, that my people may have food
for their children. Then I will be a great man among my people!”

The trees only tossed their branches above him, while they sang softly
in the wind.

“O Thunder Spirits!” he cried again. “You are not asleep! I hear you
talking together in the tree tops. Listen to me, for I am a thunder
man!”

Then a dead calm grew. The cottonwoods were still. Suddenly they
groaned with a cool gust from the east. The groan was like a waking
man’s groan when he arises, stretching and yawning, from his blankets.

Then Seha lay down to sleep; for were not the thunder spirits awake?

When the night was late, Seha was awakened by the howl of the thunder.
He saw the quick lightning pierce the boiling darkness in the east.
Then the rain drops danced upon the dry hills with a sound like the
unintelligible patter of many voices that are glad.

Seha was glad, and he answered the shout of the thunder. His people in
the village were glad, and their tongues were noisy with the name of
Seha. The maize was glad and it looked up to the kind sky, tossing its
arms in exultation.

When Seha returned to the village, he was the centre of a joyful cry;
he had become a great man among his people. And when they asked from
whence he had such great powers, he said: “I caught it from the blowing
wind; I heard it in the growing of the maize.”

But there was one who did not greet the mysterious youth. Ebahamba
shut himself in his tepee, for had he not failed to awaken the thunder
spirits when a youth had succeeded? Ebahamba sat sullenly in his
tepee, thinking great and fierce thoughts; and after many days of
fasting, his magic came back to him. Then he summoned to his lodge one
by one, the men of his band, and he said to each: “Behold! Seha speaks
with evil spirits. May he not destroy his people? Then let us perform
the rite of _Wazhinadee_ against him that he may be forsaken by man and
beast and so die!”

The men of his band believed Ebahamba, for his magic was very great
now, and he forced them to believe. So each man went to his tepee, shut
himself in, feasted and thought sternly against Seha. For this is the
manner of the rite of _Wazhinadee_.

Then after his enemies had thought strongly for many days against
him, Seha was seized with a strange weakness. His eyes lost their
brightness, and he could not see far as before. All through the days
and the nights he went about the village, crying for his lost power;
and the people said: “The coyotes are barking in the hills.” They could
not see him for the mist that the terrible rite had cast about him.

Then Seha wandered out on the prairie, wailing as ever for his lost
power. And after many days, he laid himself down by a stream to die.
But he did not die. He slept; and the vision came again. When he awoke,
he was strong again and his eyes could see far as before.

Then he said: “I will cleanse myself in the stream and go back to my
people, for I am strong again.”

But lo! as he leaned over the clear stream, he beheld the reflected
image of an eagle far above him. Now a medicine man can change himself
at will into anything that walks or crawls or flies or is still; and as
Seha watched the eagle, he knew that it was Ebahamba!

So gliding into the stream, he quickly changed himself into a great
fish floundering temptingly upon the surface. The eagle, which was
Ebahamba, being hungry, swooped down upon the fish with wide beak and
open talons.

In a moment, Seha changed himself into a huge boulder, against which
the swooping bird dashed furiously, crushing its beak and talons. Then
it arose, and with bloody wings, fluttered across the prairie.

Seha stepped out of his rock and laughed a loud, long laugh, and the
eagle, which was Ebahamba, heard and knew.

So Seha returned to his village and was a great man among his people.
But Ebahamba hid himself in his tepee; and a rumour ran that his arms
were broken and his face crushed.

And there was much wonder in the village!




X

THE END OF THE DREAM


THE old woman Gunthai had nothing but a past over which she brooded and
a son upon whom she doted. Had she been able to write the latter in the
letters of that tongue which came to the prairie many moons after her
death, breaking with syllables of magic the spell of the centuries,
she would have written it with a “u”; for her son was as the day to
her; his coming was the morning and his going was the sunset. When he
laughed, there was summer in the wretched little tepee; when he cried,
the snows drifted about the mother-heart.

Winter and summer the old woman sat in her lodge, her back bent with
the burdens of many seasons and her face seamed with many memories; yet
stern and expressionless as of one who has followed a long trail and
cannot see its end though the sun be falling.

All day she would sit in her lodge, weaving baskets of willow, which
she exchanged with her tribesmen for meat and robes; for the father
of her child was dead. Her little boy, whom she tenderly called Nu
Zhinga (Little Man), would lie long hours before her with his chin
resting upon his little brown hands, watching the fingers of his mother
weave the pliant twigs into form with marvellous skill, as it seemed
to him; and often when the hours crept lamely, he would sing to her
a monotonous song like the wind’s, timing the irregular air with the
beating of his toes upon the floor.

And when the little singer would cease, the old woman Gunthai often
forgot the unwoven basket with gazing into his big black eyes, for in
them her hope could read great deeds that were to be done after many
unborn moons had waned.

Then she would tell him tales of his father; tales that were loud with
the snarl of war drums, the twang of bow thongs, the shriek of arrows,
the beat of hoofs! But there was no responsive glitter in the eyes of
the boy; his heart was not the warrior’s, and the old mother seeing
this, sighed and fell to work with nervous haste.

And the days of sun and snow wove themselves into years, until Nu
Zhinga had reached that time when boyhood begins to deepen into
manhood; and yet as the mother looked upon her son, she found him
scarcely taller than a weak man’s bow.

His legs were short and bowed, his hips narrow, and upon shoulders of
abnormal breadth sat his monstrous, shaggy head. It was as if he were
the visible body of a black spirit’s joke, save for his lustrous eyes,
that were like two stars that burn big in the air of evening through a
film of mist.

And thus it was that when Nu Zhinga passed through the village, those
who were still foolish with youth jeered at the lad, calling his name
in contempt; but the old men and women who had grown wise, only shook
their heads and pitied Gunthai in silence.

But the boy would take no notice of his tormentors, walking on sullen
and silent. He lived in a little world of his own, which was isolated
from the great world by the unkindness of his people, like a range of
frozen hills; and in this small world there were but three dwellers:
Gunthai, a tame grey wolf, and one other. That other was a despised
little cripple and her name was Tabea (Frog).

These three, and about them the chromatic glory of dreams like a
sunrise that lingers—this was the world of Nu Zhinga. All day amid
the quiet of the summer hills Nu Zhinga and Tabea played together;
he telling of the great indefinite things that he would do in that
big mysterious sometime when the days would be pregnant with wonders!
For in his soul the pulse of uncertain but lofty resolve bounded, and
as he peered into the future, lo! it was vast, yet dim with misty
possibilities like a broad stretch of prairie expanding under the new
moon! And she, with all of her crooked little body attentive, listened
and believed even more than she heard; which is the way of those who
love.

And then these two, after the manner of children, would play at life,
building a tepee with willows from a convenient creek; and Tabea would
groan as she bore the heavy burdens, thus showing how she would toil
for him and suffer. Then when the tepee was built, she would go about
droning a song, with her back bent as with the weight of an infant,
thus showing how she would carry the child of Nu Zhinga in that big and
sunlit sometime.

One day when the last white footstep of the winter had vanished from
the coldest valley, the old woman Gunthai laid aside a finished basket
and called her boy to her side.

“It is the time,” she said; “the time is ripe with summers. Nu Zhinga
must eat no meat for four days; then he must go to the hill where the
visions come, that he may know what is to be for him in the light of
the unborn moons.”

So Nu Zhinga ate no meat for four days, and when the fourth evening
came, as the fires roared upward among the circled lodges, he passed
through the village and took his way to the high hill of dreams. It was
the time when the valleys are loud with the song of frogs and when the
Earth begins to learn anew the pleasant lesson of the Sun.

When he had stopped, breathless with toiling up the long incline, for
he was weak with hunger, he turned and looked back upon the jumbled
village and saw, indistinctly through the mist of the evening, his
mother standing before the door of her lodge, straining her gaze that
she might see her boy for the last time, climbing to the height where
the dream awaited, that should send him back a man with a future big
in deeds.

Then Nu Zhinga climbed on to the summit of the hill and watched the
west pass from brilliant colours into dun, and the darkness come with
the stars. In the light of a thin moon the far hills whitened. The
big stars glowed kindly like the camp fires of a friendly people. The
night wind talked to itself in the gulches; and attentive to these, Nu
Zhinga forgot the reason of his coming, and lulled by the many pleasant
sounds, fell asleep and was awakened by the pale damp Dawn.

Then he ran down the hill, and as he passed through the village, the
old women, some busy about the steaming kettles, others bent beneath
the loads of fuel, shook their heads and said: “Gunthai’s boy has had
no vision; not so do they return who dream great dreams.”

In the doorway of her lodge Gunthai stood awaiting the approach of her
son. Her body that was wont to be bent like a bow upon which a heavy
hand is laid in anger, was erect and quivering as is the bow when the
arrow has sped like a purpose. Upon her leathery, wrinkled face dwelt
the glimmer of an inner illumination. Only the flesh was old, the light
was young; for Hope is a youth.

As the lad approached, the tenseness of expectation held the old
woman’s tongue and her question came from her eyes. “What has Nu Zhinga
dreamed?”

“I saw the stars that were like the eyes of a friend,” said the boy,
“and I heard the wind as it sang to itself in the gulches. I slept and
woke and the Sun was laughing on the hills!”

Many seasons sit lightly upon a form when Hope sits with them; but
Despair is heavy, and again the weight of many years bent the shoulders
of the mother. When the sun leaves a cloud of glory, it leaves a mass
of murk; thus passed the light from the wrinkled face of Gunthai.

There was a sigh in her voice as she spoke; a sigh like that of a wind
that is heavy with rain: “There should have come a dream loud with the
noises of battle and shrill with the flight of arrows! Thus did your
father dream.”

So Nu Zhinga went a second and a third and a fourth time to the hill of
dreams, and the last answer that his mother heard was like the first.
And on the fifth day the heart of the old mother was sore with sorrow,
and all that night she did not sleep, but wept and moaned: “How shall
Gunthai be comforted when her eyes are dim and her fingers stiff? Her
son shall not be mighty in the hunt and battle, for he has had no
dream.”

The lad, awakened in the night by the moaning of his mother, knew in
an indefinite way that he was the cause of so much grief; and in his
breast grew a great pang of soul hunger that would not pass away. Even
with the giant joy of the sunrise it did not pass away.

In the early light Nu Zhinga passed out of the village, for his heart
was heavy. As he walked, lo everything was sad except the sun, and the
light of its gladness deepened the shadow of his sorrow. The sound of
the wind moving in the bunch grass of the hillside was like a faint cry
of a great pain. At length he threw himself down and buried his face in
the grass. The despair of those who dream daydreams was upon him. There
was night in his heart; his small body shook with sobs. A long while he
lay thus, nor did he hear the soft step that stopped beside him.

At length Nu Zhinga raised his head from the grass and saw Tabea
sitting beside him with pity in her eyes and in the attitude of her
crooked little body. Without a word they stared each into the face of
the other; and as Nu Zhinga looked, the desolate grey of the world
began to develop its wonted brilliance of colour, as though the union
of their tears had produced a prism.

At length these two arose and walked among the hills, dreaming as was
their wont, and again the sunlight entered the heart of Nu Zhinga. When
the two outcasts entered the village, even though the youths trooped
behind them shouting “Peazha!” (no good), yet the sunlight did not
pass; for upon one hand walked the dreams of Nu Zhinga and upon the
other, Tabea.

One day in the time of the gathering of the maize, when the brown hills
shivered with the first frosts, the voice of a crier was heard through
the village calling the braves to battle; for the big chief of the
Omahas would lead a war party against the Sioux.

So the old woman Gunthai took down the weapons of her fallen brave from
the side of the tepee where they had hung in idleness for many moons.
She strung the long unbent bow with a thong of buckskin and retipped
the arrows with the feathers of the hawk. Then she wept over them,
and blessed them with weird songs; and calling Nu Zhinga to her side,
placed them in his hands, and said: “Bring them back red with the blood
of the Sioux!”

And the youth took them, wondering why it was so very great a thing to
kill.

Then the war party rode out of the village and Nu Zhinga rode with it.
And there were two who climbed to the highest hill and, shading their
eyes with their hands, watched the braves disappear into the distance.
They were Gunthai and Tabea, and the hopes of each were great. For
might not even Nu Zhinga do great deeds? Such things had been.

After many days the returning band rode up the valley that rang with
the song of victory. But when it rode into the village, a great cry
went up against Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted. For in the battle with
the Sioux his pony had fallen with an arrow in its breast, and when the
Omahas returned from the pitiless pursuit of their flying foes, they
found him crying like a squaw over the carcass of the animal.

When the people heard this concerning Nu Zhinga, an angry cry, like
that of a strong wind in a thicket, passed over the multitude gathered
about the braves. “Let him go work with the squaws!” they cried. And
the unanimous cry of a people is a law.

So Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted, carried water and wood with the women
and was patient. At least he had Tabea ever near him, which was like
living in the light of perpetual sunrise, and hope, like an incurable
disease, would not leave his breast.

The old woman Gunthai seeing how more than squaw-hearted her son had
grown, sat in her lodge weaving the baskets of willow. But the hope of
her heart was gone. How she had dreamed of the prowess of her little
man! How he would be mighty among his people; mighty with the arm that
is pitiless and strong—a slayer of enemies! But now—and the old woman’s
thought would check itself at that barren gulch in the hills through
which Death

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