Chapter VII: Part 7

He caught his pony, grazing near by, and leaping upon its back, urged its stiffened limbs into a jog and took the lonesome stretch of prairie with song upon his lips. All day the pony jogged across the prairie at an easy pace toward the west. At that time of the evening when the coolness comes with the dew, and the bugs awake with drowsy hummings among the grasses, Shanugahi caught a roaring sound as of some sullen storm that thunders beneath the horizon.

He checked his pony and placing his hands to his ears, listened intently. He knew the sound! Dismounting, he crawled to the top of a hill and gazed into a broad valley.

As far as he could see, straining his eyes, the valley was black with bison! For a moment he stood spellbound; then a great joy lashed his blood into a frenzy. He rushed to his pony and mounting, turned its head to the east. The night came down, and still Shanugahi held his pony to a fast gallop. His brain whirled giddily. Now he had found the bison! His people would not starve. He sang and shouted and laughed until his voice broke into a cackle! The delirium of the rider was caught by the pony. With all the might of long generations of prairie herds, it sent the thundering hills and valleys under its feet.

At that time of the morning when the east grows pale, and sleep is the deepest, the famished tribe, having moved a weary day’s journey westward, was sleeping heavily. Suddenly a hoarse shout shattered their dreams and made the hills clamorous with echoes!

The whole camp leaped from its blankets and stared with blinking eyes in the direction of the shout.

There, upon the brow of a hill that overlooked the camp, stood a horse and rider set in bold relief against the pale sky of morning. With a long, bony arm the rider pointed to the westward and again he cried in a weak, broken voice:

“_Tae! Tae!_” (Bison! bison!)

Then horse and rider collapsed like the figures of a dream that wavers with the morning. A number of men rushing up the hill, found the bodies of the pony and Shanugahi. Upon the lips of the dead rider lingered a calm smile as of contentment.

“It is the smile of Wakunda,” said one old man in awe.

“Wakunda smiles! Wakunda smiles!” shouted the men. The whole camp caught up the cry. “Bison! Bison! Wakunda smiles!”

And when the sun arose, they were moving westward on the trail of Shanugahi.

* * * * *

Two nights afterward there was joy in the camp of the Omahas. Having found the long-sought-for herd, they had feasted heavily, and now they slept as the wolf sleeps when the prey has not escaped. Beside a fire two old men were still awake, and as they smoked, they talked of Shanugahi. He had found the herd. Wakunda had smiled upon him; and yet Shanugahi was ugly and a cripple!

“Ugh!” they both grunted after a thoughtful silence, shaking their heads in wonderment at so incomprehensible a thing.

Then they wrapped themselves in their blankets, and slept.

XVI

THE HEART OF A WOMAN

THE council of the fathers sat in the Big Lodge with very grave faces, for they had come together to pass judgment upon the deed of a woman. As they passed the pipe about the circle, there were no words; for in the silence the good spirits may speak, and well they knew that it is a big thing to sit in judgment.

And after a time of silence and deep thought, the door-flap of the lodge was pushed aside by two who came—an old man bent with many loads, and a woman in whose eyes the spring still lived. And when the two had sat down without the circle, the head chief spoke: “Let the man speak first.” Then the old man, who had brought the woman, arose.

“Fathers, you see a man with a sad heart, for I have brought my daughter before you for judgment. The things which she has told me I could have buried very deep in my breast; but I am old, and the wisdom of the old is mine. Who can bury a bad thing deeper than the spirits see?

“And so I am here to make sharp words against myself, for the father and the child are one.

“You remember that the season of singing frogs [April] has passed three times since one of the palefaces came among us. He was a paleface, but he was not like his brothers who find gladness in doing deeds that are bad. You have not forgotten how his words and deeds were kind, his voice very good to hear, nor how his face had the beauty of a woman’s, though it was not a woman’s face. Also his hands were white as the first snow fallen on a green place; and his hair was long like the hair of our people, but it clung about his head like a brown cloud when the evening is old.

“He was hungry and lean when he came among us. His pony was hungry and lean. And we took him in with glad hearts; we lit the feast fires for him; his pony we staked in our greenest places: for he was not like his brothers.

“And we called him ‘the man with the singing box,’ for he brought with him a thing of wood and sinews; and over this, while we feasted, he drew a stick of wood with the hair of a pony’s tail fastened to it, making songs sweeter than those of our best women singers, and deeper than the voices of men who are glad.

“Much we wondered at this, for the magic of the paleface is a great magic. And as he made the wood and sinews sing together, we forgot to eat and the feast fires fell blue; for never before had such a singing been heard in our lands. And once he made it sing a battle song that snarled like a wounded rattlesnake in a dry place, and cried like an angry warrior, and shrieked like arrows, and thundered like many pony hoofs, and wailed like the women when the band comes back with dead braves across the backs of ponies. And as he made it sing this song, even we who were wise leaped to our feet and drew forth our weapons and shouted the war cry of our people—so great was the song. And when our shouting ceased, the man made the medicine box sing low and sweet and thin like a woman crying over a sick _zhinga zhinga_ [baby] in the night. And we forgot the battle cries; we gave tears like old women.

“Do you remember? This is the man of whom I speak.

“Many young moons grew old and passed away, and still he lived among us, until, lo! he was even as our kinsman, for he learned the tongue of our people, being great of wit.

“And he told us of a wanderer whose own people were unkind to him; a tale of one who was not of the people of whom he was born, because he loved the spirits that sing, more than a very rich man loves his herds of ponies blackening many hills where they graze. And it was of himself he told; he was the wanderer. So we loved him because of this and because of his kind words and because of the song which he made in his medicine box.

“And all the while my girl here was growing taller—very good to see. Many times I said to my woman, ‘There is something growing between these two.’ And we both saw it with glad hearts, for he was a great man.

“And one night in my first sleep I was awakened by a crying of sorrows better to hear than laughter—a moan that grew loud and fell again into softness like a night wind wailing in a lonesome place where thickets grow. And my woman beside me whispered, ‘It is the spirits singing.’ But the girl here only breathed very hard. I could hear her breathing in the darkness.

“And I got up; I pushed the skin flap aside; I stood as though I were in a dream. For there by the tepee stood the man with the singing box at his neck. His long, white fingers worked upon the sinews; his arm drew the hair-stick up and down. His face looked to the sky and the white fires of the night were upon it. Never had I seen such a face; for it was not a man’s face nor yet a woman’s. It was the face of a good man’s spirit come back from the star-paths. I looked at his lips, for it seemed that the singing grew up from his mouth; but his lips were very still.

“And my eyes made tears; for many forgotten sorrows came back to me at once, and I felt a great kindness for all things, which I could not understand.

“And when he dropped his arm and looked at me, his eyes threw soft, white fire into my breast, and then I knew the singing was not for me. Once when my woman was young and still in the lodge of her father, I looked upon her with such a look.

“So I gave the girl to the paleface; and for a time the singing box was still; for they made a silent music between them. And before the first frosts made the hills shiver, the palefaces who trade for furs came to our village, and the man went with them; and with him went the woman. No man can be deaf to the call of his kind; so he went. And now the woman shall speak, and you shall judge her deed.”

The old man sat down and rested his face in his hands. The young woman arose to her feet. With lips parted the chiefs bent forward to catch the words which should fall from her mouth. Tall and thin she was, and shapely. But the shadows of a great toil and a great sorrow clung about her lean cheeks and under her black eyes, grown too big with much weeping.

“Fathers,” she began, “I will tell you how my bad deed grew upon me; and you shall judge. I will take the punishment, for I have felt much aching of the breast and I can stand yet a little more.

“Three summers ago I followed the man of the singing box into the North. This you know—but the rest you do not know. It is the way of the paleface to toil for the white metal. They showed my man the white metal, and it led him into the North among strange peoples, where there is much gathering of furs. And I went with him, for a woman is weak and must follow the man.

“Far into the North we went where the Smoky Water runs thin so that a very little man can throw a stone across it. And the singing box went with us.

“And we built a lodge of logs, after the manner of his people, near to a great log lodge where the big pale chief lived and said words that should be obeyed. And for a time our hearts sang together. But when the snows had come, it happened that the big pale chief spoke a word, and my man went with his brothers, driving many dogs further into the North where there are furs of much worth.

“And when my man left he said, ‘Take good care of Vylin while I am gone, for she is dearer to me than my life.’ And I stared at him because I did not understand. It was the singing box of which he spoke; as though it were a person he spoke of it; he called it Vylin; and much I wondered.

“But because my heart was warm toward the man, I did acts of kindness to the singing box, which he called Vylin; for I had not yet learned that it was no box of wood, but the spirit of a dead woman of the palefaces.

“Through the long cold nights I held it close to me under the blankets. And often in the night I was awakened by its crying when in my sleep I touched it strongly. Like a _zhinga zhinga_ [baby] it cried; and my heart was softened toward it, for I had no child then. Through the days I talked to Vylin. I washed it much that it might be clean and of a good smell. And often it made soft sounds like a _zhinga zhinga_ that is glad. Then would I hold it to my dry breasts and sing to it.

“But more and more I learned that it was no box of wood, but a living thing. For I began to see that it had the shape of a woman. Its neck was very slender; its head was small; and its hair fell in four little braids across its neck and breast down to its hips. And the more I learned, the more my breast ached; for he loved Vylin, and her voice was sweeter for singing than my voice. And I thought much of how she sang for him alone. And I said, ‘She does not sing for me—only for him does she sing; therefore she loves him well.’

“When the grass came again and the ice broke up, my man came back with the furs and the dogs and the men. They came floating down the river on big canoes. And I sang when he came again into his lodge, for the winter had been long. Also, I showed him how kind I had been to Vylin; I thought he would be very glad. But he frowned and spoke sharp words. He said it was wrong to wash Vylin. My breast ached; I could not understand. Does not a good mother wash her _zhinga zhinga_, that it may be clean and of a good smell? I had no _zhinga zhinga_ then, and so I had been a mother to Vylin.

“And when I told him this, he laughed a very harsh laugh, and said it was Vylin, not a _zhinga zhinga_; so that I was sad until he spoke a very soft word, then I forgot for many days.

“But as the grass grew taller and the scent of green things blew in every wind, my man grew strange toward me. Like a man with the ache for home he was. And more and more it became his mood to be very silent while he made Vylin sing to him—O such strange, soft songs, like spirits weeping!

“And more and more my heart grew sore toward Vylin, for when I sang that he might forget her to look upon me, he frowned and spoke sharp words.

“So one day as he sat in a shady place, making songs with his fingers, I said to him: ‘If so softly you should lay your fingers upon _my_ neck, I too could sing as sweetly!’ And he smiled, and it was like the sun breaking through a cloud that has hung long over the day. And he drew me close to him and said: ‘Do you see the leaves upon this tree, and do you know how many?’ And I laughed, for I was glad, and in the old days it had often been his wish to joke so. But he said: ‘So many of the palefaces have listened to me making Vylin sing; and they wept to hear. But now am I far away and strange peoples are about me.’

“And that was the last of my gladness for many moons; for more and more he wished to be silent. And when the snows came again he went away. And I was very lonesome and sad until I knew that I would be a mother. Then my heart sang, for I said: ‘Now, my man will look upon me again and speak soft words as in the old times. Does Vylin bring him _zhinga zhingas?_’

“And all through the cold days I was glad; my heart was soft. I took good care of Vylin; I was kind to her, for at last I thought that she would be second in his heart. I pitied her as I thought this. I washed her no more, but ever through the frosty nights I kept her warm with many blankets, even though I shivered.

“And when the grass came my man came also. And another came, a _nu zhinga_ [boy]. But my man looked with cold eyes upon my _zhinga zhinga_; so I wept many nights, many, many nights. And much weeping made me not good to see. So the man looked upon me no more; only upon Vylin did he look. With very soft eyes did he look upon her; with such eyes did he look upon me in the old days.

“My heart grew very bitter. Often I heard him talking soft talk to her—such as he talked to me in the old times. And I wished to tear her hair, her yellow hair from her head! I wished to kill her, to walk upon her, to hear her groan, to see her die!”

The woman’s eyes flashed a battle light. Her hands were clenched, her face was sharp and cruel. Very tall she grew in her anger—a mother of fighting men.

“And that night,” she said, “I threw angry words at the man. I spoke bad things of Vylin. I called great curses down upon her. And I said: ‘She sings, but does she bring you sons to feed you when you are old?’ And he laughed with a harsh sound.

“So that night when the man slept I got up very stealthily from the blankets. My breast ached, and many black spirits pressed their fingers into my heart. I took a knife—a very sharp knife. I uncovered Vylin where she lay sleeping in her blankets. I felt for the place where her heart should be. Then I struck, struck, struck! Very deep I sent the sharp knife, and I laughed to hear the great groan that Vylin made as she died.

“And also the man heard. He leaped from his blankets. He struck me with his fist; he beat me. He called down all the big curses of his people upon me. He gave me the _nu zhinga_. He pushed me from the door into the darkness.

“‘Begone!’ he said, ‘for you have killed Vylin!’

“And I went into the darkness with my _nu zhinga_. Many days have I walked with much hunger; and always the _nu zhinga_ was a heavy burden. And now I am thin; my feet are weary; my breast aches.”

* * * * *

A deep sighing shook the young woman as she sat down. The old man arose, and there was a sound of heavy breathing as he spoke to the chiefs who sat to judge: “My girl has spoken of her bad deed. She has killed the singing spirit that the paleface loved. How shall she be punished?”

And after a long stillness the head chief spoke: “The heart of a woman is a strange thing, a tender thing; who shall judge it?”

And one by one they who sat to judge arose and left the big lodge.

XVII

MIGNON

“BUT, Yellow Fox,” I protested, “no one understands them; they do not understand themselves!”

Yellow Fox grunted and smiled, showing a very white set of wolfish teeth. We two were sitting together outside the lodge, and, male-like, we had hit upon the topic of woman. The locust-like cadences of the songs and the shuffle of dancing feet came muffled to us. The scent of boiling beef and the good smoke-tang of wood fires permeated the sultry night air, lifting my not overcivilised fancy back into the spacious star-hung feast rooms of the dead years, where big-boned, brawny, fighting men indulged their lusts for steaming haunches. The full moon lifted a Rabelaisian face of lusty red above the hills, and I saw by its light the eager spirit of the story-teller bright in the eyes of Yellow Fox.

“What they understand I do not know,” he began; “I only know I do not understand. And I have travelled far. When I was a young man, many strange valleys knew my feet, and from many hilltops my eyes looked forth. For from my first moccasins my feet caught the itch for going. And in many villages of strange peoples I have lived for little spaces, until the feasts were tasteless and the maidens ugly. Then did my moccasins itch my feet again, so that I went forth and sought new feasts, other maidens.

“And I have known many maidens. None of them did I understand; and least of all—Mignon.

“Even to-night something of the soft summer smell of her is in my nose; and if I were not old I would walk far, walk far; for that smell is like a voice calling over big waters and many valleys—a voice so far away that the ear does not catch it—so thin that it is no sound, but a feeling.

“Have I told you how that a white man came to our lands once and led me on a long, strange trail? It happened so. He was a keeper of many strange men and many horses and many strange animals, and for money he showed these to many peoples, and so grew rich.

“And the man showed me much money; he told me of new lands and new peoples; he spoke of feasts, of women that were as dreams. Therefore, I felt the itch in my feet again, and I went with the man. And we came at last to many big tepees, where the man kept the strange things that he showed to the people for money. One of his tepees was as big as the village of a tribe—and he had many.

“I had my place among all these strange things; for the white man said: ‘You are the wild man that growls like a bear and eats babies. I give you money and you must look very wild and growl much when the boys stick at you with straws.’ And this was good fun.

“So I stood twice every day fastened to a post by a thong of metal. The people stood about me and stared. I growled, I pulled at the fastenings, I ate raw meat; I was very wild. Many came to see, and when I would have gone back to the lands of my people, the white man showed me more money, so that I stayed.

“We travelled very far with the big tepees. We came to the Big Salty Water, but we did not stop there; we crossed it—and were in another land.

“And then there was a big village—a very big village. There we stopped, and the people came to see.

“You know that vill’ge—Par’s—Par’s?” asked Yellow Fox, falling momentarily into English.

“Yes, Paris,” I corrected, “and you were with Barnum.”

“Ah,” he assented, speaking his own tongue again; “and it is a village of women that make the eyes glad and the blood quick! I stood many days, growling for the people and eating raw meat. And one day Mignon came. A young man of her own people was with her. They stared and talked much together. Some of their talk I knew, for it was the talk that the fur traders used, and my father’s father was a trader for furs.

“And Mignon made the eyes glad. She was tall for a woman and not thick. The women of my people are short and thick. Her face was very white, and her eyes were big and deep—like waters in a shadow.

“And the man made jokes at me that stung like elkhorn whips, for he was thin and looked as one whose blood is half water. I could have choked him with two fingers like a worm. _So!_”

Yellow Fox snapped his fingers viciously.

“And it pleased the young man to shove his finger into my ribs and laugh. So I grasped his arm very hard. I put his finger to my mouth; I bit it and the blood came. He cried _ow ow_; then I said to the woman, using what speech of hers I knew: ‘Take this baby man of yours away or I will eat him, for I am hungry. But you are good to see; I like you; touch me.’

“And she, wondering that I spoke her speech, touched me!

“Ah—everything was changed!”

Yellow Fox suddenly passed into a subconscious mood. The moon, grown pale with its ascent, illumined his masterful male features, over which I could see the dream of old days flitting like a ghost. The song of the women dancing about the feast fires within arose into a high and tenuous minor of yearning, filling up the momentary gap in the story like a chorus. In the wake of the passing gust of song, the voice of Yellow Fox arose, soft, low, musical—the voice of memory.

“Her hands she laid upon me—soft and white and thin, they were. She passed them over the muscles of my breast; she stroked my arms. Soft as a mother’s touch was hers; like a mother’s touch—but I felt a fire burning at her finger tips, that made me wish to fight big men for her, and make them bleed and make them groan and make them die, slobbering blood in the dust! Then afterward to take her far away, thrown across my back like a dead fawn; to build a lodge for her in a lonesome place where man’s face never was!

“Much hair she had—much hair that hung above her face like a dark cloud upon a white sky at evening. And it brushed across my breast! I shivered as in a wind that drives the snow before it—and yet I was not cold.

“And then she was gone—swallowed up in the river of people. But not all of her was gone. A smell sweeter than the earth-smell when the spring rains fall was in my nostrils! A smell that gnawed within me like a hunger—yet I did not wish to eat! A smell of soft, white flesh—oh, very soft and white! And now in my old age I call that smell Mignon.

“And the people, like a noisy, muddy stream, flowed round me, past me. But I growled no more; for I did not wish for fun. I hated them—they stank! An ache like the ache for home was upon me; an ache like the ache of a man who smells the home-smoke in a dream and wakes far off from home.

“Two sunlights passed—and in the evening I stood under many lights, bound with the iron thongs; and the noisy, stinking stream of people was about me. Their staring eyes were as many bugs that swarmed about and stung me. I strained at the iron thongs; I hurled the black curses of my people in among them—and they were pleased. But this was no play; I wished to rush among them and walk upon them; for I had seen, and now no longer did I see.

“But suddenly the smell came back! It grew up like the smell of spring when the ice makes thunder in the rivers and the flowers come out! And she was there beside me.

“I forgot the people; I was no longer angry. I was in a big lonesome prairie with the sunlight and the singing winds, and she was with me, and all the air seemed soft and cool as when a black-winged raincloud shuts out a day of heat.

“I can feel her hands upon me yet.”

* * * * *

Yellow Fox sighed. A passionate outburst of song from the dancers within filled the quiet night with sounds of longing, through which the cowhide drums throbbed feverishly, like a heart.

“And the words she spoke were soft. They made me wish to shout the mating songs of my people. They made me very strong. And then I learned her name—Mignon.

“Mignon! Mignon! Such a sound the spring winds make among the first leaves; and yet—it is not all a sound; it is part a smell!

“And after that she came often; every evening she came, like a south wind blowing over prairies sweet with rain at sunset. Many things she asked me and I told her many things. I made with my mouth a picture of my own lands; and some of it she put in a little book, and some she only drank with all her face, as though she was thirsty.

“And they who had travelled far with us, the pitchers of the tepees and the tenders of the animals, laughed softly in passing, showing their teeth in mirth—for were they not jealous?

“One night she did not come. And it happened on that night that the big tepees were folded up for another trail; and in the morning we were far away. My breast cried out for her; my nose longed for the smell which was Mignon.

“So I spoke of her to the pitchers of the tepees, and they laughed very loud and long, sending forth breaths that stank as they laughed. They said bad things of Mignon. They said, ‘Can you not understand? She is of those that her people have cast out.’ And this made my breast cry out for her again; for was I not also alone? Were not my own people far away? But the rest of it I knew to be another white man’s lie! One liar I struck very hard in the teeth; and when he got up from the dust, slobbering blood and toddling like a baby, he laughed no more and said no more bad things of Mignon. And was this not proof that he had lied?

“Is the first earth-smell of the spring bad? Had not many maidens of the prairies longed for me; and were they not good? Was I not big and of heavy muscles? Was I not young and good for the eyes of women?

“Since I am old and much withered, I can say this; for I have become another man.”

* * * * *

The song of the women-singers within had ceased, but the sullen drums kept up a throbbing snarl. At length the voice of Yellow Fox continued in a low monotone:

“We stopped in many big villages; and my breast was sick. More and more I wished for the prairies. At night I heard the dry winds singing in the grasses. I spoke no more of Mignon, for I was afraid to hear again the laughter of the pitchers of the tepees. One more laugh would have made my eyes blind with blood, and I would have killed.

“I lost the wish to eat; I grew shadow-thin. So the owner of the tepees said: ‘This wild man is dying for a sight of his prairies; I will send him back.’

“I travelled far, and again I was in my own land. I saw the hills; I smelled the smoke of the fires of my people. But this no longer filled me. I had seen, and now no longer could I see.

“And the winter came. I sat alone much, and as I sat alone, I had big thoughts. I said: ‘This that I have seen was a dream thing. It is gone; and I cannot find the sleep trail that leads to it again. Therefore, I will do as others. I will take a woman of my own people. I will eat again; for this dream has only made me thin.’

“So I made a young woman of my people glad. I took her into my lodge. But even through the time of driving snows, I smelled the smell of spring. Mignon! Mignon! I heard the rain winds singing in the first leaves! Mignon! Mignon! I heard the sighing of summer waters! Mignon! Mignon! It was half a sound and half a smell—dream sound, dream smell—so thin, so thin!

“And the time came when the big swift arrows of the geese flew northward, spreading softness as of many camp fires in all the air; and the River wakened and shook itself, shouting with a hoarse voice into the south. The green things came, and there was a singing of frogs where the early rains made pools. The smell, which was Mignon, breathed up out of the earth; the sound, which was Mignon, lived in the trees and grasses.

“And then the time came when it is no longer the spring, and not yet quite the summer. One evening I sat before my lodge, smoking and thinking big thoughts. And the sun was low. A dust cloud grew far down the road that twisted like a yellow snake toward the village of the white men. It was a waggon coming. It grew bigger; a white man was driving it. It came near; there was a woman in it. I stared very hard; I rubbed my eyes, for what I saw was as though it had all grown up out of my pipe smoke.

“The woman was tall and not thick. Much hair she had—much hair that hung above her face like a black cloud upon a white sky in the evening. And in all the air about, there grew a smell sweeter than the earth-smell when the spring rains fall. I sat very still; I did not wish to frighten the dream away. And the woman came toward me with much rustling of garments, like the speaking of green leaves in the wind or the thin, small drumming of raindrops.

“Then, between the puffing of two smoke rings, the Spring had grown big—and was the Summer! It was Mignon! It was Mignon!”

* * * * *

Yellow Fox lifted his face to the full moon, and his voice was raised to a poignant cry as he uttered the word that was half sound, half smell. Then for some time he brooded with his chin resting in his hands, while the women-singers within filled the heavy air with wailings. At length he sat up and leisurely filled his pipe. His face had become a wrinkled mask again. He smoked awhile, then passing the pipe to me, he continued, and his voice was thick as though he still breathed smoke:

“After the snows have run away, the earth-smell rises and all things grow drunk with it. The he-wolf sniffs it; he forgets his last year’s mate; he takes another and forgets. The air and the earth and the water are full of new loves, and nothing is ashamed.

“It was so.

“When the next sunlight came I made ready for the trail. I rolled up my tepee. All the while my woman stared upon the woman who had come, with eyes made sharp with hate. I called in my ponies from the grazing places. I hitched a pony to the drag. I put upon the drag the tepee and the food and the little box that Mignon had brought with her—a box of many garments—garments that made songs when she walked, like the songs of rain in the leaves. I lifted Mignon upon the drag-pony’s back, and we rode away on the summer trail.

“I heard my woman wailing and crying out bitterly in my lodge, but a spirit led me on—the spirit that calls the green things out in the spring—the spirit that whispers into the ear of the sleeping River and makes it leap up and shout and tear the thongs that bind it—the spirit that makes the wolves cry out in the lonesome places that the mate may hear. That spirit went calling down the trail I followed.

“And we came to a place by the river where the hills were high and many leaves made coolness. There I pitched the tepee; and the days were as little flashes of light, and the nights were as little shadows passing.

“Never before had I found it so good to live. Mignon made songs that laughed and cried; and when she did not sing, the rustle of her garments was a song. I became as a squaw; I brought the wood and water; I made the fires; I cooked. I was bowed before her. Never before had I bowed before anyone, for I was strong. I could not understand. She was so soft and white and of so sweet a smell!

“But the time came when she no longer sang. She grew silent, and each day gazed long upon the river. Her hands touched me no more with the touch of soft fires. So I grew kinder still. I spoke soft words. I made sweet sounds to call her. But she frowned and pushed me away.

“My breast ached much, so I said: ‘You think always of that baby man whose finger I bit. I could choke him with my fingers—_so_!’ But she laughed in my face, making sharp jokes to fling at me. I was stung as with whips when the whippers are angry. I said: ‘Go back to your baby man!’

“I did not wish her to go; they were the words of my anger. But she got up very straight and tall. There was lightning in her eyes. Thunder slept in her face. And her hair seemed as a black cloud that blows up angrily out of the hot south!

“She went to the tepee; she made ready to go; and all the while I watched with fires in my breast. Then suddenly she turned upon me—her face was a flame. She flung words at me: ‘You are all the same!’ She spit in my face! I have been struck in the teeth by strong men, but never have I felt so hard a blow. I sat as a man in a dream. I heard the angry song of her skirts as she fled up the back-trail. And then I was as one who wakens with a great hunger, and smells raw meat! I leaped up; I ran after her; I meant to kill her!

“I caught her; I struck her with my fist, even as I struck the man who lied. I put my fingers at her throat and pressed very hard. I carried her back to the tepee. I thought I had killed her.

“Oh, the smell of her flesh as she lay very still—as though I had stepped upon a flower!

“And then after a long time, when my breast was growing sick, she opened her eyes and looked upon me. O tender, tender were her eyes and full of soft fires! It was the old look, only it was stronger. She raised herself to her knees; she put her arms around my neck; she put her lips on my lips; she called me soft names!

“I thought this was some woman’s trick. I pushed her from me. I said: ‘I am hungry; you are my squaw; cook my food!’ And she brought wood and water; she made a fire; she worked for me. All the while her eyes were soft, and often she touched me with finger tips that burned as of old with soft fires. I could not understand. When I was kind, then was she not kind. And now, with the blue marks of my angry fingers at her throat, she worked for me, her eyes were soft for me, her finger-tips were warm for me. I cannot understand.”

Yellow Fox took the pipe from my hands and smoked long in silence. He sighed deeply, breathing in great breaths of smoke. At length, growing impatient, I ventured a question: “And what became of Mignon?”

He laid down his pipe and said in a low voice: “The woman who wailed in the lodge had not forgotten!

“The plums ripened,” he continued, “and the flowers that bloomed upon our summer trail were heavy with seed. The hills grew brown. A greyness like smoke was in all the air. The grapes hung thick and purple.

“And it happened one night when the first small pinch of frost was in the air, that Mignon would sing soft baby songs, such as the mothers of her people sang, she said. Oh, such soft, low songs! I hear them yet. A kindness was in her face, like that in the face of a young mother. I saw it by the light of the wood fire that held the frost away. And when she had sung much, as to a child, she put her hands upon my shoulders and she said a strange thing. This is what she said, I remember: ‘Sometime, Yellow Fox, I will sing to your _zhinga zhinga_ [baby]; will you be glad?’

“And I wondered much, for her eyes were wet when she said it.

“And that night she fell to sleep with her soft hands clutching my arm. And something made me wish to sing. I watched her sleeping, and there was an ache in my breast when I remembered the feel of my angry fingers at her throat. And then I slept.

“But in that time when the night is deepest and sleep is like a weight upon the eyes, a sharp cry woke me. I leaped up. The fire was almost dead. I heard feet flying through the dead leaves into the darkness. One hand felt warm and wet; I raised it to my nose and it was blood. And then I heard a gasping for breath and a sound of gurgling. I put my hand upon the breast of Mignon—and it was wet with blood!

“I scraped the embers together and made a little flame. I looked upon her face and it had the look of death. Eyes that ached she turned upon me. I stopped the blood with torn garments. I called her soft names and she clutched my fingers. Then she was very quiet. I could hear leaves dropping out in the night.

“And when the face of the night turned grey, she opened her eyes that were hot and dry. With very weak hands she drew my ear close to her lips. She breathed a little broken piece of song—a baby song—a song of the mothers of her people. And when I looked upon her again, her face was pinched, her eyes stared.”

* * * * *

Yellow Fox lapsed into another prolonged silence. The dancers and singers in the lodge had ceased. A heavy, sultry silence filled the night. When he spoke again his voice came low and muffled:

“I buried her after the manner of my people. I sang the songs of the dead. Above her grave I killed the pony that she rode. And then I went away upon the trail that was no more the trail of summer. But the winds in the grasses sang her name. Mignon! Mignon! I heard the rain winds singing in the first leaves. Mignon! Mignon! I heard the sighing of summer waters. Mignon! Mignon! I smelled the smell of spring. Everywhere it was—Mignon!—half sound, half smell—dream-sound, dream-smell—so thin—so thin.”

XVIII

A POLITICAL COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA

THE struggle for Congressional honours in the Third District of Nebraska was to be a hard one. The white voters of the District were about evenly divided between the two parties, and therefore the necessary elective majority was to be found among the Omaha Indians, whose reservation lies in this district.

So this remnant of the Dark Ages became of pivotal importance in Twentieth Century politics; and it was here, in the wildest land of the district, that the decisive battle of strategy must be fought.

For practical purposes, the intelligent white voter ceased to exist, and there was only a slothful, ignorant band of semi-savages who should choose by chance the national representative of educated thousands.

The typical reservation Indian is primarily a stomach, and secondarily nothing in particular. Let him fill his belly and he is easily handled. This axiom had been taken as a basis for action by the whiphands of the Democratic Party, who, accordingly, scattered broadcast throughout the reservation considerable quantities of the meat of superannuated bulls; sat in the feasts with cross-legged condescension; smoked the reeking stone pipes; drank hot soup with the suppressed shudders of a revolting stomach, and called the brown men “brothers.”

This had all worked very well in the latter days of September, and there had been considerable rejoicing in local Democratic circles over the bright prospects for a sweeping majority.

It was not until the first of October that the opposition suddenly hurled a thunderbolt out of the blue sky of its seemingly serene inactivity. The Agent, holding his appointment under a Republican administration, announced at a weekly land payment that $100,000 of the considerable sum held in trust by the Government would be paid pro rata to the Omahas during the month. It was after this announcement that the local leaders of the Republican Party became active. They explained to their brothers how surpassingly good it was of them to bring about this payment. Would their brothers forget this at the November election? Of course not!

So it happened that the bull meat lost its power of persuasion and for several weeks there was not a brown Democrat on the reserve. Thus, at the opening of the big payment on a Monday morning two weeks before election, the Democratic candidate for Congress found himself staring Defeat in the face (which was brown) after having enjoyed several weeks of victory (which was premature).

The “big payment” has always been picturesque and is now fast becoming impossible. It may be defined as the spectacular bow of the Present to the Past, with which Civilisation lowers its proud plume and says to the Savage Age: “Sorry I swiped your land; take that and don’t feel sore!” Or words to that effect.

The opening days of the big payment were warm with the lazy warmth of the mellow, golden hours of late October. The untilled hills of the reservation thrust themselves up into the autumn glare, unashamed of their poverty of soil. The Agency building nestled forlornly in a creek valley surrounded by the yellow, wrinkled hills.

In the early morning a lazy string of vehicles began to pour into the Agency from the dozen or more roads that outraged the compass with their crazy windings, and seamed the bronze face of the prairie with ugly scars. Carts, buggies, waggons, carriages, some of glaring newness, weighted down to the axles with squaws, papooses and the inevitable mortgage; others in an epileptic stage of decay, with the weary air of having borne the weight of outlawed paper for many moons; ponies, long-haired, and emaciated with many unconsoling feeds of post and halter, carrying at once upon their sawlike backs their sweating, heavy masters, and (heavier than these) the seeming consciousness of long-dishonoured promissory notes; these constituted the grotesque Republican procession that streamed into Little Omaha, as the Agency is called, on that morning in October.

It was as a tribal exodus. The entire tribe of twelve hundred odd men, women, and children was leaving its shacks and tepees that morning, in search of the minted eagles of the Government, just as, of old, they moved in a hungry body upon the trail of the bison.

As the vanguard of this grand but dilapidated army of the primitive world closed in upon the Agency, it was met by the vanguard of the greater commercial army of civilisation, and a wordy skirmish ensued. These were the inevitable collectors who hang about an Indian payment like a crowd of crows scenting a carcass. One might have heard such a conversation as this above the tumult of the meeting races:

“Well, Big Bear, goin’ to pay that note to-day?”

“Ugh?”

“I say [voice raised a key], are you goin’ to pay that note—_muska zhinga, wabugazee_ [money, note]?”

“_Unkazhee!_” (Don’t understand.)

“Damn your black hide, Big Bear, you can talk as good as I can! I say, [voice raised to a shriek] if you don’t pay that note, I’ll come over to your place and take every dodgasted, straw-bellied _shonga_ [pony] you’ve got!”

“Gad up!”

And the delinquent debtor put the whip to his long-haired, shambling mortgages and disappeared in a cloud of dust.

The Omaha is a genius for contracting debts. At the beginning of the big payment, the aggregate debts of the tribe were roughly estimated at $200,000, the living representative of long-digested groceries, starved ponies, shattered vehicles and forgotten alcoholic debauches.

The Government, in the wisdom of blindness, had caused large placards to be posted at the entrances to the Agency grounds, bearing this order: “No collector of any description shall be allowed within a radius of half a mile from the pay station.” Accordingly, the burly Indian police strutted about in blue clothes and brass buttons obstreperously hustling the white creditors over the half-mile line, where they lounged in disconsolate groups along the dusty highway, playing mumble-peg, pitching horseshoes, and verbally sending the entire tribe to the devil.

“Be cussed if I don’t hate to see the Twentieth Century kicked downstairs this way by the Dark Ages! Cussed if I don’t!” Thus a little wiry, pale-faced undertaker was heard to exclaim. His name was Comfort and he appeared to be a positive misery both to himself and to the delinquent relatives of the many good Indians he had laid away.

Beside the little undertaker, there were lawyers, bankers’ clerks, grocerymen, liverymen, middlemen, butchers, doctors, and a half dozen politicians, there for the purpose of whipping the brown voters into line. There were men like wolves, bears, dogs, goats, roosters, beetles, scorpions. The little undertaker was the scorpion; a middleman was like a bear; there was a banker’s clerk like a goat; and a thin, angular, tall politician, with a body appropriately like an interrogation point, who slunk about like a hungry wolf.

By ten o’clock the last stragglers of the tribe had arrived and the Agency grounds were filled with circles of sweating, brown men, women, and children, passing the stone pipe, tranquilly awaiting the coming of the Agent, whose name, upon a reservation, is a shout.

By 10:30 the Agent appeared, riding down the dusty road from his residence. He was preceded by mounted police of pompous bearing, who shouted “The Agent! Make way for the Agent!” to the circles of their tribesmen who sat in the dust of the highway.

A short while afterward the loungers at the half-mile line heard the voice of a crier at the door of the pay station, calling the first name on the roll in the golden autumnal silence.

“_Nuzhee Mona! Geegoho!_” (Rain Walker! Come here!)

Then the fact that Mr. Rainwalker, a leader of the tribe much indebted to the white man, was about to be paid, became volatile as ammonia, and the fluttering of time-yellowed legal paper was heard along the waiting line of creditors.

“Owes me $6.46 with interest for four years!”

“Me $25 and interest—outlawed!”

“I’ve got the old cuss’s note for fifty!”

“I buried his fourth and sixth wives,” squeaked the little undertaker, “seven and nine years ago, respectively!”

Such exclamations ran down the line like a volley in different variations of vocal emphasis.

“Wonder how he’s votin’,” mused the hungry wolf of a politician.

“To the devil with politics!” roared the bear of a middleman; “I want the rent back I advanced him!”

At that moment Mr. Rainwalker was seen to leave the station, mount his pony, and proceed down the dusty road toward the half-mile line. It had doubtless occurred to him that during past winters it had been necessary to eat, and he was coming forth to make peace with the groceryman.

At sight of the approaching debtor, the lounging line of creditors sprang to its feet and stood at attention. The grocer, who spoke the Omaha tongue fluently and had a snug fortune laid away in consequence, walked rapidly in advance of the others and met Mr. Rainwalker at the line, followed by the straggling crowd of expectant creditors like a trailing cloud of hungry crows.

Mr. Rainwalker had a large, round, pockmarked face that looked for the world like a pumpkin pie overbaked by a careless cook, with a monstrous nose in the centre of it. He sat placidly upon his pony, that had all the salient points of a starved cow, and dozed luxuriously at the shortest halt. The old chief seemed the visible body of an optimistic joke, sitting upon the bone heap of a tragedy!

The grocer had barely collected the greater share of the old man’s check, when he became the centre of a noisy, gesticulating crowd of creditors. It was the chatter of the crows about the carrion.

“You know you promised me that you would settle that note!” said the goatlike bank clerk in his bleating voice.

“How about that rent money I advanced, Rainwalker?” roared the bear-like middleman.

“I want my money for them wives I buried for you—_two of ’em_!” squeaked the scorpionlike undertaker, holding up two explanatory fingers and thrusting his thin, pale face into the mêlée.

“Ugh!” the old man answered rather unsatisfactorily.