Chapter VI: Part 6

And near him lay one who had been killed with an arrow. The feathers stood forth from his breast. His face had the look of much pain; his hands gripped at the wet grass. And the lonesome one looked long upon the dead man, thinking deep thoughts. “Even the dead have pain,” he said, “and they seek to hold to the good earth. See how he clutches it! I shall live and follow my trail, for on all trails there is pain; and Wakunda wishes me to live.”

So he dressed himself in the garments of the dead warrior who needed them no more. He threw away the smoke-flap, and in a gully that roared with rapid waters, he washed the smutch from his forehead—the mud of dust and tears. And he said: “Now will I walk straight again, for the marks of my shame are gone. I will seek the Otoes, and they will take me in.”

Is it not the way of a man to seek better things?

And it happened that in the village of the Otoes was much joy and much feasting. For the bison had come back; the famine was ended.

And it was dark. The lonesome one sighted the feast fires from far off and caught the far-blown scent of boiling kettles. They had the home-smell. His heart was glad as he entered the village and went in among the feast fires. And they about the fires said: “Who walks in from the night?” And Shonga Saba said: “A lonesome man, one with many stories to tell.”

They sat him down, for stories are good with feasting. And he told a story while the meat went round and the kettles simmered and the embers crackled and went blue. And as he told, the people gathered close about to hear. They leaned forward, they breathed heavily, they stared. For his story was of a brave one who suffered much; it sounded true; there was an ache in his words. Also it had in it the muttering of war drums, the wails of women in the night, the snarl of bow thongs, the beat of hoofs.

But as the teller raised his face, glowing with the noble deeds of which he told, he saw the circled mass of staring faces, moulded with the terrors of the tale and lit blue with falling embers.

What did they see that they stared so? _The mark!_

The story-teller leaped to his feet. As a wounded man he cried out: “It is not washed away!” He threw his arms across his forehead and fled through the parting throng into the night.

And when he had run far from something that followed yet made no sound, he cast himself down on the prairie and cried to the Spirit: “Wakunda, with water I washed it away, but it is not gone! Am I a wolf to howl always in the wilderness? I have the ache for home. I wish to hear laughter and be clean. Help me to find the trail!”

All night his words felt about in the dark for Wakunda.

The next day his wanderings began anew. And after many sunlights the first frost gripped the prairie, and the snows came. More and more the lonesome one thought of the fires of his people. Through the shivering nights the tang of the home-smoke filled his nostrils; and day by day the homeache grew.

So his weary feet followed his longing, and the trail led home. But there was no greeting. In an empty lodge without the village he made a fire that held the winter off but left him shivering. And once again his woman came with sobbing and a downcast face, bringing water and meat. He ate and drank, yet thirst and hunger stayed. In the nights he looked wistfully upon the fires of his people burning little days out of the darkness. He wished to be beside them and hear the laughter, for the famine had passed, and there was joy.

And often by day, Seha, the brother of the man who was killed, came with taunting and words that wounded as a whip-thong. But the lonesome one made no answer, for having suffered much, he was wise. And this was against the law of the fathers; so it happened one day that Seha was bound to a post in the centre of the village, and the whippers were there with elkhorn whips to punish Seha.

Then was a strange deed done, which even yet the old men tell of to the youths. From his lodge ran the lonesome one and stood before the whippers. The long silence he broke with words: “Spare Seha and bind me to the post, for mine was the bad deed. I have suffered much and now I can see.”

And the old fathers, who were wise, said: “Let it be as the man says.” And it was done. The lonesome one was bound to the post and took the lashes on his back. He made no cry, nor was there any wincing of his face. And it happened that in his pain he sought out the face of Seha in the throng. It was no longer hard with hate.

And then, suddenly, as the whips hissed about him, a light went across the face of the lonesome one—a strange, bright light. And seeing this, the arms of the whippers faltered, for it was very strange.

Then in the silence that fell, the man raised a soft voice: “At last the mark has left me! Bring my children to look upon me, and let my woman sing! I have found peace; for the mark of tears and dust is gone—I know not how.”

XIII

THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS

HE could never be a strong _waschusha_ (brave). When he was born he was no bigger than a baby coyote littered in a terrible winter after a summer of famine! That was what the braves said as they sat in a circle about the fires; and often one would catch him, spanning his little brown legs with a contemptuous forefinger and thumb, while the others made much loud mirth over this bronze mite who could never be a brave.

Then the object of their mirth would pull away from his tormentors, displaying his teeth with a whimper that was half a growl, and would slink away into the shades where the firelight did not reach. Whereupon the braves would call after him in their good-natured cruelty: “Mixa Zhinga! Mixa Zhinga!” (Little Wolf).

So, in accordance with certain infallible psychic laws, Little Wolf became what he was considered, and fulfilled his wild name to the letter.

One day in one of his most vulpine moods, while trotting among the hills on all fours, stopping now and then to sit upon his haunches and give forth a series of howls in imitation of his namesakes, he had discovered a deserted wolf’s hole in the hillside, of which he immediately made himself the growling possessor.

To make this play metempsychosis the more real, he had spirited from the tepee of his father a complete wolf’s hide, clad in which he spent the greater part of the time prowling about among the hills with an intense wolfish hate for all humankind gnawing at his heart.

One summer evening Little Wolf, sitting upon the top of the hill, gazed down upon the circle of tepees which was the village of his people. As he looked, the silent vow he had taken, never to go back to his tribe again, but to be a wolf with the wolves, slowly became shapeless, then indistinct, then it vanished altogether. For the smoke, rising slowly from the various fires, told a bewitching tale of supper to his eyes; and the light wind brought to his keen nostrils the scent of boiling kettles, which acted as a sort of footnote to the tale of the smoke, finally clinching the argument of the text!

So the little wolf fell from his high resolve as the wolf skin fell from his back, and he forthwith trotted down the hillside, at every step degenerating, as he thought, into just a common _zhinga zhinga_ (baby).

Having cautiously approached a fire, Little Wolf sat upon the ground with his knees huddled up to his chin, and watched the deft hands of the women tending the baking of the squaw corn cakes and the yellow _watuh_ (pumpkin) in the embers.

The old women, their backs bent with their loads, carried bundles of faggots from a thicket near by and placed them upon the fires, that flared up with a sound like the wind’s, making a small circular day amid the gathering shadows. The air was pleasant with the scent of boiling kettles, some filled with the meat of the _tae_ or the _tachuga_ (bison and antelope); some ebullient with the savoury _zhew munka_, the tea of the prairie. And as Little Wolf sat and looked upon the suggestive scene, a great wave of sympathetic kindness passed through his small body.

And especially did the wolfishness of his little heart melt into an indefinite feeling of love for humanity as his eyes followed the form of the maiden Hinnagi as she bustled with her mother about the kettles. Already in his childish mind he was wielding the stone axe with mighty force in some mysterious battle among the hills; and it was all for her. His eyes grew big with the dream he was dreaming. He stared into the fire as he thought the thoughts of ambitious youth.

The flame fell and crept into the embers. Then reality came back as the shadows came. Something of the wonted wolfishness tugged at his heart as he thought of what the braves had said. He could never be a strong brave! With an awful bitterness this thought grew upon him, and even a full stomach could not quite ease the pang.

After the evening meal the war drums were brought into the open space about which the tepees were built. For upon the morrow the entire band of the tribe’s warriors would go out against their enemies, the Sioux, and to-night they would dance the war dance that their courage might not fail.

The drums were placed in a small circle; before each an old man, who had seen many battles ere the eagle glance faded from his eye, sat cross-legged, holding a drumstick in either hand. About these the braves gathered in a larger circle. The yellow and red light of the boisterous camp fires made more terrible their faces fierce with the war paint.

In another circle at some distance from that of the braves, awaited the women, dressed in their brightest garments of dyed buckskin. At a signal from the head chief of the tribe, the snarling thunder of the war drums began. The two motionless circles suddenly became two rings of gyrating colour. The beaded moccasins twinkled like a chain of satellites swinging about the faggot fire for a sun. The shout of the braves arose above the cadence of the drum beats, and the monotonous song of the women grew like a night wind in a lonesome valley.

Tum-tum-um-um, tum-tum-um-um, went the drums, ever faster, ever louder, inciting the dancers to delirious fury. The neglected fires dwindled into embers. The shout of the braves and the droning of the women ceased. Darkness fell upon the circles. The dancers moved swiftly through the dusk like ghosts in a midnight orgy. There was no sound save the snarling beat of the drums and the shuffle of wild feet.

Then the moon, big-eyed with wonder, arose above the hills, pouring a weird light upon the dance. Little Wolf, who had been huddling closely against a tepee with an unintelligible fear, now felt the delirium of the dance for the first time. He leaped to his feet with a shout that echoed strange and hoarse from the hills! The whole village, as if awakened from the spell, caught up the cry and sent it trembling up the gulches!

With the hot blood pounding at his temples, Little Wolf swung into the frenzy of the dance. He leaped like the antelope when it catches the scent of the hunter. He was no longer the _zhinga zhinga_ who could never be a brave. The fanaticism of the savage was upon him. With his head thrown back until it caught the full glare of the moon, he danced. It was not a child’s face that the pale light struck; it was the face of a fiend! The unfettered wind of the prairie was in his lungs! The swiftness of the elk was in his feet! He danced until the hills danced about him in a dance of their own. He danced until the moon reeled like a sick man! He danced until his chest felt crushed as with the hug of a grizzly! He danced until the stars and the moon went out, and there was nothing but darkness and a deep, deep oppressive something, like and unlike slumber, upon him! The sun was far up in the heavens when he awoke lying upon the ground where he had fallen with fatigue. He rubbed his eyes and stared about him; the circles of the dance had vanished; the war drums were still. The warriors had ridden out of the village into the mysterious region beyond the hills where great deeds awaited to be done. Only the women and the children and the old men remained in the village.

Then there came upon Little Wolf that overpowering thought of bitterness. He was only a _zhinga zhinga_; he could never be a brave. No, but he would be a wolf! He would live in howling loneliness among the hills!

Yet that day as he prowled about, clad in his wolf skin, he was conscious of not being half so good a wolf as he had been the day before. He did not find it quite within his power to hate his people with whom he had felt the delirium of the war dance. The snarling beat of the war drums had awakened in him a vital interest in the great prairie tragedy of food-getting and war-making.

Several days passed, and the warriors had not returned. Little Wolf was sitting beside the deserted hole which was his den, thinking great thoughts of the future as he basked in the horizontal glare of the evening sun. As he looked with half-shut eyes across the hills, his dreaming was suddenly arrested by the sight of what seemed a number of bunches of grass moving along the brow of the hill on the other side of the valley in which the village lay. As he looked and wondered at this fantastic dance of the grasses, there was a wild shout from the opposite hill, and a small band of Otoes, their heads covered with grass that they might the more easily creep upon their foes, rushed down the hillside toward the defenceless village.

Terrified by the suddenness of the attack, Little Wolf scampered into his hole like any other little wolf, and crouched in the darkness shivering with fear. Some time passed, during which he could hear the wail of the women and the victorious cries of the Otoes; then the noises ceased. With a great pang of remorse, the consciousness of his cowardice came upon Little Wolf. He had crawled into a hole like a badger!

Then he thought of Hinnagi.

He crawled out of the hole and ran down the hill into the village with his wolf skin still upon him. There amid the tepees he saw the bodies of some of the old men who had attempted resistance, but the time of their strength was passed.

“Hinnagi! Hinnagi!” called Little Wolf. He listened, and heard only the wail of the women from the lodges.

It was the custom of the Otoes to carry off the fairest daughters of the enemy as the spoil of war. Little Wolf thought of this with a great pang at his heart. A great indefinite resolve of heroism came upon him. He ran out of the village and down the valley, keeping the trail of the enemy. When he had gone some distance, he came upon some ponies that the Otoes had abandoned for the fresher ones from the herds of the Omahas.

Catching one of these, weary with a long trail, he mounted it and turned its head down the trail of the Otoes, urging its weary limbs into a gallop by plying his heels upon its ribs.

The shades of the valley crept slowly up the hills and the golden glow faded from the summits. Little Wolf still urged the stumbling pony through the darkness. As he rode, the frenzy that he had felt in the war dance rushed through him. His temples beat and his heart throbbed to the time of the snarling drums. To him the night breeze seemed heavy with noble deeds awaiting to be given life and voices of thunder for the ears of men.

He felt that in some indefinite way he would now become a strong _waschusha_! The Otoes had stolen the ponies and the women; ah, that included Hinnagi! He would save them; little did he know how, yet he felt that he would save them. Then the braves would not laugh at him any more, but would let him ride to battle with them. And maybe sometime Hinnagi would be his squaw!

Suddenly rounding the base of a hill, the pony stopped short and pricked up its ears, sniffing the wind that came up the gulch. Little Wolf, aroused from his musing, soon understood the abruptness of the pony. He smelled smoke! Slipping to the ground he crawled on his hands and knees up the gulch in the direction from which the scent of the smoke came.

Soon he reached the end of the gulch and, looking into a small valley, he saw through the gloom a number of rudely constructed tepees. Breathlessly he listened. For awhile there was no sound except the crackling of the low fires and the flap of the blankets about the poles. Then as he listened, there came to his ears a low, mournful wail as of a night wind in the scrub oaks of a bluff.

Having satisfied himself that the Otoes slept soundly, Little Wolf crawled in the direction of the wail and disappeared in the gloom.

Some moments afterward, an Otoe brave suddenly awoke from his heavy slumber. In the weird glow of the falling fire he beheld at the entrance of his tepee a grey wolf standing motionless.

The brave raised himself upon his elbow, uttering a grunt of terror as of one who feels a nightmare and would cry out were not his tongue frozen in his mouth.

The wolf with a startled movement whispered hoarsely in the Omaha tongue: “The Omahas! They are coming! Fly! Fly!”

The Otoe brave leaped to his feet, every limb growing cold with fright. He rubbed his eyes and stared at the darkness. The wolf had vanished.

Now an Indian believes weird things, and the warning of a talking wolf was not a thing to be despised even though it were only dreamed. So the Otoe brave gave a shout that rang up the gulch and made the grazing ponies snort and tug at their lariats.

Soon the entire band was rushing about the camp.

“The Omahas! They are coming!” cried the startled brave. “Fly! Fly! For lo, a grey wolf came to my tepee and spoke to me in a dream!”

“Fly! Fly!” echoed the whole band, delirious with fear. “Kill the squaws!” they shouted; for in their flight they could not be burdened with their spoils, and they would not leave them to their enemies.

There was the sound of the shrieks of women; then the galloping of hoofs; then silence.

Two days afterward the Omahas, having returned to their stricken village, made the trail of the fleeing Otoes thunderous with pursuing hoofs. Suddenly topping the hill that overlooked the deserted camp of their enemies, they beheld the bodies of the slain women strewn amid the tepees. Over one of these a grey wolf stood.

There was a shout from the foremost of the Omaha warriors, and a dozen arrows sang in the air and quivered in the body of the wolf. It rolled upon its side with a cry half human!

A group of braves, riding up to the corpse of the woman, pulled the blanket from its face.

It was Hinnagi!

With a savage kick one turned the still quivering body of the wolf upon its back. The grey hide fell from an emaciated brown face, twitching with the agony of death.

It was Little Wolf!

XIV

DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN

RAIN WALKER lay upon the brown grass without the circle of the village; and it was the time when the maize is gathered—the brown, drear time. He lay with ear pressed to the earth.

“What are you doing?” asked one who walked there.

“I?” said Rain Walker; and his eyes and face were not good to see as he raised his head. The dying time seemed also in his face. “The growers are coming up, and I am listening to their breathing,” he said.

And the questioner walked on with a strange smile; for it was not the time of the coming of the growers.

Rain Walker stood in the centre of the village and held his face to the sky.

“What are you doing?” said one who walked there.

“I?” and there was twilight in Rain Walker’s eyes as he looked upon the questioner. “I shot an arrow into the air. It did not come back, so I am always looking for it.”

And the questioner smiled and went on walking; for no arrow rises that does not fall. A child knows that.

And the people said: “It is all because Mad Buffalo, the Ponca, took his squaw. He took her, and she went. It was after the summer’s feasting and talking together that she went. Rain Walker is not forgetting.”

And Rain Walker sat much alone; he sat much alone making strange songs not pleasant to hear. And as he made songs he made weapons. He fashioned him a _man-de-hi_, which is a long spear, tipped with sharp flint; and he sang. He wrought a _za-zi-man-di_, which is a great bow; and sang all the time. They were hate songs that he sang; they snarled.

He shaped many arrows; he headed them with sharp flints and tipped them with the feathers of the hawk; and all the time he sang. He made a _we-ak-ga-di_, which is an ugly club. He sang to himself and to the weapons that he made. To the harsh, snarling airs he wrought the weapons. The songs went into them, and they looked like things that might hate much.

And one drew near who was walking. “Why do you make war things?” said he.

“I?” and Rain Walker threw himself upon his stomach, writhing toward the questioner like a big snake. “I am a rattlesnake,” he said, “_hiss-ss-ss-s!_ go away! I sting!”

And the man went, for it is not good to see a man act like a snake.

And one night the weapons were finished. All that night the people heard the voice of Rain Walker singing. They said: “Those are the songs of one who wishes to go on the warpath!”

And in the morning Rain Walker came out of his lodge. The squaws trembled to see him; and the men wondered. For he had wept and his eyes were pale. Well did the men know that he who weeps in hate is not a child.

And Rain Walker raised a hoarse voice into the morning stillness before all the people: “Where is my woman—she who cooked for me and made my lodge pleasant? Tell me; for I walk there that the crows may eat me!”

The people shivered as though his voice were the breath of the first frost.

“You need not make words, my kinsmen; I know. I walk there and the crows shall eat me.”

He went forth from the door of his lodge and came to the place where the head chief lived among the Hungas. He raised the door flap. “A-ho!” said he, for the chief was within eating. “I, Rain Walker, stand before you. I have words to give.”

“Speak,” said the chief.

“I am wronged. I wish war! I wish to see the Poncas destroyed!”

The head chief gazed long into the tear-washed eyes of Rain Walker, and he said: “It is a big thing to take that trail. It means the wailing of women; it means hunger; it means the crying of _zhinga zhingas_ for fathers that lie in lonesome places and never ride back. It is a hard path to take. I will think.”

And it happened after the thinking of the big chief that a council was called—a coming-together of the leaders of the bands.

And the leaders came together, and sat with big thoughts. It was evening, and among the assembled leaders sat Rain Walker. His face was thin and cruel as a stone axe stained with blood.

Then the big chief raised his voice, and words to be heard grew there in the big lodge. “This man who sits with us has been wronged. When our brothers, the Poncas, were among us for the feasting and the talking together, Mad Buffalo was among them.

“A woman is a thing not to be understood. Now she dies on long winter trails for a man, or grows old and wrinkled suckling his _zhinga zhingas_; and now she leaves him for another; yet it is the same woman. I knew a wise man once; but he shook his head about these things; and so do I.

“You know of whom I speak. It was Sun Eyes; and she was this man’s woman. Mad Buffalo smiled, and she went with him.”

Rain Walker’s breath, that hissed through his teeth, filled up the silence that followed. His face was thin and sharp and eager, even as the barbed head of a war arrow.

“And this man has come to me crying for war,” continued the head chief. “Think hard, and let us talk together.”

And he of the Big Elk band said: “Let the Poncas come down in the night and drive away our ponies, and I will gather my band about me. But it has not been so.”

And he of the Hawk band said: “Let the Poncas destroy our gardens, and I will think of my weapons.”

And he of the No-Teeth band said: “Let the Poncas speak ill of us, and my band will put on the war paint.”

Then a silence grew and the head chief filled it with few words. “Let us pass the pipe; and all who smoke it smoke for war.”

And there were ten chiefs in the council, sitting in a circle. The first touched the pipe lightly and passed it on as though it burned his fingers; and so the second and third, even to the tenth. And next to him sat Rain Walker. His breath came drily through his teeth, like a hot wind in a parched gulch. With hands that trembled he grasped the pipe from the tenth, who had not placed it to his lips. Rain Walker placed it to his lips nervously, eagerly, as one who touches a cool water bowl after a long thirst. He struck a flint and lit it. Then he arose to his feet, tall, straight, trembling—a Rage grown into a man!

“_I smoke!_” he cried; “I smoke, and through all the sunlights that come I shall walk alone and kill! The lonesome walker—I am he!

“I shall speak to the snake, and he shall teach me his creeping and his stinging. I shall speak to the elk, and he shall teach me his fleetness, his strength that lasts, his fury when he turns to fight. And I shall speak to the hawk and learn the keenness of his eyes!”

Rain Walker puffed blue streamers of smoke into the still twilight of the lodge, seeming something more than man in the fog he made.

“I smoke!” he cried; and his cry had changed into a song of snarling sounds and sounds that wailed. “I smoke, and I smoke alone; my brothers will not take the pipe with me. In lonesome places shall I walk with my hate, and not even the lone hawk in the furthest hills shall hear me make aught but a hate cry. I have no longer any people! I am a tribe—the tribe that walks alone! The _zhinga zhingas_ of the women that are not yet born shall hear my name, and it shall be like a nightwind wailing when the spirits walk and the fires are blue! I will forget that I am the son of a woman; I will think myself the son of a snake, that bore me on a hot rock in a lonesome place. I will think that I never tasted woman’s milk, but only venom stewed by the hot sun. And now I walk alone.”

His cry had fallen to a low wail that made the flesh of the hearers creep, although they were leaders and brave. And with eyes that peered far ahead as into impenetrable distances Rain Walker strode out of the lodge. The night was coming; he went forth to meet it, walking.

As he walked toward the night his thoughts were of _choobay_ (holy) things. He thought much of the spirits, and he reached a high hill as he walked. It was high; therefore it was a _choobay_ place. And he climbed to the summit, bare of grass and white with flaked rocks against the sky, that darkened fast as the Night walked.

Then he lit his pipe and made _choobay_ smoke. He wished to have the good _wakundas_ with him, even though he walked alone. For well he knew that no man can walk quite alone. So he extended the pipe stem to the west, the south, the east, the north, and he cried, “O you who cause the four winds to reach a place, help me! I stand needy!” Then he extended the pipe stem toward the earth, and he said, “O Venerable Man who lives at the bottom, here I stand needy!” And to the heavens he held the stem and cried, “O Grandfather who lives above, I stand needy; I, Rain Walker! Though my brothers treat me badly, yet I think you will help me!”

And he felt much stronger.

Then, with his weapons about him, he set his face to the south, for there in the flat lands of Nebraska lay the village of the Poncas.

And he walked in lonesome places all night. A coyote trotted past him and sat at some distance. “O brother Coyote,” said Rain Walker, “I am on the warpath; teach me your long running and your snapping!” The coyote whined and went into a gulch.

“I walk alone, and none relieve my sorrow!”

So sang Rain Walker; and singing thus he walked into the morning. And the prairie was grey with frost and very big, and the skies were filled with a quiet, so that a far crow cawing faintly made a shout. Having nothing to eat he sang, and hunger went away. His song filled the world, for he walked alone where it was very silent.

To the hawk he cried for keenness of eyes; but the hawk circled on and was only a speck. Nothing heard the man who walked alone.

He killed a rabbit and ate; he found a stream and drank. Then he met the Night walking again, and they walked together until they met the Day; and the man saw below him in the flat lands of Nebraska the jumbled mud village of the Poncas.

And it happened that the people in the village were moving very early. There was a neighing of ponies and a shouting of men and a scolding and laughing of women. It was the time of the bison hunt, and they were going forth that day.

Rain Walker lay in the brown grass at the hilltop and watched with wistful eyes the merry ones as the long, thin file left the village, the riders and the walkers and the drags. It is pleasant to go on the hunt. Rain Walker felt that he would never go again.

His face softened; then suddenly it changed and became again as a barbed war arrow. Mad Buffalo rode, and after him went Sun Eyes walking! Her head hung low like a thing wilted by the frost. She laughed none; she, too, seemed as one who walked alone.

When the long, thin line, like a huge snake writhing westward into the hills, had disappeared, Rain Walker got up and walked fast. He walked fast, for he wished to be near the place of camping when the night came. And it was so.

He lay at a distance, watching the fires flare into the night and feeling very hungry, for he caught the scent of the boiling kettles. They smelled like home. And when the people had eaten and the fires had fallen, Rain Walker said, “Now I will begin my war. I need a pony, the Poncas have them.”

He crawled upon his hands and knees to where the herd grazed. There had been no watch set, for all the tribes were at peace, except the tribe that walked alone.

And Rain Walker rode away into the night. He had big thoughts as he rode.

The hunting was poor that year; it happened so, they say. Still toward the place where the evening goes went the tribe, peering into far places for the bison; and ever there was one who crept near the tepees at night and heard the words of the Poncas, which are the same as the Omahas speak.

And they wandered, hunting, in the places where the sandhills are—the dreary places.

And one day it happened, they say, that a coyote and a hawk and some crows saw two men in a very lonesome place among the sand hills. They alone saw. And the two met, riding. One was a Ponca gone forth to seek the unappearing herd. He was tall and well made, and his pony was spotted. The other was also even as the first, although not a Ponca; but his pony was not spotted.

And when they met a great cry went up from the one whose pony was not spotted. The coyote and the hawk and the crows heard and saw. It seemed a strange cry in the silence that lived there. Then he who rode the spotted pony turned and fled; but an arrow is swifter than a pony, though it be wind-footed; and he who fled fell upon the sand and the pony ran at some distance and stopped. He looked on also.

And the two men met. He with the arrow in his back arose with a groan from the sand and growled as the other approached and dismounted. They seemed as two who had met and parted enemies.

They seized each other and rolled upon the sand. The coyote whined, the crows cawed, but the hawk only watched. But all the while the ponies neighed.

And the sting of the arrow weakened one, but he fought like a bear. He made a good fight. But the other fixed his hands upon his enemy’s throat until the silent places were filled with a gurgling and a rasping of breath that came hard. Then there was only silence. The coyote ran away, the crows and the hawk flew. The ponies alone watched now.

And the man whose pony was not spotted arose and laughed very loud—only it was not the laugh of a glad man. Then the man who laughed stripped off the garments of the other and put them upon himself. Then he built a fire and lit his pipe and made _choobay_ smoke. Then he spoke to the various _wakundas_ that were somewhere there in the silence.

“I have killed my enemy. I will burn his heart and give you the ashes, O Grandfathers!”

The crows heard this, for they had come back looking for their feast.

And the man burned the heart of his enemy and scattered the ashes, singing a brave song all the while. He had learned to do this from the Kansas; it is their custom.

Then the man got on the spotted pony and rode away, bearing with him the weapons of the man who stayed. And when he was gone the crows and the coyote came and made harsh noises at each other, for each was hungry, and there was a feast spread there upon the sand.

* * * * *

And it happened that evening, they say, that one rode into the Ponca camp and went to the tepee where Sun Eyes, the Omaha woman, waited for someone.

The man who came had his whole face hidden with a piece of buckskin, having eye and mouth holes in it. And Sun Eyes was cooking over a fire before her tepee.

“Ho, Mad Buffalo!” she said; “you have not found the bison. Why have you hidden your face?”

“I found no bison,” said the man, “but I saw something in the hills which caused me to hide my face.”

And Sun Eyes looked keenly at the man, for she thought it was some _wakunda_ he had seen.

“Why do you speak in a strange voice?” said she; and she trembled as she said it.

“He who has seen something is never the same again!” said he.

And while the woman wondered the two ate together. And as the man ate he laughed very pleasantly at times like a man who is very glad.

“Why do you laugh, Mad Buffalo?” said the woman.

“Because I was very hungry for something, and I have it now,” said the man.

And when he had ceased eating he sang glad songs, and again the woman questioned.

“I sing because of what I saw in the hills,” said he.

And this seemed very strange to the woman. But it is not allowed that one should question a man who has seen a _wakunda_.

And it happened that the man was pleased to speak evil words of Rain Walker, and Sun Eyes hung her head; her eyes were wet.

Then said the man, having seen: “Why do you act so? Do you want him? Behold! Am I not as good to see as Rain Walker?”

And he acted as one who is almost angry and a little sad. But the woman only sobbed a very little sob, for as the chief said in the council, a very wise man does not know the ways of a woman.

And it happened that night, they say, that, as the two slept, Sun Eyes dreamed a strange dream that made her cry out. And the two sat up startled.

“What is it?” said the man.

“A dream!” sobbed Sun Eyes.

“What dream?” said the man, and his voice seemed kind.

“I cannot tell; I do not wish to be beaten.”

“Tell it, Sun Eyes. Was it about—Rain Walker?”

She did not answer; the man sighed.

“Do not be afraid,” he said. And she spoke.

“I dreamed that I saw my _zhinga zhinga_ that I am carrying. And it was Rain Walker’s. It had his face, and it looked upon me with hate. It pushed me away when I offered my breast. It would take no milk from me. And it seemed that its look pierced me like a barbed arrow. Thus I awoke, and cried out.”

The woman was sobbing, and a tremor ran through the man. She felt it as he leaned against her, and she thought it anger.

“Take me there where I came from—to the village of my people!” she cried. “You are big and good to see, and many women will follow you! Take me to my people! Dreams are wiser than men; the _wakundas_ send them. I wish to go back, that my child may smile and take my breast.”

And the man rose and began dressing for the trail.

“I will take you back,” said he. “Dreams are wiser than men.”

And before the day walked the two went forth on the long trail, back to the village of the woman’s people.

The man went before and the woman followed, bearing the burdens of the trail. But when the dawn came the man did a strange thing. He took the burdens upon his own shoulders, saying nothing. It seemed his heart had been softened; but his face being hidden, the woman could not see what was written there.

And the trail was long; but the man was kind. He seemed no longer the Mad Buffalo. He made fires and pitched the tepee like a squaw. He spoke soft words.

And after many days of travelling the two came, as the Night was beginning to walk, to the brown brow of the hill beneath which lay the village of the Omahas.

And the man said: “There are your people. Go!”

And the woman moaned, saying: “He will not take me, and the dream will be true. Never on the long trail did my heart fail; but now I am weak. My breast aches.”

But the man said: “Sun Eyes, had not Rain Walker ever a soft heart? He will take you back. Look!”

And the woman, who had been gazing through tears upon the village of her people, turned and saw that the man had torn the buckskin from his face. She gave a cry and shrank from what she saw.

But the man took her gently by the hand.

“He will take you back,” he said; “dreams are wiser than men!”

XV

THE SMILE OF GOD

THE Omahas were hunting bison. The young moon had been thin and bent like a bow by the arm of a strong man when they had left their village in the valley of Ne Shuga. Night after night it had grown above their cheerless tepees, ever further eastward, until now it came forth no more, but lingered in its black lodge like a brave who has walked far and keeps his blankets because the way was hard and long.

All through the time of the growing and dying moon, the Omahas had sought for the bison. Upon a hundred summits they had halted to gaze beneath the arched hand into the lonely valleys from whence came no sound of lowing cows or bellowing bulls. Like the voice of Famine through the lonesome air came the _caw-caw_ of the crow. Like heaps of bleaching bones the far-off sage brush whitened.

This evening as the women busied themselves with the building of the tepees, there was no crooning on their lips. The valley in which they were placing their camp was still but for the clattering of the poles, as they were placed in their conical positions, or the flap of the blankets, which were being bound about the poles for a covering.

At dreary intervals a grazing pony would toss its weary head and neigh nervously, as if wondering at the stillness of its masters.

The silent squaws gathered armfuls of scrub oak and plum twigs, and lit fires that lapped the blackening air with ruddy tongues and sent their voices roaring up the hills, to be answered by their echoes that came back faintly like the lowing of a phantom herd!

The old men and the braves sat about the fires and no word was on their lips. From lip to lip the fragrant pipe passed, yet even its softening influence could not move to speech the lips it touched. Each face upon which the firelight fell was hideous with the gauntness of hunger.

One by one the runners, sent out in search of the herds, came into camp. With a slow, swinging trot these great lean men approached, as the gaunt wolf approaches his lair in the cold light of the morning when no prey has been abroad all night. Sullen and silent they took their places in the cheerless circles about the fires. There was no need for words from them. Their expectant kinsmen looked into their faces and read the tale of their despair so readily from the drawn skin and sunken eyes that they groaned.

The glow of the west fell into the greyness of ashes, as a camp fire falls when all the women sleep. Then the dark came over the eastern hills. Far into the night the braves and old men sat about the fires, speechless. As they listened, they could hear the hungry children whining in their sleep. Once a squaw, suddenly awakened from a dream near the fires, leaped to her feet and cried “_Tae!_ _Tae!_ [bison]” The hoarse cry beat against the black hills and came back like a mockery. The men gazed at each other and grinned with twitching lips.

Again the lonesome air slumbered, save for a weird song that arose from the tepee of the big medicine-man, Ashunhunga. He was calling to Wakunda. The song droned itself into silence like the song of a locust when the evening is quiet.

After some time, a sound of wailing came from the mysterious tepee; and as the men turned their faces to the place, they beheld the half-naked form of the medicine-man passing like a spectre amid the glow of the fires.

The dry skin clung to his ribs and sinews. His head was thrown back and the fires lit his face. Through his parted lips the white teeth shone. Out of the hollows of his eyes a wild light glared. The dream was upon him! With bony hands clenched, he beat his naked breast and cried: “_Wah-hoo-ha-a!_ _Wah-hoo-ha-a-a-a!_ The curse of Wakunda is upon us! The black spirits of the dead are about us! For Ashunhunga had a dream. A black spirit came to him and its eyes were lightning and its voice was thunder as it said: ‘Why do you shelter him whom Wakunda hates?’ _Wa-hoo-ha-a-a-a!_”

Blood fell from the mysterious man’s palms where the nails clenched convulsively, and his arms and breast were smeared with blood. The listeners shuddered as the wild voice began anew.

“Ashunhunga will talk to the black spirit! He will learn whom Wakunda hates! Him we shall cast from us! Then Wakunda will smile and the valleys shall thunder with herds!”

Beating his breast and gesticulating wildly with his long, bony arms, the old man passed back amid the tepees.

Those who sat about the fires were frozen by the wild words into bronze statues of Fear. Scarcely was a breath drawn; not a man moved. The black spirits of the dead were about them! Not a hand was raised to replenish the fires with faggots. The flames sank, and the embers sent a dull blue light upon the circles of haggard faces!

As Ashunhunga passed on toward his tepee, he suddenly stumbled over a shivering form, huddled in the shadow. Quickly regaining his feet, he saw that upon which he had stumbled. It was a dwarfed, ill-shapen body, with short, crooked legs and long emaciated arms with protruding joints. The form raised itself upon its hands and knees and looked upon the medicine-man with an idiot leer upon its face.

It was Shanugahi (Nettle) the cripple.

With a cry as of a squaw who sees a black spirit in her sleep, Ashunhunga rushed into his tepee. His mystical songs wailed over the camp for a while, then ceased. Overcome by his fanatical emotions, he had fallen into a swoon. And he had a dream.

He was alone upon the prairie and hunger was pinching his entrails. Then there came a bison bull toward him, roaring through the silence. He raised his bow, and with sure aim, sent an arrow singing into the heart of the beast. Then the air grew black, save for a blue light as of dying fires. The bison began to change form! Its hind legs grew short and crooked; its fore legs became long and lean and sinewy like the arms of a starving man. Its body dwindled, dwindled—and it was human! Its head became indistinct and wavered as in a haze. Then it grew boldly up in the ghastly light and the face was the face of Shanugahi with the idiot leer!

The vision whirled giddily and sank into the dizzy darkness.

With a cry as of one stabbed in his sleep, Ashunhunga sprang from his blanket and rushed out of his tepee. Those who sat about the smouldering fires, startled from their dumb terror by the cry, raised their eyes and gazed upon the face of the medicine-man as he passed. They did not speak, but the question on their faces was “who?”

“It is Shanugahi!” said Ashunhunga in an awing whisper. “It is Shanugahi whom Wakunda hates! He has brought the curse upon us!”

The ill-shapen bronze mass of flesh that was Shanugahi lay curled up in sleep in the shadow of a tepee. Suddenly his sleep was broken by a heavy hand reaching out of the darkness. He shook himself, raised his head and gazed about. He saw the faces of a number of braves indistinct in the dim glow of the fires. Nearby a pony stood ready for a rider. Then a strange voice close to his ear, whispered hoarsely: “Fly! Fly! The black spirits of the dead are about you! The curse of Wakunda is upon you! Fly! Fly!”

Shanugahi stared about him, then turned his meaningless eyes upon his tribesmen and leered. Strong arms seized him and placed him astride the waiting pony. Someone lashed the animal across the haunches, and it plunged down the valley into the blackness of the night.

When the dazed rider had gone some distance, the meaning of the whispered words came upon him. Cold sweat sprang out on his limbs. He glanced about him, and the night was swarming with demons!

His shriek cut the stillness like a knife of ice! He grasped the mane of the pony with a convulsive clasp. He dashed his heels into the flanks of the terrified brute! The lone gulches thundered with the beat of hoofs. Bushes flew past, and each was a pursuing black spirit!

Shanugahi clung closely to the pony’s back, hiding his face in its tossing mane, clasping its neck with the strength of madness, pressing its ribs with his knees until the straining animal groaned with pain and fright. Through valleys, over hills, down gulches they fled! Clumps of sage brush flitted past, and each was a heap of whitened bones!

It was like falling in a nightmare through an immeasurable black pit, save for the scamper of the coyote as it sought the gulches, whining, or the tumbling flight of the owl or bat, fleeing with wings that whirred in the stillness!

The pace of the pony became slower and slower. Its breath came in short, rasping gasps. Then with a last effort of its terrified limbs, it took the long incline of a high hill, and upon the bare summit tumbled to its knees. Shanugahi rolled off its back, and horse and rider, worn out, swooned upon the summit.

When Shanugahi awoke, the pale light that foregoes the coming sun lay upon the shivering hills. He looked about him and saw a circle of grey wolves staring at him with eyes like small moons dawnstricken. He felt about him for a weapon, but found only his stone pipe and a pouch of red willow bark.

He filled his pipe and striking a spark from a bit of flint that strewed the summit, he lit it. Then the sun peeped over the far sky line and with its horizontal rays touched the hills with fire. Its light warmed the frozen nerves of Shanugahi. He puffed grey rings of smoke into the air.

At length, taking his pipe from his mouth, he reared his hideous body in the glow of the morning, and with a long, bony arm, raised his pipe to the smiling sun in silent invocation. For some time, motionless, he stood like a being of the black depths praying for mercy from the shining heights. Then he uttered two words.

“_Wakunda! Tae!_” (O God! Bison!)

The staring wolves, moved by the wild voice, raised their noses to the heavens with a howl, and slunk away into the gulches. The sun rose higher and higher, and Shanugahi breathed into his veins the laughing gold of the morning. With all the simplicity of his nature, he forgot the terror of the night. It was to him as some vague dream, dreamed many summers past. Yet the one fixed idea of finding the bison swayed his whole being.

His hunger had reached that stage in which it acts like a heavy draught of some subtle intoxicant. The stupor of days past had been changed into a joyous and even hopeful delirium. And as he looked upon the sun, to him it was the smile of Wakunda! Now he would find the bison.