Chapter V: Part 5

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 comes like a blast of bitter winds, for she could see no further.

So the suns came and went; but there was night for her in the brightest noon; the seasons passed, but for her heart there was cold, even in the kind midsummer.

One day in the time of the cubs (December) it happened that a child of the village was stricken with a mysterious sickness. The fierce heat of the time of the sunflowers blazed in its blood. Its eyes glowed with the brightness of a burning thing. Its lips muttered strange words that were not the words of men; and those who listened, trembled. And after some time, the whole burning body of the child became one mass of sores.

It was then that Washkahee, the big medicine-man, came to the lodge of the sick, sang his most potent songs and performed his most mysterious rites. But one day the child leaped to its feet and stared at the wall with eyes that were glazed with terror; then shrieked and fell back limply into its blankets. And when the winter had crept into its burning blood, they buried it upon a hill; and the wonder of the village was great.

But the end was not yet. Another and another crept into his blankets, stricken with the same sickness. Then another and another, until from many lodges came the moans of the afflicted. Those who dwelt in the lodges where the scourge entered, fled from their stricken kinsmen as from the visible body of Death. They who could laugh back at the challenge of the Sioux, quailed before the subtle creeping of this invisible foe. They who were as yet untouched by the unseen Hand, huddled terrified and speechless about their fires, in the light of which they stared at each other and found each face ghastly, as though it were the mirror of their dread.

In the stillness of their bated breaths they heard the lonesome monotony of the winter wind and the swish of the drifting snow, through the drone of which pierced like arrows of ice the occasional shrieks of the deserted dying or those who battled with grotesque terrors in the giddy whirl of feverish delirium.

With trembling fingers the women bound blankets closely across the doors of the lodges, in the hope of barring out the black spirit that wandered about the village. Vain hope! Through the walls of the strongest lodge crept the subtle spirit.

One night the sound of a wild voice crying through the storm beat into the lodges:

“Washkahee has cried to Wakunda [God] and lo! Washkahee has dreamed! Only a tuft of hair from the head of the white bison can save us! So spoke the dream to Washkahee; who will seek the white bison?”

It was as though the winter wind had found words! The people, huddled about their fires, knew the voice to be that of the big medicine-man, Washkahee, yet they did not move. The bravest had become weak as a child at the back of a squaw.

That night Nu Zhinga, lying in the lodge of his mother, heard the cry that came out of the storm; and when he slept he dreamed. He had walked far across the white prairie and his legs were aching with toil and his heart with despair. Then there broke upon his dream a mighty roar, and lo! he saw, charging down upon him, the white bison, tossing the crusted snow from its lowered horns.

“Tae Ska! Tae Ska!” (white bison) Nu Zhinga cried, and was awakened by his own voice.

So in the early light of the morning, Nu Zhinga took down the bow and arrows of his father, and wrapping himself in a buffalo robe, he strode out into the prairie with his tame wolf trotting at his heels. To him the dream was an omen. Might he not find the white bison, and thus drive death from among his people?

As he walked, the dream that had ever crept like a slow music through his blood, grew into the swaying fury of a battle-song. He timed his brisk steps with a joyous chant that echoed up the frosty valleys. He would find the white bison! Then his people would shout his name without derision. Gunthai would be glad; Tabea would be glad. Tabea! The word was music.

But meanwhile in the village thicker and thicker fell the invisible arrows of the Terror; and in the lodges where they fell dwelt the cry of agony and delirium and the muffled shriek of death. The old woman Gunthai and the cripple Tabea were not spared. The old and the young, the weak and the strong, the brave and the cowardly found no spell to ward away the stroke of the hidden Hand.

At length the fear of the tribe grew into a frenzy. It needed but an incident to lash it into madness.

One evening as the night crept westward across the hills, a brave leaped upon a pony and yelling sent the frightened animal flying up the valley. He was fleeing from the curse that hung over the village. Then the fear became a madness. The people rushed from their lodges and, fighting for the nearest pony, fled after the lone rider who had disappeared into the night.

Those who were too weak or too unfortunate to gain the back of a pony hung to the mane and were dragged in the snow until their grips weakened, when they ran with frantic shrieks after their disappearing tribesmen. The valley leading from the village became choked with the fleeing people. Many of the stricken leaped from their blankets and followed in the wild rout, until their knees weakened and their brains swam, when they lay shrieking in the snow until death came.

From the deserted village the cries of the helpless followed the unhearing refugees, who fled as the bison flee when the pitiless hunter follows. Fainter and fainter grew the yelling until it was swallowed up in the wind that lashed the spraying snow. When the morning looked into the valley, it found no smoke arising from the silent lodges. Only the dead were there; the dead and the winter.

On the evening of the second day after the flight of the tribe, a lone form topped the hill above the village and looked down into the still white valley, where lay the snow-choked lodges, quiet as a dream. The form was short, and bent as with the toil and hunger of a long, hard trail. At its heels a gaunt, grey wolf limped and whimpered with the ache of emptiness and the frost.

The short, bent form stood still upon the summit and shading its eyes with a hand that trembled, cast a long and searching gaze upon the lodges of his people. No smoke, no voice, no roar of fires, scented with the evening meal!

The form straightened itself and stood with head thrown back, making a thin and pitiful figure against the cruel white glare of the icy evening sky. It put a hand to its mouth, trumpet-wise, and raising the other above its head, waved about a tuft of long, grey hair.

“Tae Ska! Tae Ska!”

The voice was scarcely raised above a faint, dry wheeze that sighed dirge-like above the lifeless valley. The grey wolf with its four trembling legs drawn together in the snow, raised its frost-whitened muzzle to the fading sky and with a long, wild wail drowned the feebler voice of its master.

With limping stride, grown short and uncertain as the first steps of a papoose, the form went down the hillside and entered the village where the Winter dwelt.

“Tae Ska! Tae Ska! I have found the white bison!”

The wheezing voice passed among the lodges like a mournful wind that haunts the lonesome places of a bluff. Round and round the village went the man and the wolf, crying into the silent lodges; and the man’s face was wolflike with weariness and hunger; and the wolf’s eyes were grown half human with the pinch of emptiness and frost.

“Why do you not come forth, for I have suffered and I have the tuft of hair? No more shall the black spirits dwell among us! Come forth and look upon the face of him whose heart was the heart of a squaw!”

The crisp snow whined beneath his step and the wolf whined beside him. At last the form stopped before a lodge and with a trembling hand drew away the covering at the entrance.

It was the lodge of Gunthai. Two forms lay within, huddled in their blankets, and the snows had drifted about them. The man pulled the blankets from their faces. One was Gunthai and the other Tabea. Each was pinched with the pinch of death and winter, and the mystery of the last long, lonesome trail was about them both.

With a moan the form tottered and fell upon its face in the snow. And over all the valley there were but two sounds—the wail of the winter wind and the howl of a lone wolf.

Days passed, and the people who had fled from home with the pitiless scourge at their heels grew faint and weary with their wandering, and at last the homeache drove them back upon their trail. Footsore, famished, racked with the now dead terror, they toiled in silence homeward, where they could die with the sound of their own fires in their ears.

At last one morning a lone rider cautiously peered from under the brow of the hill upon the village. Nothing moved below. He urged his emaciated pony to the summit of the hill and stopping, gazed again, shading his eyes with a hand grown weak and thin. There seemed nothing in the valley to fear. Turning about upon his pony, he raised his arms in the light of dawn and cried back into the valley beyond to the waiting remnant of his people—a long, exultant cry, for he had looked upon his home.

Slowly the returning tribe, now dwindled to half its former numbers, toiled up the hill. Only the strong were left, and now the strong were weak. The straggling band of men, women and ponies reached the summit, a pitiful, ragged multitude, and gazed for a moment into the valley. Then a great shout arose above the silent spaces, scintillant under the dawn, as the halting, famished band swooped down the hill to be again at home.

Again the fires roared upward from the lodges, and the voices of a happy people drove away the silence of the winter. There was no longer any disease; the winter and the flight had purged the tribe.

Who had saved them from the black spirits? Could a tribe run faster than the things which are not good?

The sun was at the centre of its short path when the answer to this question of the tribe broke into the lodges where the people sat about their steaming kettles. For it was then that one ran through the village waving a tuft of long, grey hair and startling the ears of his people with a shout:

“See! The tuft of hair from the head of the white bison! It has saved us; for do you not remember the words of Washkahee?”

The people rushed from their lodges and thronged about the man who held the tuft of hair.

“Who has found the white bison?” they cried.

And the answer of him who held the tuft of hair struck the people silent with wonder:

“It was Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted; even he who could not dream a dream!”

XI

THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP

“There is nothing more terrible than the revolt of a sheep,” said De Marsay.—_Balzac._

“OH, shut up, Hank! Dang it! Hain’t you goin’ to let a feller sleep none? How can I be strong enough to keep from snivellin’ in the mornin’, if I don’t get my sleep?”

A small man with a thin, weak face, that might have suggested the vacuous countenance of a sheep had it not been for an expression of anguish and childish petulance, sat up among a bunch of furs in the corner of the cabin. He supported himself tremblingly upon an arm and stared with watery, haggard eyes upon Hank, who regarded him wistfully.

Hank was a big man and raw-boned. His big, quiet, hirsute face contrasted strongly with the face of the other. About his waist hung a belt containing a pair of six-shooters. Since the dark had fallen he had been pacing nervously back and forth across the cabin floor, his eyebrows knit, his face twitching, now and then offering a soft word of comfort to the little man who lay among the furs in the corner breathing fitfully.

“Cuss your hide, Hank! You know I hain’t slep’ none for a week, and you go on a-trampin’ and a-gabbin’ till you got me all on needles! Why can’t you leave me be? O damn it!”

The last words were more like a sob than a curse; and the white, thin face and quivering lips seemed too impotent for the words. Hank stopped pacing up and down, and with his fists resting upon his hips he stared at the little man.

“Now, Sheep,” he drawled kindly, “you hain’t got no call to talk that away. Hain’t I tryin’ to be your friend to the finish? I was just thinkin’ to cheer you up so’s you’d make a respect’ble, manly hangin’. I didn’t go to rile you.”

The little man thus addressed as “Sheep” drew himself up into a shivering bunch among the furs and groaned. The big man shook his head slowly and sat down, leaning against the wall of the cabin. “Pore Sheep,” he muttered.

For an hour he sat with his chin in his hands, staring with pitying eyes upon the huddled little man, who now and again shook with shuddering sobs. The candle flame flickered dismally in the night wind that came in through the chinks in the wall.

At length a series of stifled groans grew up among the furs, accompanied by a spasmodic jerking of the limbs of the little man. With a deep sigh he sat up. With an imbecile droop of the lower jaw, and eyes that burned feverishly with utter horror, he stared at his companion.

“O cuss you, Hank!” he broke out querulously, “why can’t you talk none? You goin’ to let me keep a-slippin’ down, down, down right into hell and never say a word to me? What you settin’ there like a bump on a log for?”

“W’y, Sheep,” said the big man kindly; “thought you was tryin’ to snooze.”

“Snooze! How can I snooze with a million little devils runnin’ up and down my backbone and adancin’ all over my head? You knowed I couldn’t sleep! You knowed I hain’t slep’ for a week! Snooze! O damn it! Hain’t I goin’ to get plenty of snoozin’ when they drag the cart out from ’n under me in the mornin’?”

Sheep’s voice broke; the fire went out of his eyes; his teeth chattered as though a sudden gust of winter had struck him.

“Now, Sheep,” said Hank, “don’t be so riled up like. I know it’s hard to go out that away; but it won’t last long, and it can’t hurt much after the first jerk. I reckon it don’t matter much how a feller goes out after he’s gone.”

“Oh, shut that up!”

The little man leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. After a considerable silence the big man produced a flask of liquor and spoke soothingly.

“Want a drink, Sheepy, old man?”

The little man leaped up with a glimmer of hope in his eyes.

“‘Course I do! What made you keep a-hidin’ it when you knowed all along that’s what I been wantin’?”

He grasped the flask and drank with great eager gulps until it was empty. Then he sat down against the cabin wall, staring fixedly at the candle flame. The empty, sheepish, cowardly face began to gain expression as the liquor mounted to his head. A light of fearlessness began to grow in his eyes. Lines appeared and deepened in his thin face, suggesting at once a certain degree of mastery and infinite malevolence. The wolf that lurks somewhere in the fastness of every man’s soul had come forth and routed the sheep.

“What in thunder you doin’ with all that heavy artillery hangin’ to you, Hank? Take ’em off! I don’t need no guards. Who said I was thinkin’ of breakin’ camp? I hain’t tryin’ to run, am I? Damn me, I’m glad I done it and I’m a-goin’ to walk right straight into hell a-grinnin’! Sheep, am I?”

The little man laughed a strange laugh that had the snarl of a mad wolf in it; a moment since he had been bleating like a scared lamb.

“You set there and listen. Sheep, sheep, sheep! That’s what they all been a-callin’ me, but when I get done tellin’ you about it, I guess you won’t call me no sheep. Hain’t a danged one of you big fellers as would ’ve done it up better ’n me!

“You’ve knowed me quite a spell, Hank; and you never knowed no bad of me till now, did you? And I hain’t had any easy trail most of the time neither. When I was jest a little feller goin’ to country school back East, the other fellers always picked onto me ’cause I was so easy to pick onto. Never had a fight in my life. Always scared to death of fightin’; sucked it in with my mother’s milk, I guess. Used to get off alone and bawl ’cause I couldn’t make myself fight.

“Never was a real boy; always a kind of a stray sheep, bleatin’ around in lonesome places. Guess I must look like a sheep; anyway the boys called me that; and it stuck. Pretty hard bein’ a sheep amongst wolves, Hank!

“I was always shy and easy scared, Hank. I never owned it to a livin’ man before; but a man is like to say things just before he goes out for good that he wouldn’t say before.

“You knowed ol’ man Leclerc, didn’t you? _Her_ dad, you know. Used to live down-river half a day’s hard walkin’. I reckon that ol’ man was about the best friend I ever had, ’ceptin’ you, Hank. Kind of seemed to understand me like. Wonder if he’s hearin’ me now! Don’t give a damn if he is! He knowed it wasn’t in me to be bad, and he knows I done right. I tell you, Hank, I ain’t scared, nor ’shamed nor nothin’. Damn me, I can see Donahan a-dyin’ yet, and it does me good, Hank! Does me good!”

The little man’s eyes blazed, and his face seemed to take fire from them. But the light died as quickly as it was kindled, like a fire in too little fuel whipped by a wind too strong. A soft light of reminiscence lingered where the fiercer glow had died.

“Used to go down there pretty often when I could; part to see the ol’ man, and most to see his girl. Nice little thing, Hank; awful nice little thing! Don’t you think so? Good as an angel, too, but weak like a woman can be. I hain’t nothin’ again’ her, Hank—so help me God, I hain’t! I wasn’t the man for her. She’d ought to ’ve had a big, strong, quiet feller what wasn’t afraid of the devil. Some feller like you, Hank—or Donahan.

“Oh, let the hottest fires in hell eat Donahan!”

The little man shook with a passion that seemed grotesque, because it was too big for him.

“And I kep’ goin’ down there, and goin’ down there, till I begun to be happy, Hank. Begun to thinkin’ part of this world was made for me. Begun to thinkin’ about havin’ a woman and babies; and somehow I got to feelin’ bigger and stronger, and not sneakin’ any more.

“‘Peared like the girl liked me. Never had nothin’ to do with no woman ’cept my mother, you know. Oh, Hank, why can’t a feller be a man when he wants to so bad? I dunno. I tried.

“Well, one time I went down there and ol’ man Leclerc was pretty sick. Said he was a-goin’ to die sure thing. Wheezin’ already and pickin’ at the blankets. Calls me up to him, and after he got done tellin’ me what he was goin’ to do d’rectly, he says: ‘Sheep, my boy, I’ve brought her up as near like a French lady as I knowed how. She hain’t able to hustle for herself, and—well, ain’t she a pretty girl? Why the devil don’t you ask me for her?’

“And I asked, and the ol’ man said ‘yes,’ and that was his last word, ’cept ‘God be with both of you.’ Took all his breath to say that, seemed like.

“And so I saw the ol’ man under ground and come up here with the girl. Got the missionary, Father Donahan, to do the tyin’. (Oh, damn him!) And then I begun to be happy. Seemed like God heard the ol’ man for a spell, tho’ his voice was weak when he said it. Now I guess mebbe he didn’t hear. Does he always hear, Hank?”

“Dunno,” muttered the big man, who sat with his face in his hands; “seems like He ain’t out here ’t all, sometimes.”

“Oh, shut up, will you?” peevishly snapped the little man. “Le’ me talk! _You_ got plenty of time for talkin’! Le’ _me_ talk, will you?”

The big man sighed, and the other continued rapidly in a sort of a dazed sing-song voice with little inflection in it, like a man in a trance.

“Big change come over me then; better man all ’round. Factor saw it and sent me on some long trips; seemed to trust me more’n before. But I always done the longest trips in the shortest poss’ble time. Doted on that girl wife, and I guess I was about the happiest feller that ever cussed a pack mule. Used to like to set around the cabin when I could and watch her skip about the place makin’ things comfort’ble like a woman can when she’s a mind.

“And by and by I was happier’n ever. That was when the little boy come. Cute little feller, that boy was. Don’t you mind? Had blue eyes, and that tickled me half to death, ’cause black eyes is the rule in my fambly and hers, and it seemed like God was tryin’ to be kind to me.

“When Father Donahan christened the young’n, I drawed his attention to them blue eyes and Donahan (no, I ain’t goin’ to call him Father no more, ’cause if he was a priest, he was a priest of the devil!) What was I sayin’?”

At the sound of Donahan’s name upon his own lips, the little man’s face writhed into malevolent contortions.

“What was I sayin’?” he repeated dazedly.

“Blue eyes,” suggested Hank.

“Quit breakin’ in onto me that away!” snapped the little man peevishly. “And when I showed him the blue eyes, Donahan grinned and said, ‘Yes, God had been very kind.’ And it did look like it, didn’t it?

“Donahan named the boy; asked me if I’d let him. Called him James for a front name and Donahan for a middle one. Well, things went along smooth until one day the little feller died. Made me feel pretty bad—like to tore my heart out. But Donahan he come and cried too, and that helped. Always helps to have somebody feel bad with you; don’t you think so?

“After that things dragged on like they have a way of doin’. I kep’ on tryin’ to be like a man. But the girl, she seemed to be takin’ it pretty hard. Got stranger and stranger toward me, like as if she didn’t care for me no more. Donahan used to come in often and console her, and she seemed to brighten up at them times—’cause she was always strong on the religion business. That’s what made her so good, I guess.

“But by and by there was goin’ to be another youngster, and I kind of got into the way of whistlin’ again somehow. Got to thinkin’ how it’d be a boy with blue eyes like the one that died. About that time the Factor sent me off on a long trip. Hated to go, but it couldn’t be helped. You’d ought to seen me travel, Hank! Wantin’ to get back, you know; ’feared all the time mebbe she was sick and a-wantin’ me. Made a quick trip—quicker’n most big men could, Hank. And when I come in sight of home, I was that glad that I couldn’t feel my feet and legs achin’.

“It was night when I got back, and I thought I’d just take a peep in at the winder before I went in; light was shinin’ out so home-like. You know how a boy looks a long time at a big, red apple before he eats it; gettin’ his eyes full of it before he fills his belly? That was like me.

“I crep’ up and looked in; winder was raised a little. I could see Donahan inside and he was talkin’ soft and low.

“‘Hope it’ll have blue eyes,’ he was sayin’; ‘blue eyes like mine.’ And that made me love Donahan more, ’cause it was just what I was a-wishin’ myself. Talked along quite a spell, and me watchin’ outside, all the time pityin’ Donahan ’cause he couldn’t never have no little woman like that and a youngster with blue eyes.

“And the talkin’ growed into a mumble and hum like as if I was a-dreamin’ it all in a happy dream; until all to oncet some of the words leaped out of the hum, and stood out clear like so many candle flames a-burnin’ into my head, and a-scorchin’ my backbone, and a-settin’ the whole world afire with bloody light.

“I held onto the winder sill to keep from fallin’ down, and this is what I heard: ‘Sometimes I feel sorry for the pore sheep; and I’ve spent many nights prayin’ to God about it and askin’ him to forgive me. Then when I see you again, it all comes back and the prayers are no more than so many curses. What’d you ever marry that sheep for? Curse the day that I was made a priest!’

“And then the words seemed to get muffled, only now and then I could hear some of ’em plain, and every one of ’em was like a big man’s fist drivin’ into my face and a-beatin’ my eyes full of blood.”

The little man covered his face with his hands and sobbed.

“O, I ain’t a-blamin’ her, Hank,” he blubbered. “Never was a better woman. I ain’t blamin’ her.”

He rocked himself back and forth for some time. His sobbing ceased. Suddenly he raised his face and the flames of hell glittered in his tear-washed eyes.

“I’m a white-livered coward, so I didn’t go in and kill him. He was a big man, and I ain’t no fighter. I run; don’t know why. Didn’t feel sore nor achy in my legs no more. I run and run and run till my breath give out, then I fell down and the stars swum ’round and went out. Then after awhile I was up and walkin’, and nothin’ would stand still. Things danced round and round me and the air was full of little spiteful, spittin’ lights and sounds like devils a-laughin’. And by and by I come to ol’ man Leclerc’s place. Don’t know why I went there. Nothin’ there but the _place_.

“I went in and laid down on the floor all broke up. And when I went to sleep, I dreamed of killin’ Donahan. I woke up and it was mornin’.

“First thing I heard was the rattle of some Red River carts goin’ north. I guess it was the devil that whispered somethin’ in my ear then. I run out and told a big lie to the bull-whackers. ‘Man a-dyin’ in here! Go as fast as you can to the next post and tell Father Donahan to come down to see the pore devil through with it!’

“Guess I looked like I’d been settin’ up for a week, so the bull-whackers believed it and went on north a-whackin’ their bulls into a swingin’ trot.

“Well, Donahan come all right.”

Here the little man lapsed into a stubborn silence. He leaned against the wall and for several hours there was no sound in the cabin but that of heavy breathing.

At length Hank got up and walked over to the little window. A dull grey blur had grown up in the East. It would soon be time. Hank sighed.

Suddenly the little man was aroused from his lethargy as though he had heard a shout. He began talking rapidly.

“I stood behind the door of the cabin, and when he come in I downed him with a club. Then I tied his hands and his feet and fastened him to the floor. I sat beside him and spit in his face till he come to a-groanin’. And it was a couple days before he could talk sense or knowed who I was.

“And he begged and he cussed, but I didn’t say nothin’. He got hungry; so I chawed at some pemmican I had left from the trip so’s he’d get hungrier. He got thirsty; so I drank more’n I wanted so’s he’d get thirstier.

“Said he’d get me into heaven for just one sup of water; so I went out with my cup; I filled it with dust; I put it to his lips.

“Said he’d send me to hell if I didn’t give him just one drop. So I give him more dust. And by and by he got luny like, and cussed like a bull-whacker and whined like a sick woman by turns.

“God, Hank! How that man hung on!

“And by and by he seemed to get a little sense for a spell, and he yelled out: ‘_He had blue eyes, didn’t he? Look at mine!_’ And I cuffed him in the mouth till his teeth was bloody, ’cause his eyes was blue.”

The little man hesitated. Suddenly an expression of supreme terror came over his face. The wolf was dead—the frightened sheep looked out of his eyes. There was a sound of footsteps. The shabby light of early dawn had already cheapened the glow of the guttered candle.

The door opened—a priest entered.

The little man gave a yell of terror and shrank into his corner.

“_Take it away, Hank!_” he screamed. “_Take it away!_”

Hank spoke a few words into the ear of the priest, who muttered a prayer and went out. For some time the little man stared appealingly into the eyes of the bigger man. When he spoke his voice was husky and low: “Won’t you look after the woman a little, Hank? If it’s got blue eyes——”

There was now a sound of other footsteps approaching. The little man gasped like one who has suddenly been thrust into cold water.

“Oh, Hank!” he moaned; “hold me tight. Don’t let ’em take me! They’ll stand me in the cart under a tree and they’ll put the rope around my neck and they’ll drag the cart away! _Oh!_”

The footsteps were now very near the door. The little man on a sudden became very quiet. He bit nervously at his finger-tips. His body stiffened. His face seemed transparent.

When the sound of a hand at the latch was heard, his jaw dropped nervelessly. He stared upon the soon-to-be-opened door with wide, dilated eyes, in which all that had been human was burned to dust.

XII

THE MARK OF SHAME

IN the old times there were two brothers, Seha and Ishneda; and because of hate for him, they did many acts of unkindness to a man whose name was Shonga Saba.

And one night a man was killed and the man was Ishneda. So with the coming of the light, a whisper ran about the village, saying “Shonga Saba has killed.” And the whisper was true; for Shonga Saba sat in his lodge all day, speaking no word. And when any came to speak, he lifted his lip in a bad way and snarled. A sick wolf does so.

It happened that morning that some hunters went forth, for it was the time for the hunting of bison and the tribe was resting on the trail. And when the hunters returned, their eyes were like the eyes of a scared deer. They told a story that frightened the people. They had shot at three elk and their aim was true; but the arrows came out on the other side—bloodless. And the elk changed into wolves, running away very swiftly.

So they who were wise saw famine coming. They recalled old times; how the game had often failed after a murder. For the spirit of the dead man makes it so. And the wise old men told these things, and the old women said it had been so; they remembered.

So there was a space of little speaking, for Fear sat upon tongues.

When the sun was going down, the people gathered about the big chief’s tepee where the fathers were sitting with great thoughts. They did not smoke nor talk. They shivered as the long shadows crept out of the hills—yet it was the brown hot time.

And when it was dusk a chief made words which were whispers: “Let a _wachoobay_ [holy man] take strong weapons and travel the back trail till the middle of the night, that he may meet the spirit that comes and kill it; for Famine walks with the spirit that comes, and there shall be the wailing of children and many flat bellies.”

And the _wachoobay_ went forth with strong weapons. He took the back trail; he looked straight ahead. And the people stared after him until the dark came between, as he walked to meet the two comers.

Then the chief’s voice went over the people in the darkness, for the fires were not lit; an enemy was coming, and there is safety in darkness: “Let him who killed come among us.” So one went and brought the man.

He stood among the people, felt but not seen; and with him came a sobbing that grew into words: “I, Shonga Saba, am here; and I have killed. Have my people seen a bison bull stung with a fly until he tore the earth with his horns? It was so. After a long time of heat the storm comes out of the night; it does angry deeds, and in the morning it is past. It was so. My breast aches. I struck my enemy, but myself I struck also. Something has died within me. So I go to do as the others have done. I will take the punishment.”

And though the people did not hear nor see him go, they knew that he was gone. That night only the children slept.

When Shonga Saba reached his tepee, he did that which was the custom. He cut his hair, he took off his garments, he smeared his forehead with mud. Of tears and dust he made the mud. Upon his forehead he put the mark of his shame.

From the peak of his tepee, where the smoke comes out, he tore the rawhide flap. It was blackened with the smoke of many fires. About his shoulders he bound it; and it was the garment of his shame.

And then he went forth from the camp. He pitched a lonesome tepee without the circle of his people; for thus he should live four summers and four winters. It was the custom.

And in the first light his woman came to him with water and cooked meat. Also, she brought moaning. Shonga Saba spoke no word nor looked up. The mud of tears and dust was upon his forehead, and the blackened garment of shame was upon his shoulders. There was a lump in his throat; but the water did not wash it away. There was an emptiness in him; but the meat did not fill it. And when he cut the meat, which was well cooked, the man groaned, for blood ran forth and made the food look like a wound.

Again the tribe took up the trail; they wanted to find the bison, for there was little meat. And the man followed at the distance of an arrow’s flight behind his moving people, for such was the custom. But no thunder of bison came from the brown valleys where the trail went; neither was there any dust cloud of pawing hoofs. And the old women remembered old-time famines, and their hands trembled as they pitched the tepees in the dusk that ended the day’s toil.

And in the mornings the old men gazed into the shining distance, looking from under their hands with eyes that glared as in battle. And all day, sweating and toiling on the trail, the people ate the distance with hungry eyes.

Round bellies flattened; for the evil days had come.

And the man who had killed saw all this. He too walked with hunger and something bigger than the food-wish. Also lonesomeness was ever by his side. In the nights he felt the mark upon his forehead like the sting of an angry knife; and the smoke-flap was as a fire upon his shoulders.

And one night he said: “I have brought these days of toiling without food upon my people. It was for this that my mother groaned at my coming. I should have been the food of wolves on that day when my eyes were not yet open. I will go away, for evil walks with me, and my feet scatter trouble in the trail. My woman is as one who has no man, and my children are as a stranger’s children. I will walk far and seek peace among other peoples, among strange hills and valleys.”

And he went in the night.

He was far into the lonesome places—and it was morning. He was weak with the night walking, for famine had made him thin. So he lifted his face and his hands to the sun. His palms he turned to the young light and he spoke earnest words to the Spirit: “Wakunda, trouble have I met, and trouble have my people met through me. Help me to walk in the good trail!”

And as he said the words, a cloud passed across the sun; it was like a smutch of mud across a shining forehead. The man who had killed, groaned. He hid his face in the grass that he might not see the mark of his shame. But as the day grew older the hunger pinched more, and the man got up, set his face away from the sun, and went on further into the lonesome places. And in the evening he killed a rabbit with his bow and arrows. And as the rabbit leaped up at the sting of the arrow, it made a pitiful sound like that of a man struck deep with a knife in his sleep.

And the man fled, for a strange sickness had gripped him. The mark upon his forehead burned, and the smoke-flap was as a heavy burden upon his shoulders.

In the last light he found wild turnips and ate. They could not cry out; they could not bleed. And then sleep came, but not rest. While his body slept, his spirit killed Ishneda over and over again. And he saw the first light with haggard eyes.

And when he had eaten again of the wild turnips he said: “I will go to the village of the Poncas; they will take me in, for I will speak soft words.” That day he travelled, and the next and the next. But two others had travelled faster than he—Famine and the Story of his bad deed; for none travel so fast as these. And these two had travelled across the prairie together.

And after much walking, Shonga Saba came to the top of a hill and turned hungry eyes upon the Ponca village in the valley. It was the time when the old day throws big shadows. He stood thin, bent against the sky. The smoke-flap at his shoulders lifted in the wind that the eyes in the valley might see.

And a dead hush crept over the village; the sound of children died; the people disappeared. Full of wonder and fear, the lean, lonesome one walked with halting step down the dry hillside. He entered the village, and it was as a place where all are dead.

He came to the centre of the village. He lifted his palms and made a piteous cry, which was like a dry wind moving in a wilderness. And then the head of an old man was thrust forth from a tent-flap, and from it came a husky voice: “Begone, O Bringer of Famine!”

And the man went forth. His head was bent, his shoulders stooped as with a weight. He walked far and met the Night. He lay down in its shadow. His forehead ached, and the smoke-flap was as a burning brand. And in the darkness he made a cry: “Wakunda, very far have I walked seeking peace; but it has fled before me. Help me to find the good trail!”

He was very tired, and on a sudden it was day again, and the dew was upon him. He found wild turnips and ate. He drank at a little creek that ran very thin among dying reeds. Then he walked, he knew not where. But now and then he whispered bitter words into the lonesome air: “In the land of the spirits is peace; there I would walk, but I cannot find the trail.”

The day was very hot. The prairie wavered in the heat; the bugs droned; the light wind sighed in the dry grasses like a thirsty thing. The far hills seemed floating in a lake of thin oil. They looked lean and hungry, yellow as with a fever; and upon their sides the dry earth was broken like old sores.

Into the heat-drone the man sent his sighing. His feet were heavy; he wished to die, he wished to die.

And when the day was past the highest place, a rumbling grew below the rim of the earth, like the galloping of many bison—a sound of anger. And a cloud arose, black and flashing with fires across its front. The sky was as an eye of fever and the cloud closed slowly over it like a big eyelid.

Then a hush fell. There was no moving of air, no droning of bugs. The prairie held its breath; and the cloud came on. It moved in silence. It threw long, ragged arms ahead of it, long, eager arms. And out of it leaped flames, like the spurt and sputter of a wind-blown camp fire in the night.

And in the hush the man heard strange sounds on a sudden. There was a crying and a shouting of battle cries. He reached the bald top of a hill and saw below him a fighting of many warriors. Bitterly they fought, as wolves fight in hunger. There was the lifting and falling of war clubs, the shrieking of arrows. Sounds of horror cut the big stillness like many knives.

And the man’s heart leaped with joy—for here was death; this was the beginning of the trail that led to peace.

With a cry he rushed from the summit. He ran with very young legs to meet Death, for he wished to die.

But on a sudden the warring bands ceased crying. The war clubs were not lifted, the arrows flew no more. On rushed the thin, bent runner from the hilltop, and the smoke-flap flaunted itself behind him. As in a dream the warriors stared upon the wild runner. Then a hoarse shout went up: “The Famine Bringer! The Famine Bringer!” Stricken with a common fear, they fled. And the storm broke upon the valley. It poured down water and fire upon one who lay there upon his face. It roared, it shrieked, it flamed about him; but he moved not.

His breast ached with the ache of the lonesome, for even Death had fled him. And when the storm had passed, the stillness came back like a new pain. The drenched man arose and saw the blood-red sun slip down a ridge of steaming hills.