ALA 4832-61 HARVARD - COLLEGE LIBRARY VENRI EAS FROM THE Subscription Fund BEGUN IN 1858 . MusDates n. 3 hora THE LONESOME TRAIL Ee Sena Drawn by F. E. Schoonover THE RACE WITH THE FIRE See "The Nemesis of the Deuces," page 300 THE LONESOME TRAIL BY JOHN G. NEIHARDT “In the fell clutch of circumstance I have not winced nor cried aloud.” NEW YORK : JOHN LANE COMPANY, MCMVII LONDON : JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD ཚབ་ས་བ་ཡོ་ཤེས་པ་ཞིག་འབབས་པས་སྐྱེས་སཞུས་ན་ ༑ ཚངས་ཀ་:སྐུལ་བ་ O REND ALA had 822. lol HARVARD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY APR 25 1941 Subscrplim Ford COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY JOHN G. NEIHARDT TO VOLNEY STREAMER “ Friend of my Yester-age' The stories in this volume have appeared in the following magazines: Munsey's, The American Magazine, The Smart Set, The Scrap Book, The All-Story, Watson's, Overland Monthly. The author gratefully acknowledges permission to re- publish. CONTENTS PAGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CHAPTER I. THE ALIEN . . . . . II. THE LOOK IN THE FACE III. FEATHER FOR FEATHER IV. THE SCARS. . V. The FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER VI. THE ART OF Hate VII. THE SINGER OF THE ACHE VIII. The WHITE WAKUNDA IX. THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA X. The END OF THE DREAM XI. THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP XII. THE MARK OF SHAME XIII. The BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS . XIV. DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN XV. THE SMILE OF GOD . . . XVI. THE HEART OF A WOMAN . . XVII. MIGNON . . . . . XVIII. A POLITICAL COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA XIX. THE LAST THUNDER SONG . . XX. THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES . . . . 168 182 194 . . AMS ARE R THA . 204 219 . . 229 . . .. . 288 THE OLD CRY O Mourner in the silence of the hills, O Thing of ancient griefs, art thou a wolf? I heard a cry that shook me-was it thine? Low in the mystic purple of the west The weird moon hangs, a tarnished silver slug: Vast, vast the hollow empty night curves down, Stabbed with the glass-like glinting of the stars, And, save when that wild cry grows up anon, No sound but this dull murmur of the hush- The winter hush. . Hark! once again thy cry! Thy strange, sharp, ice-like, tenuous complaint, As though the spirit of this frozen waste Pinched with the cruel frost yearned summerward! I know thou art a wolf that criest so: Though hidden in the shadow, I can see Thy four feet huddled in the numbing frost, Thy snout, breath-whitened, pointing to the sky: Poor pariah of the plains, I know 'tis thou. And yet—and yet-I heard a kinsman shout! Down through the intricate centuries it came, A far-blown cry! From old-world graves it grew, Up through the tumbled walls of ancient realms, Up through the lizard-haunted heaps of stone, Up through the choking ashes of old fanes, The pitiful debris where Grandeur dwelt, Out of the old-world wilderness it grew The cry I know! And I have heard my Kin! THE ALIEN \HROUGH the quiet night, crystalline with the pervading spirit of the frost, under I prairie skies of mystic purple pierced with the glass-like glinting of the stars, fled Antoine. Huge and hollow-sounding with the clatter of the pinto's hoofs hung the night above and about—lone- some, empty, bitter as the soul of him who fled. A weary age of flight since sunset; and now the midnight saw the thin-limbed, long-haired pony slowly losing his nerve, tottering, rasping in the throat. With pitiless spike-spurred heels the rider hurled the beast into the empty night. “ Gwan! you blasted cayuse! you overgrown wolf- dog! you pot-bellied shonga! Keep up that tune; I'm goin' somewheres. What'd I steal you fer? Pleasure? He, he, he, ho, ho, ho! I reckon; pleas- ure for the half-breed! Gwan!” Suddenly rounding a bank of sand, the pinto sighted the broad, ice-bound river, an elysian stream of glinting silver under the stars. Sniffing and crouching upon its haunches at the sudden glow that dwindled a gleaming thread into the further dusk, the jaded beast received a series of vicious jabs from the spike-spurred heels. It groaned and lunged for- II 12 THE LONESOME TRAIL ward again, taking with uncertain feet the glaring path ahead, and awakening dull, snarling thunder in the under regions of the ice. Slipping, struggling, doing its brute best to overcome fatigue and the un- certainty of its path, the pinto covered the ice. "Doin' a war dance, eh?” growled the man with bitter mirth, and gouging the foaming bloody flanks of the animal. “Gwan! Set up that tune; I want fast music, 'cause I'm goin' somewheres don't know where—somewheres out there in the shadders! Come here, will you ? Take that and that and that! Now will you kick the scen'ry back'ards ? By the- I". The brutal cries of the man were cut short as he shot far over the pommel, lunging headlong over the pinto's head, and striking with head and shoulders upon the glare ice. When he stopped sliding he lay very still for a few moments. Then he groaned, sat up, and found that the bluffs and the river and the stars and the universe in general were whirling gid- dily, with himself for the dizzy centre. With uncertain arms he reached out, endeavouring to check the sickening motion of things with the sheer force of his powerful hands. He was thrown down like a weakling wrestling with a giant. He lay still, cursing in a whisper, trying to steady the universe, until the motion passed, leaving in his nerves the sickening sensation incident to the sudden ending of a rapid flight. With great care Antoine raised himself upon his elbows and gazed about with an imbecile leer. Then THE ALIEN 13 he began to remember; remembered that he was hunted; that he was an outcast, a man of no race; remembered dimly, and with a malignant grin, a por- tion of a long series of crimes; remembered that the last was horse-stealing and that some of the others concerned blood. And as he remembered, he felt with horrible distinctness the lariat tightening about his neck—the lariat that the men of Cabanne's trad. ing post were bringing on fleet horses, nearer, nearer, nearer through the silent night. Antoine shuddered and got to his feet, looming huge against the star-sprent surface of the ice, as he turned a face of bestial malevolence down trail and listened for the beat of hoofs. There was only the dim, hollow murmur that dwells at the heart of silence. “Got a long start," he observed, with the chuckle of a man whom desperation has made careless. “Hel-lo!” A pale, semicircular glow, like the flare of a burn- ing straw stack a half day's journey over the hills, had grown up at the horizon of the east; and as the man stared, still in a maze from his recent fall, the moon heaved a tarnished silver arc above the mystic rim of sky, flooding with new light the river and the bluffs. The man stood illumined—a big brute of a man, heavy-limbed, massive-shouldered, with the slouching stoop and the alert air of an habitual skulker. He moved uneasily, as though he had suddenly become visible to some lurking foe. He * THE LONESOME TRAIL glanced nervously about him, fumbled at the butt of a six-shooter at his belt, then catching sight of the blotch of huddled dusk that was the fallen pinto, the meaning of the situation flashed upon him. “That cussed cayuse! Gone and done hisself like as not! Damn me! the whole creation's agin me!” He made for the pony, snarling viciously as though its exhausted, lacerated self were the visible body of the inimical universe. He grasped the reins and jerked them violently. The brute only groaned and let its weary head fall heavily upon the ice. “Get up!” Antoine began kicking the pony in the ribs, bring- ing forth great hollow bellowings of pain. “O, you won't get up, eh? Agin me too, eh? Take that, and that and that! I wished you was everybody in the whole world and hell to oncet, I'd make you beller now I got you down! Take that!” The man with a roar of anger fell upon the pony, snarling, striking, kicking, but the pony only groaned. Its limbs could no longer support its body. When Antoine had exhausted his rage, he got up, gave the pony a parting kick on the nose, and started off at a dogtrot across the glinting ice towards the bluffs beyond. Ever and anon he stopped and whirled about with hand at ear. He heard only the sullen murmur of the silence, broken occasionally by the whine and pop of the ice and the plaintive, bitter wail of the coyotes S THE ALIEN 15 somewhere in the hills, like the heartbroken cry of the lonesome prairie, yearning for the summer. “O, I wouldn't howl if I was you," muttered the man to the coyotes; “I wished I was a coyote or a grey wolf, knowin' what I do. I'd be a man-killer and a cattle-killer, I would. And then I'd have peo- ple of my own. Wouldn't be no cur of a half-breed runnin' from his kind. O, I wouldn't howl if I was you!" He proceeded at a swinging trot across the half mile of ice and halted under the bluffs. He listened intently. A far sound had grown up in the hollow night—vague, but unmistakable. It was the clatter of hoofs far away, but clear in faintness, for the cold snap had made the prairie one vast sounding-board. A light snow had fallen the night before, and the trail of the refugee was traced in the moonlight, dis- tinct as a wagon track. Antoine felt the pitiless pinch of the approaching lariat as he listened. Then his accustomed bitter weariness of life came upon the pariah. “What's the use of me runnin'? What am I run- nin' to? Nothin'-only more of the same thing I'm runnin' from; lonesomeness and hunger and the like of that. Gettin' awake stiff and cold and half starved and cussin' the daylight 'cause it's agin me like every- thing else, and gives me away. Sneakin' around in the brush till dark, eatin' when I can like a damned wolf, then goin' to sleep hopin' it'll never get day. But it always does. It's all night somewheres, I guess, 16 THE LONESOME TRAIL CL. spite of what the missionaries says. That's fer me night always! No comin' day, no gettin' up, some- where to hide snug in always !” . He walked on with head dropped forward upon his breast, skirting the base of the bluffs, now seem- ingly oblivious of the sound of hoofs that grew mo- mently more distinct. As he walked, he was dimly conscious of passing the dark mouth of a hole running back into the clay of a bluff. He proceeded until he found himself again at the edge of the river, staring down into a broad, black fissure in the ice, caused, doubtless, by the dash of the current crossing from the other side. A terrible, dark, but alluring thought seized him. Here was the place—the doorway to that place where it was always night! Why not go in? There would be no more running away, no more hiding, no more hatred of men, no more lonesomeness! Here was the place at last. He stepped forward and stooped to gaze down into the door of night. The rushing waters made a dis- mal, moaning sound. He stared transfixed. Yes, he would go! Suddenly a shudder ran through his limbs. He gave a quick exclamation of terror! He leaped back and raised his face to the skies. How kind and soft and gentle and good to look upon was the sky! He gazed about—it was so fair a world! How good it was to breathe! He longed to throw his great, brute arms about creation and THE ALIEN 19 with angry breath, snarlings of hate, yelps of pain, growls, whines. At last the man knew that it was a grey wolf he fought. He reached for its throat, but felt his hand caught in a hot, wet, powerful trap of teeth. He grasped the under jaw with a grip that made his an- tagonist howl with pain. Then with his other hand he felt about in the darkness, groping for the throat. He found it, seized it with a vice-like clutch, shut his teeth together, and threw all of the power of his massive frame into the struggle. Slowly, slowly, the struggles of the wolf became weaker. The lean, hairy form fell limply, and the man laughed with a strange, sobbing, guttural mirth -for he was master. Then again he felt the trickle of blood upon his cheek, the ache of his bitten hand. His anger re- turned with double fury. He kicked the limp body as he lay beside it, never releasing his grip. Suddenly he forgot to kick. There were sounds! He heard the thump thump of hoofs passing his place of refuge. Then they ceased. There were sounds of voices coming dimly; then after a while the hoofs passed again, and there was a voice that said “ saved hangin' anyway." The hoof beats grew dimmer, and Antoine knew by their hollow sound that his pursuers had begun to cross the ice on the back trail. He again gave his attention to the wolf. It lay very still. A feeling of supreme comfort came over Antoine. It was 20 THE LONESOME TRAIL sweet to be a master. He laid his head upon the wolf's motionless body. He was very weary, he had conquered, and he would sleep upon his prey. He awoke feeling a warm, rasping something upon his wounded cheek. A faint light came in at the entrance of the place. It was morning. In his sleep Antoine had moved his head close to the muzzle of the wolf. Now, utterly conquered, bruised, unable to arise, the brute was feebly licking the blood from the man's wound. Antoine's sense of mastery after his sound sleep made him kind for once. He was safe and something had caressed him, altho' it was only a soundly-beaten wolf. “You pore devil !” said Antoine with a sudden softness in his voice; " I done you up, didn't I? You hain't so bad, I guess; but if I hadn't done you, I'd got done myself. Hurt much, you pore devil, eh?” He stroked the side of the animal, whereupon it cried out with pain. * Pretty sore, eh? Well as long as I'm bigger'n you, I'll be good to you, I will. I ain't so bad, am I? You treat me square and you won't never get no bad deals from the half-breed; mind that. Hel-lo! you're a Miss Wolf, ain't you? Well, for the present, I'm a Mister Wolf, and I'm a good un! Let me hunt you up a name; somethin' soft like a woman, 'cause you did touch me kind of tender like. Susette! —that's it-Susette. You're Susette now. I hain't got no people, so I'm a wolf from now on, and my THE ALIEN 21 name's Antoine. Susette and Antoine-sounds pretty good, don't it? Say, I know as much about bein' a wolf as you do, Can't teach me nothin' about sneak- in' and hidin' and fightin'! Say, old girl, hain't I a tol'able good fighter now? O, I know I am, and when you need it again, you're goin' to get it good and hard, Susette; mind that. Hain't got nothin' to eat about the house, have you, old girl? Then, bein' head of the family with a sick woman about, I'm goin' huntin'. Don't you let no other wolf come skulkin' around! You know me! I'll wear his skin when I come back, if you don't mind." And he went out. Before noon he returned bringing three jack rab- bits, having shot them with his six-shooter. “Well, Susette,” said he, “got any appetite?” He passed his hand over the wolf's snout caress- ingly. The wolf Alinched in fear, but the man con- tinued his caresses until she licked his hand. “Now we're friends and we can live together peaceable, can't we? Took a big family row, though. Families needs stirrin' up now and then, I reckon.” He skinned a rabbit and cut off morsels of meat. “Here, Susette, I'm goin' to fill your hide first, 'cause you've been so good since the row that I'm half beginnin' to love you a little. There, that's it- eat. Does me good to see you eat, pore, sick Susette!" The wolf took the morsels from his hand and a look almost tame came into her eyes. When she had 22 THE LONESOME TRAIL eaten a rabbit, Antoine had a meal of raw flesh. Then he sat down beside her and stroked her nose and neck and flanks. There was an air of home about the place. He was safe and sheltered, had a full stomach, and there was a fellow creature near him that showed kindness, altho' it had been won with a beating. But this man had long been accustomed to possessing by violence, and he was satisfied. “Susette," he said in a soft voice; “ don't get mean again when you get well. I want to live quiet and like somethin' that likes me oncet. If you'll be good, I'll get you rabbits and antelope and birds, and you won't need to hunt no more nor go about with your belly flappin' together. And I know how to make fire --somethin' you don't know, wise as you be; and I'll keep you warm and pet you. “Is it a bargain? All you need to do is just be good, keepin' your teeth out'n my cheek. I've been lonesome always. I hain't got no people. Do you know who your dad was, Susette? Neither do I. Some French trader was mine, I guess. We're in the same boat there. My mother was an Omaha. O Susette, I know what it means to set a stranger in my mother's lodge. 'Wagah peazzha!' [no good white man], that's what the Omahas called me ever since I was a little feller. And the white men said 'damn Injun.' And where am I? O, hangin' onto the edge of things, gettin' ornry and nasty and bad! I've stole horses and killed people and cussed fer days, Susette. And I want to rest; I want to love THE ALIEN 23 somethin'. Cabanne's men down at the post would laugh to hear me sayin' that. But I do. I want to love somethin'. Tried to oncet; her name was Susette, jest like your'n. She was a trader's daugh- ter-a pretty French girl. That was before I got bad. I talked sweet to her like I'm a talkin' to you, and she kind of liked it. But the old man Lecroix- that was her dad—he showed me the trail and he says: 'Go that way and go fast, you damn Injun!' “I went, Susette, but I made him pay, I did. I seen him on his back a-grinnin' straight up at the stars; and since then I hain't cared much. I killed several after that, and I called 'em all Lecroix ! “Be a good girl, Susette, and I'll stick to you. I'm a good fighter, you know, and I'm a good grub-hun- ter, too. I learned all that easy." He continued caressing the wolf, and she licked his hand when he stroked her muzzle. Days passed; the winter deepened; the heavy snows came. Antoine nursed his bruised companion back to health. Through the bitter nights he kept a fire burning at the entrance of the hole. The depth of the snow made it improbable that any should learn his whereabouts; and by that time the news must have spread from post to post that Antoine, the outlaw half-breed, had drowned himself in the ice-fissure. The man had used all his ammunition, and his six- shooter had thus become useless. With the skill of an Indian he wrought a bow and arrows. He made snowshoes and continued to hunt, keeping the wolf 24 THE LONESOME TRAIL in meat until she grew strong and fat with the unac- customed luxurious life. Also she became very tame. During her weakness the man had subdued her, and through the long nights she lay nestled within the man's great arms and slept. When the snow became crusted, Antoine and Susette went hunting together, she trotting at his heels like a dog. To her he had come to be only an un- usually large wolf—a masterful male, a good fighter, strong to kill, a taker of his own. One evening in late December, when the low moon threw a shaft of cold silver into the mouth of the lair, Antoine lay huddled in his furs, listening to the long, dirge-like calls of the wolves wandering inward from the vast pitiless night. Susette also listened, sitting upon her haunches beside the man with her ears pricked forward. When the far away cries of her kinspeople arose into a compelling major sound, dying away into the merest shadow of a pitiful minor, she switched her tail uneasily, shuffled about nery. ously, sniffing and whining. Then she began pacing with an eager swing up and down the place to the opening and back to the man, sending forth the cry of kinship whenever she reached the moonlit entrance. “Night's cold, Susette," said Antoine; "tain't no time fer huntin'. Hain't I give you enough to eat? Come here and snuggle up and let's sleep." He caught the wolf and with main force held her THE ALIEN 25 down beside him. She snarled savagely and snapped her jaws together, struggling out of his arms and going to the opening where she cried out into the frozen stillness. The answer of her kind floated back in doleful chorus. "Don't go!” begged the man. “Susette, my pretty Susette! I'll be so lonesome.” As the chorus died, the wolf gave a loud yelp and rushed out into the night. A terrible rage seized An- toine. He leaped from his furs and ran out after the wolf. She fled with a rapid, swinging trot over the scintillating snow toward the concourse of her people. The man fled after, slipping, falling, getting up, running, running, and ever the wolf widened the glittering stretch of snow between them. To An- toine, the ever-widening space of glinting coldness vaguely symbolised the barrier that seemed growing between him and his last companion. “Susette, O, Susette ! ” he cried at last, breathless and exhausted. His cry was dirgelike, even as the wolves'; thin and sharp and icelike—the voice of the old world-ache. She had disappeared in the dusk of a ravine. An- toine, huddled in the snows with his face upon his knees, sobbed in the winter stillness. At last, with slow and faltering step, he returned to his lair; and for the first time in months he felt the throat-pang of the alien. He threw himself down upon the floor of the cave and cursed the world. Then he cursed Susette. 26 THE LONESOME TRAIL "It's some other wolf !” he hissed. “Some other grey dog that she's gone to see. O, damn him! damn his grey hide! I'll kill her when she comes back!” He took out his knife and began whetting it viciously upon his boot. “I'll cut her into strips and eat 'em! Wasn't I good to her? O, I'll cut her into strips !". He whetted his knife for an hour, cursing the while through his set teeth. At last his anger grew into a foolish madness. He hurled himself upon the bunch of furs beside him and imagined that they were Susette. He set his teeth into the furs, he crushed them with his hands, he tore at them with his nails. Then in the impotence of his anger, he fell upon his face and sobbed himself to sleep. Strange visions passed before him. Again he killed Lecroix, and saw the dead face grinning at the stars. Again he sat in his mother's lodge and wept because he was a stranger. Again he was fleeing, fleeing, fleeing from a leather noose that hung above him like a black cloud, and circled and lowered and raised and lowered until it swooped down upon him and closed about his neck. With a yell of fright he awoke from his night- mare. His head throbbed, his mouth was parched. At last day came in sneakingly through the opening- a dull, melancholy light; and with it came Susette, sniffing, with the bristles of her neck erect. “Susette! Susette!" cried the man joyfully. He no longer thought of killing her. He seized THE ALIEN 27 n . her in his arms; he kissed her frost-whitened muzzle; he caressed her; he called her a woman. She received his caresses with disdain. Whereat the man re- doubled his acts of fondness. He fed her and petted her as she ate; whereat the bristles on her neck fell. She nosed him half fondly. And Antoine, man-like, was glad again. He con- tented himself with touching the frayed hem of the garment of Happiness. He ate none that day. He said to himself, “I won't hunt till it's all gone; she can have it all.” He was afraid to leave Susette. He was afraid to take her with him again into the land of her own people. Antoine was jealous. All day he was kind to her with the pitiful kind- ness of a doting lover for his unfaithful mistress. That night she consented to lie within his arms, and Antoine cried softly as he whispered into her ear: “Susette, I hain't a goin' to be jealous no more. You've been a bad girl, Susette. Don't do it again. I won't be mean less'n you let him come skulkin' round here, damn his grey hide! But O, Susette "- his voice was like a spoken pang—“I wish–I wisht I was that other wolf !”. The next morning Antoine did not get up. He felt sore and exhausted. By evening his heart was beating like a hammer. His head ached and swam; his burning eyes saw strange, uncertain visions. “Susette," he called, “I hain't quite right; come here and let me touch you again.” an a bad g"; vou let h o Susette , 28 THE LONESOME TRAIL Night was falling and Susette sat sullenly apart, listening for the call of her people. She did not go to him. All night the man tossed and raved. After a lingering age of delirious wanderings, dizzy flights from huge pitiless pursuers, he became conscious of the daylight. He raised his head feebly and looked about the den. Susette was gone. A fury of jealousy again seized Antoine. She had gone to that other wolf-he felt certain of that. He tried to arise, but the fever had weakened him so that he lay impotently, torn alternately with anger and longing. Suddenly a frost-whitened snout was thrust in at the opening. It was Susette. The man was too weak to cry out his joy, but his eyes filled with a soft light. Susette entered sniffing strangely, whining and switching her tail as she came. At her heels followed another grey wolf—a male, larger-boned, lanker, with a more powerful snout. He whined and moved his tail nervously at sight of the man. Antoine lay staring impotently upon the intruder. “ So that's him," thought the man; “I wisht I could get up." A delirious anger shook him; he struggled to arise, but could not. “O God,” he moaned; it was an un- usual thing for this man to say the word so; " O God, please le' me get up and fight!” A harsh growl stopped him. The grey intruder approached him with a rapid, sinuous movement of the tail. His jaws grinned hideously with long sharp 30 THE LONESOME TRAIL tive, the keeper of his own. Lacerated with the snap- ping of powerful jaws, bleeding from his face and hands, the man felt that he was winning. With a whining cry, less than half human, he succeeded in fixing his left hand upon the hairy throat, crushed the wolf down upon its back, and with prodigious strength, began pressing the fingers of his right hand in between the protruding lower ribs. He would tear them out! He would thrust his hand in among the vitals of his foe! All the while Susette, whining and switching her tail, watched with glowing eyes the struggle of the males, and waited for the proof of the master. At this juncture she arose with a nervous, threat- ening swaying of the head, approached the two cau- tiously, then hurled herself into the encounter. She leaped with a savage yelp upon him who had long been her master. The man's grip relaxed. He fell back and threw out his arms in which once more the weakness of the fever came. “ Susette!” he gasped; “I was good to you; His voice was choked into a wheeze. Susette had gripped him by the throat, and the two were upon him. She had gone back to the ways of her kind-and the man was an alien. II THE LOOK IN THE FACE It was after one of the Saturday night feasts at No-Teeth Lodge that I drew my old friend, Half-a-Day, to one side where the shadows were not broken by the firelight. “Tell me another story, Half-a-Day," I said. He grunted and puffed at his pipe in silence. “Have I not given much cow meat to the feast and did I not throw silver on the drums ? " “Ah," he assented. "Then I wish to hear a story." “You are my friend,” he began with majestic de- liberation, speaking in his own tongue; “ for we have eaten meat together from the same kettle and looked upon each other through the pipe smoke. It will therefore make me glad to tell you a story about buffalo meat- " “Ah, about a hunt?” * And a me-zhinga [girl]—_" “Oh, a love story!”. “ And a man whom I wished to kill." “Good! And did you kill him?" “My brother is like all his white brothers, who leap at things. Never will they wait. If I said yes or no, then would I have no story." 31 32 THE LONESOME TRAIL “Then give me a puff at the pipe, Half-a-Day, and I will be patient." Half-a-Day gave me the pipe and began, with eyes staring through the fire and far away down the long trail that leads back to youth. “Many winters and summers ago I was a young man; now I am slow when I walk and my head looks much to the ground. But I remember, and now again I am young for a little while. I can smell the fires in the evening that roared upward then, even tho' they are cold these many moons and their ashes scattered. And I can see the face of Paezha [flower], the one daughter of Douba Mona, for my eyes are young too. And Douba Mona was a great man. “Paezha was not so big as the other squaws, and could never be so big, because she was not made for building tepees and bringing wood and water. She was little and thin and good to see like some of your white sisters, and there was no face in the village of my people like her face. Her feet touched the ground with a light touch like a little wind from the south; her body bent easily like a willow; I think her eyes were like stars.” I smiled here, because the simile has become so trite among us white lovers. But Half-a-Day saw me not; he looked down the long trail that leads back to youth, leading through and beyond the fire. “And I looked upon her face until I could see nothing else—not the sunrise nor the sunset nor the moon and stars. Her face became a medicine face to THE LOOK IN THE FACE 33 me; because I was a young man and it was good to see her. And also, I was a poor young man; my father had few ponies, and her father had as many as one could see with a big look. “But I was strong and proud and in the long nights I dreamed of Paezha, till one day I said: 'I will have her and I will fight all the braves in all the villages before I will give her up. Then afterwards I will get many ponies like her father.' “So one evening when the meat boiled over the fires, I went down to the big spring and hid in the grass, for it was the habit of Paezha to bring cold water to her father in the evenings, carrying it in a little kettle no bigger than your head covering, for she was not big. "And I lay waiting. I could not hear the bugs nor the running of the spring water nor the wind in the willows, because my heart sang so loud. “And I heard a step—and it was Paezha. She leaned over the spring, and looked down; then there were two Paezhas, so my wish for her was doubled and had the strength of two wishes. “I arose from the grass. She looked upon me and fear came into her eyes; for there was that in my face which wished to conquer, and I was very strong. Like the tae-chuga [antelope] she leaped and ran with wind-feet down the valley. I was with- out breath when I caught her, and I lifted her with arms too strong, for she cried.” Half-a-Day reached toward me for the pipe and 34 THE LONESOME TRAIL puffed strongly. His eyes were masterful, with the world-old spirit of the conquering male in them. “ Then as I held her, I looked upon her face and saw what I had never seen before: a look in the face that was sad and weak and frightened, begging for pity. Only it was not all that; it was shining like the sun through a cloud, and it was stronger than I, for I became weak and could hold her no longer. A little while she looked with wide eyes upon me; and then I saw what makes the squaws break their backs carrying wood and water and zhinga zhingas [babies] ; also what makes men fight and do great deeds that are not selfish. “Then she ran from me and I fell upon my face and cried like a zhinga zhinga at the back of a squaw -I know not why." Half-a-Day puffed hard at his pipe, then sighing handed it to me. “Have you seen that look in the face, White Brother?” he said, staring upon me with eyes that mastered me. “I am very young," I answered. “But when you see it, it will make you old," con- tinued Half-a-Day; " for when I arose and went back to the village I was old and nothing was the same. From that time I could look into the eyes of the biggest brave without trembling, for I was a man and I had seen the look. ." And it was in the time when the sunflowers die, the time for the hunting of bison. So the whole tribe THE LOOK IN THE FACE 35 made ready for the hunt. One morning we rode out of the village on the bison trail; and we were so many that the foremost were lost in the hills when the last left the village. And we all sang, but the ponies neighed at the lonesome lodges, for they were leaving home. “Many days we travelled toward the evenings, and there was song in me even when I did not sing; for always I rode near Paezha, who rode in a blanket swung on poles between two ponies, for she was the daughter of a rich man. And I spoke gentle words to her, and she smiled—because she had seen my weakness in the valley of the big spring. Also I picked flowers for her, and she took them. “But one day Black Dog rode on the other side of her and spoke soft words. And a strange look was on the face of Paezha, but not the look I had seen. So I drove away the bitterness of my heart and spoke good words to Black Dog. But he was sullen, and also he was better to look upon than I. I can say this now, for I have felt the winds of many winters. “Many sleeps we rode toward the places of the evening. The moon was thin and small and bent like a child's bow when we started, and it hung low above the sunset. And as we travelled it grew bigger, ever farther toward the place of morning, until it was like a white sun. Then at last it came forth no more, but rested in its black tepee after its steep trail. “And all the while we strained our eyes from many lonesome hilltops, but saw no bison. Scarcer and 36 THE LONESOME TRAIL scarcer became the food, for the summer had been a summer of fighting; we had conquered and feasted much, hunted little. “ So it happened that we who were strong took less meat that the weaker might live until we found the bison. And all the time the strength of Paezha's face grew upon me, so that I divided my meat with her. It made me sing to see her eat. “One day she said to me: 'Why do you sing, Half-a-Day, when the people are sad?' And I said: 'I sing because I am empty. And Black Dog, who rode upon the other side, he did not sing. So she said to him: “Why do you not sing, Black Dog? Is it because we do not find the bison ?' And Black Dog said: "I do not sing because I am empty. “ All day I was afraid that Paezha had judged between us, seeing me so light of thought and deed. “One evening we stopped for the night and there was not enough meat left to keep us three sleeps longer. The squaws did not sing as they pitched the tepees. They were empty, the braves were empty, and the zhinga zhingas whined like little baby wolves at their mothers' backs, for the milk they drank was thin milk. No one spoke. The fires boomed up and made the hills sound as with the bellowing of bulls, and the sound mocked us. The dark came down; we sat about the fires but we did not speak. We groaned, for we were very empty, and we could not eat until we had slept. Once every sleep wę ate, and we had eaten once. 38 THE LONESOME TRAIL dreams of Paezha. And on the evening of the third sunlight I stopped upon a hill, and turned my pony loose to feed. I was sick and weak because my emp- tiness had come back upon me and I had not yet found the bison. I fell upon my face and moaned, and my emptiness sent me to sleep. “When I awoke, someone sat beside me—and it was Black Dog. He breathed soft words. 'I have come to watch over Half-a-Day,' he said, 'because I am older and a bigger man.' “I spoke not a word, but my heart was warm to- ward Black Dog, for my dreams of Paezha had made me kind. "Well I know,' he said, and his voice was soft as a woman's; 'well I know what Half-a-Day dreams about. And I have come to watch over him that his dream may come true. " Then being a young man and full of kindness, I told Black Dog of the look I had seen in the face of Paezha. And he bit his lips and made a sound far down in his throat that was not pleasant to hear. And I fell to sleep wondering much. “When I awoke, the ponies were gone, the meat was gone, Black Dog was gone. I grew strong as a bear. I shrieked into the stillness! I shook my fists at the sun! I cursed Black Dog! I stumbled on over the hills and valleys, shouting, singing, hurling big words of little meaning into the yellow day. “Before night came I found the body of a dead wolf, and I fell upon it like a crow. I tore its flesh 40 THE LONESOME TRAIL soft words to Paezha, brave words to Douba Mona, until I was almost forgotten. “But now I was a great man among my people, and Black Dog could not raise his head, for he had “And in the time of the first frosts we reached our village and Paezha became my squaw. Also I got the ponies." Here Half-a-Day paused to fill his pipe. “ It is a good story, Half-a-Day," I said. Half- a-Day lit his pipe, stared long into the glow of the embers, for the fires had fallen, and sighed. “I have not spoken yet," he said;" for one day in the time of the first snow, Paezha lay dead in my lodge, and my breast ached. Black Dog had killed her at the big spring. At the same place where I had first seen the look, there he killed her. “I remember that I sat beside her two sleeps and cried like a zhinga zhinga. And my friends came to me, whispering bitter words into my ears. “Kill Black Dog,' they said. And I said: 'Bring him here to me, and I will kill him; my legs will not carry me.' “But the fathers of the council would not have it so. And when they had buried her on the hill above the village, I awoke as from a long sleep, a very long sleep, and I was full of hate. They kept me in my lodge. They would not let me kill. I wished to kill ! I wished to tear him as I tore the stinking wolf with my teeth! I wished to kill!”. Half-a-Day had arisen to his feet, his fists clenched, THE LOOK IN THE FACE 41 his eyes shining with a cold light. He made a tragic figure in the dull, blue glow of the embers. " Come, Half-a-Day," I said, “it is long passed, and now it is only a story." " It is more than a story!” he said. "" I lived it. I wished to kill !” He sat down again, and a softer light came into his eyes. “And the time came,” he went on with a weary voice, “when Black Dog should be cast forth from the tribe, according to the old custom. I said, 'I will follow Black Dog, and I will see him die.' And he was cast forth. I followed, and it was very cold. The snow whined under my feet, and I followed in the night. “But Black Dog did not know I followed. I was ever near him like a shadow. I did not sleep; I watched Black Dog. I meant to see him die. " In his first sleep I crept upon him. I stole his meat; I stole his weapons. Now he would die, and I would be there to see. I would laugh, I would sing while he died. "In the cold, pale morning I lay huddled in a clump of sage and I saw him get up, look for his meat and weapons, then stagger away into the lonesome places of the snow. And I sang a low song to myself. The time would come when I would see Black Dog die. I did not feel the cold; I did not grow weary; I was never hungry. And in the evenings I was ever near enough to hear him groan as he wrapped himself 42 THE LONESOME TRAIL in his blankets. Often I crept up to him and looked upon his face in the light of the stars, and I saw my time coming, for his face was thinner and not so good to look upon as in the time when the sunflowers died. "I could have killed him, but then he could not have heard me sing, he could not have heard me laugh. So I waited and followed and watched. I ate my meat raw that Black Dog might not see my fire. Also I watched to see that he found nothing to eat; and he found nothing. “One day I lay upon the summit of a hill and saw him totter in the valley. Then I could be quiet no longer. I raised my voice and shouted: ‘Fall, Black Dog! Even so Half-a-Day fell when Black Dog stole his meat and his pony! “And I saw him get up and stare about, for I was hidden. Then his voice came up to me over the snow; it was a thin voice: 'I know you, Half-a-Day! Come and kill me!! “ 'Half-a-Day never killed a sick man nor a *squaw,' I shouted, and then I laughed—a cold, bitter laugh. Then Black Dog shook his fists at the four corners of the sky and stumbled off into the hills, and I followed. Now my time was very near, for Black Dog felt my nearness and he knew that he would die and I would see him. “ And one evening my time came. Black Dog was in the valley by a frozen stream, and he fell upon his face, sending forth a thin cry as he fell—thin and ice- like. He did not get up. He lay very still. MCT. THE LOOK IN THE FACE “I ran down to where he lay—and I laughed, laughed, laughed. I heard him groan. I rolled him over on his back and looked upon his face. “I wish I had not looked upon his face! “He opened his eyes and they were very dim and sunken. His face was sharp. I sat down beside him. I said, “Now die, and I will sing about it.' “Then his face changed. It became a squaw's face—and it had the look!-a look that was sad and weak and frightened and begging for pity. And it seemed to me that it was not the face of Black Dog any more. It had the look! I had seen it in the face of Paezha by the spring! “Now since I have many winters behind me, I wonder if it was not a coward's face; but then it was not so. I grew soft. There was a great springtime in my breast. The ice was breaking up. I wrapped my blankets about him. I gave him meat. He stared at me and ate like a wolf. I spoke soft words. I made a fire from the brush that was on the frozen stream. I warmed him and he grew stronger. All night I watched him and in the morning I said: 'Take my bow and arrows, Black Dog; I wish to die. Go on and live.' For I had lost the wish to kill; I only wished to die. And he said no word; but his eyes were changed. “I staggered away on the back trail. I had no meat, I had no blankets, I had no weapons. I meant to die. “But I did not die. When I lay down at night, 44 THE LONESOME TRAIL worn-out and half frozen, someone wrapped blankets about me and built a fire by me. In the mornings I found food beside me. And so it was for many sleeps until at last I came to the village of my peo ple, broken, caring for nothing. And I was thin, my face was sharp, my eyes were sunken, my step was slow. “And the people looked upon me with wonder, saying: 'Half-a-Day has come back from killing Black Dog. “ But the truth was different." When Half-a-Day had finished, he stared long into the fire without speaking. “Do you think Black Dog was all a coward?” I asked at length. "Perhaps he only loved too much.” “I do not know," said Half-a-Day; “I only know sometimes I wish I had not looked upon his face." III FEATHER FOR FEATHER IUM-UM-UM, tum-um-um, went the drums beaten by the hands of the old men —too old for wars, but now grown mo- mentarily youthful with the victory of the young men who were returning from battle. Tum-um-um, tum-um-um! So sang the drums— great, glad buckskin drums, exultant beneath the staccato blows of the old men's drumsticks. Tum-um- um, tum-um-um! Now the women, dressed in their gayest garments of dyed buckskin, radiant in beads, with the spirit of song upon their painted faces, came forth in a long file from a lodge and approached the centre of the open space about which were grouped the mud lodges of the village. There, in the centre, sat the old men. The drums were singing a glad song, in sullen tones, in this hour of victory, for a runner, breathless with his speed, had brought the good news when the sun was half- way down the sky, and now the slowly setting sun was blazing on the evening hills. Soon the whole victorious band, fresh from their fight with the Sioux, would come over the hills like an eager, dusty wind, clamorous with glad tongues 45 46 THE LONESOME TRAIL and thunderous with the driven hoofs of captured ponies. So the drums sang and the women came forth and circled about them, peering beneath hands raised browward, into the deepening shadows of the valley down which the band would sweep. They swelled the song of victory, the song of wel- come to the victors, and the look of welcome was already upon their faces as they searched the deepen- ing shadows. There came a rumble over the hills as of a hidden storm in time of drouth, thundering mockingly in the rainless air. The drummers lifted their sticks with trembling hands and listened—with one accord they all listened for the shouts and the hoof beats. Now the faint treble of distant shouting pierced the growing rumble of the thunder. It was the braves! They were returning with much glory and many ponies. The drumsticks fell snarlingly upon the taut buckskin, but the sound seemed only a whis- per, for the entire village was shouting with a tumult that made the grazing ponies snort upon the hillsides and gallop away with ears pricked wonderingly. “They come! They come!” The villagers thronged upon that side of the vil- lage that looked toward the hills from whence the thunder deepened. A dust cloud gathered behind the hills. It grew until it caught the horizontal sunlight and seemed a scintillating tower of victory. Sud- denly the hill above the valley was thronged with FEATHER FOR FEATHER 47 U . mounted braves, waving their weapons above their heads and shouting, and a sunlit cloud of glory seemed about them. The band swept down the hillside and down the valley, and the dust cloud thickened under the im- petuous hoofs that beat the parched and yellow prai- rie. When they drew near the opening in the circle of lodges, the foremost hurled his panting pony back upon its haunches and the others reared and halted behind, champing at the restraining thongs. "A-ho!” shouted the foremost, holding his weapons above his head. “We come from the Sioux! We have many ponies and also scalp-locks ! Sing! For we have fought a good fight and we are not ashamed!”. A great shout went up from the village, and the drums snarled. Slowly, majestically, the circle of women began moving about the drums, keeping time to the rhythmic beats with a sideward shuffling of their feet in the dust. In a monotonous minor key the singing of the women began-at first like the crooning of an Indian mother to a restless child when the camp fires burn blue, and all the braves are snor- ing in the dark. Then it rose into the mournful wail of a wife looking upon a dead face-a wordless, eloquent song. Then, with a burst, it rose into a treble cry, and words became dimly recognisable amid the ecstasy. "We come, we come, and we are not ashamed!” sang the women to the snarling of the drums. “Let 48 THE LONESOME TRAIL the fires roar and the bison meat be cooked, for we have fought, and now we wish to eat! “Let the women dance and sing that we may be glad after our fighting! A-ho! A-ho! We travelled far-one sleep, two sleeps, three sleeps, but we slum- bered not! We came upon our enemies. They were hidden in the grass like badgers. They were dressed in yellow grass that they might hide. We saw them and we shouted with joy, for we were not afraid! The enemy trembled like wolves who have come to the end of the ravine and the hunters follow behind!” As the women sang, shuffling about the circle, the braves rode in single file into the enclosure of the village and formed a circle about the dance. . “I saw a big man among my enemies," sang the women, for so their song ran. “He was strong as a bear and terrible as an elk. His head was proud with eagle feathers, for many men had he killed. I did not tremble when he rushed at me; I raised my club and struck him, and he fell with his eagle feathers. He whimpered like an old woman when she becomes a child again. He said, 'I have many ponies for you, and my children will cry if I do not go back. Spare me!' But behold! I have his scalp lock !” “His scalp lock! His scalp lock!” shouted the braves, as the words of the song were drowned again in the minor drone that followed the snarl of the drums. And they waved scalp locks above their heads —the locks of the fallen Sioux. FEATHER FOR FEATHER 49 Out of the droning the song of the women grew again. It became more ecstatic, running the gamut of human passion from the shrill shriek of defiance to the mournful wail for those who had fallen in the battle. And then the shuffling stopped; the song died away into a drone and ceased, like the song of a locust at the end of a sultry evening. The drums snarled no more, a great silence fell, the sun had sunk beneath the hills. Then, in the silence and the shadows of the even- ing, one came forth from among the circle of braves, and, with a slow, majestic bending of the knees, danced in a circle about the women and the drums, that began again as an accompaniment to the song that he would sing. Round and round the circle he danced, improvising a song to the rhythm of the drums, in which he sang his prowess, and the whole village shouted when he reached the end of his song, for he told of a good fight and a strong arm, and he had been great in battle. Then, amid the shouting, another came forth to dance and sing, for he too had done great things. It was White Cloud, and he was great among his people. Round and round the circle he danced to the tune of the drums, dodging imaginary arrows, leap- ing upon imaginary foes, striking huge blows at the heads of warriors hidden in the shadow. “See!” he shouted in his song, and his voice was loud and masterful, for a murmur of praise had 50 THE LONESOME TRAIL passed among the people. “See! White Cloud brings the scalp lock of a chief. He took it alone with his strong hand. The scalp lock of a big Sioux chief! Who has done a greater deed than White Cloud? Then let the old men place the eagle feather in his hair that he may be known among his people." Once again the dancing stopped and the drums ceased their droning. White Cloud approached the old men, who slowly placed the eagle feather in his hair. But one among the assembled braves did not give his voice to the shout that ensued. His gaze narrowed with hatred as he looked upon White Cloud, and his body trembled as a strong tree that stands alone in the path of a tempest. Then as White Cloud strode proudly to the inner rim of the circle of braves, with the tall eagle feather in his hair, another came forth bearing with him his bow and his arrows. It was he who had found no voice in which to celebrate White Cloud's valour. He was tall and sinewy, and he had the clear-cut, cruel face of a hawk, now dark with a darkness deeper than the shadow of the evening. It was Lit- tle Weasel. Erect, quivering like a strong bow in the clutch of a mighty warrior, he walked into the open space, and the drums once more began their wailing. But Little Weasel raised one trembling hand and commanded silence. FEATHER FOR FEATHER 51 “Fathers," he said, and his voice was low, vibrant with the growl of a wounded beast in it, “Little Weasel needs no drums to help him fill the stillness." The people bent forward, hushed, because there was something deeper than shadow in the face of Little Weasel as he turned his hawk's gaze upon the bowed head of White Cloud. “Little Weasel has words to utter, but they are not song words nor dance words. Let the women and cowards sing and dance!” Still the head of White Cloud was bowed, and Little Weasel laughed a strange laugh. “Who took the scalplock of the big Sioux chief?” shouted Little Weasel. “I, Little Weasel, took it! One sleep, two sleeps, I kept it close beside me; for I am a young man and I wanted to hear the shouts of my people. But in the third sleep a great heaviness came upon me, and when I awoke my Sioux scalp lock had been stolen from me. Now I know the badger who crept upon me in my heaviness and stole my honour from me. Look! You have placed the eagle feather in his hair!". In the hush that filled that shadowed place naught but the heavy breathing of the people was heard. Little Weasel fitted a feathered arrow to his bow. “ See!” he cried. “I do not cry about my stolen feather. I give another!” The bow-thong twanged, the arrow sang, and lodged deep in White Cloud's breast. “Let White Cloud wear that feather in his breast 52 THE LONESOME TRAIL so that the black spirits will know him! For look! Already he is among them!” White Cloud had fallen upon his face.. Little Weasel dropped his bow upon the ground, and, rais- ing his hands above his head, he shouted into the stillness: “Fathers, I have given feather for feather!" Then a great cry broke from the assembled braves and the women shrieked. But Little Weasel shoul. dered his way through the throng and went to his lodge, laughing bitterly. That evening the fires of the feast did not roar upward into the night. There was no song; there was no babble of glad voices; there was no bubbling of kettle nor scent of meat. For a member of the tribe had been murdered by a tribesman, and the murderer, according to an an- cient custom, would be driven forth that night from the circle of the lodges into the prairie. And the people sat speechless at the dark doors of their lodges awaiting the signal. After a long and wordless waiting in the dark, the people saw the door-flap of the big council lodge swing open, and they held their breaths, for the time of the casting forth had come. Through the hush of the starlit night came Little Weasel, pacing slowly about the circle of the village, and the fathers of the council, slow with age, fol. lowed behind. Three times the outcast made the rounds, and when FEATHER FOR FEATHER 53 he began the fourth and last circle (for four is a medicine number), the old men who followed raised their faces to the starlit sky and breathed these words into the quiet: “Let the people look upon Little Weasel, our brother, for he has killed a brother and must suffer. Four times shall the bears bring forth their cubs; four times shall the lone goose fly; four times shall the frogs sing in the valleys; four times shall the sunflowers grow; and he must wander, wander. Then shall Little Weasel return and his deed shall be for- gotten. Wah-hoo-ha-a-a-a!” Then when Little Weasel came the fourth time to the opening in the circle of lodges, looking toward the place of sunrise, he saw one standing in the dark who held a pony by a thong. And Little Weasel leaped upon the pony, laughed a loud, unpleasant : laugh, and urged it southward into the night. Throughout the night the people in the village heard strange sounds. For at times somewhere in the darkness of the hills, something laughed a loud, unmirthful laugh. “Do you hear it?” the people whispered. “ It is a wolf. For sometimes in the lonesome nights they laugh so." But the people muffled their ears in their blankets, for it is not good to hear a wolf laugh almost like a man. All night long Little Weasel wandered upon the hills, holding his grazing pony and looking down upon the starlit village of his people. He laughed $$ of the hill. For at times in the village 54 THE LONESOME TRAIL loudly at times, for he was not one of those who sadden with trouble. “How can I get revenge upon my people ?” he asked himself. And as yet he could not answer. The pale dawn found him sitting upon the hills. Then he arose and mounted his pony and the three went southward—the pony, the man, and the question. A light wind blew upon his back. “How can I get revenge upon my people ?” he sang aloud in endless variation until his question wove itself into a song—a battle song, for Little Weasel had not eaten, and hunger feeds anger. But the light wind sighing at his back made no answer. "I will go to the country of the Pawnees and make them angry with my people,” he said to himself, and this seemed the answer to his question until the sun had reached its highest in the sky and the wind had fallen and the yellow prairie had become parched and bare. In the afternoon he stopped in the glare of the sun and held one wet finger above his head that he might learn the source of the wind. There was a faint breath from the south. As he stood it increased, coming in little puffs, hot and fit- ful and dry. Suddenly it came with a great puff and boomed in the arid gulches. Little Weasel shouted with joy. He had heard his answer in the booming of the sudden wind. He dismounted, and, with a flint and some dry grass, lit a little fire. FEATHER FOR FEATHER 55 The great wind fed it and it grew. Then Little Weasel collected a bunch of grass, lit it and rapidly set fire to the dry prairie. Long, yellow flames leaped up from the sun-cured buffalo-grass, howled in the wind that grew stronger and stronger, and raced northward toward the valley where the circled lodges of the Omahas lay. “Now I will go back," said Little Weasel, “and the fire shall go with me.” He kicked his pony in the ribs and pointed its head northward. The wave of flame preceded him, skimming the surface of the grass with great leaps, gaining strength and fleet- ness as the dry wind lashed it from behind. “Aha-ha-he-ha-ha-ha-ha!” sang Little Weasel, and the pony, straining its wiry limbs to keep pace with the yellow giant that ran before, wheezed and coughed an accompaniment to the song, for the ashes were in his nostrils. Over hills, through valleys, across gulches the pony ran, with the wall of flame ever a strong man's bow-shot ahead of him. Now the Omahas, who had been deprived of their feast of victory the evening before, had made the feast fires roar upward throughout the village that day and much meat had been eaten. Weary with much dancing and singing and heavy with meat, the evening twilight found them sleeping heavily. And the night deepened and still they slept. But there was one upon whom the feast had laid but a light hand, and who awoke suddenly in the 56 THE LONESOME TRAIL night with a smell in his nostrils, a roaring in his ears, and a great light in his eyes. He maryelled, for the feast fires were dead in their ashes. He arose, and when he reached the door of his lodge he gave a cry that woke the sleeping village and brought the people clamouring into the open air. Half the earth and half the sky were aflame. The stars had fled before the great burning. Booming in the strong wind, a wave of flame was coming over the hills and reaching long, spiteful arms toward the village in the valley Spellbound, the people gazed. Then of a sudden a cry ran among them, for they had seen, through a momentary rift in the flame and smoke, high upon the eminence of a peaked, fire-blackened hill, a man standing upon a pony's back, with his arms above his head. He looked prodigiously big and seemed to ride upon a flood of fire. Then the flames closed in, the smoke hid the peaked hill, and frantically the people fled from their village to a nearby creek, where they huddled in the stream, and where the loud flame passed over them, booming on into the north. When the gray of morning fell upon the black- ened prairie, the people returned to their village. But at the opening in the circle of lodges stood a mounted man. Both he and his pony were blackened as with fire. It was Little Weasel. As his people drew near he raised a wheezing voice and said: “Behold Little Weasel, whom the IS FEATHER FOR FEATHER 57 fire-spirits love! All day I rode across the hills, thinking of my people's unkindness. In the even- ing a great fire grew up about me. It was not a common fire; it was a medicine fire. It grew up about me and my pony, and lifted us like the waters of a flood. And I was frightened till I heard a voice that thundered, and it said: 'Little Weasel has been punished by a foolish people. The spirits of fire will take him back and his people will take him in again.' And lol here I am, Little Weasel. I want my eagle feather.” And the people, believing many strange things, took him in with a great feasting. And from that day they called him by another name—Paeda-Nu, the Fire-Man. And he was great among his people. IV THE SCARS Y friend, the old frontiersman, poked an extra supply of cobs into the stove, medi- tatively watched the sudden flame lick about the husks, then began this monologue after his usual manner: Yes, I've got a nice place here—nice ranch. Didn't work for it either-lied for it! Now, I'm not given much to that sort of thing, as you will grant; but when I see a place where a good manly twisting of the truth can sweeten mat- ters up a bit, I'm not so scrupulous. Back in the late fifties I was living in St. Louis, pretty nigh broke, for all I'd lived a hard, industri- ous life up and down the river. One day I got a note bearing the postmark of some California mining town, and it informed me that I had a considerable credit with a certain St. Louis bank. I never heard directly where the money came from, but I thought I knew. I bought this place with some of that money, you see. And there's a little story attached to this. For a number of years I was employed by the American Fur Company as expressman. Every win- . 58 THE SCARS 59 ter I made the trip from St. Louis to Fort Pierre, a distance of about a thousand miles. Carried mes- sages from headquarters to the posts and from the posts back to headquarters. From St. Louis to Pierre the trip was made on horseback, and from there up, other expressmen carried the mail on dog sleds. Great days, those! Sometimes when I get to thinking over old times, I wonder if the railroads haven't taken some of the iron out of the blood of men. In the winter of '50—that was the year the gold fever was raging, you know, I got to Pierre about the middle of February. When I had delivered the mail and was making ready to start south again with the returns, old Choteau, the factor of the post, called me into the hut he called his office, and made an unusual request of me. “We've got a half-breed here,” said he, “who's got to be elevated. Under- stand? Killed a man in the most atrocious manner. He's due at a necktie party down at St. Louis about next spring, and I'd rather not keep him at the post; can you take him down?” I was somewhat younger in those days, and ready for most anything new. Also, I had found the trail a little lonesome at times. Riding a preoccupied broncho through hundreds of miles of white silence, hearing the coyotes yelp, dodging Indians, and buck- ing blizzards weren't ever calculated to be social functions, you know. So I was glad to have com- 60 THE LONESOME TRAIL pany on the trail, even if it had to be the company of a criminal. Anyway, I had been so taught in the great rough school of primitive men, that I had not that loathing for a killer of his kind that is felt by this generation. “ Certainly," said I to the factor. “Put him on a mule, and I'll see him into the government corral at St. Louis.” So it was arranged that I should take the man to the authorities. I did not hear his name spoken and I didn't take the trouble to ask. It seemed to me that a man who was being shipped out with a tag on him read- ing“ Nowhere," had little use for a name. No one was apt to dispute his identity. Well, they put him on a mule, handcuffed, with a chain to his ankles passed around the belly of the mule. He was, of course, unarmed, and I drove him on ahead of me to break trail. He was a powerfully built fellow, neither tall nor short, and close-knit. He had a face that was not so bad, showing the French and Indian strains in him plainly. When we had been riding along silently for several hours, I called to him to stop and rode up beside him. I looked into his eyes, and that look satisfied me that I was safe in doing what I had thought of. His eyes were large and black and quiet. “I am going to take the cussed irons off your legs and arms," I said; “ you can't keep warm this way." He watched me taking them off and said nothing. I threw the irons away. “Go on," I said. And THE SCARS 61 OW. he went, giving me a look that thanked me more than words could have done. He had the eyes of a brave man. I was never much afraid of a brave man; it's the cowards you have to watch, you know. All day we rode, saying nothing. In the evening we made a shelter with our blankets in the bend of a creek where the plum bushes were thick. The man was a good hand at the business, and seemed anxious to please me. We cooked and ate supper, then rolled up in our blankets. I put my two six-shooters under my head for fear that I might have somehow misread the man's eyes. When I awoke in the morning, he had breakfast cooked and the nags saddled. When we were eating I said: “Why didn't you take my horse and run away? I could never have caught you with the mule." He searched me for a moment with his eyes. “Because I'm not a coward,” he said. And all day we rode again in silence, until, toward evening, he set up a wild sort of a song—a chanson of his fathers, I suppose—in a voice that was strong but sweet. “You sing!” said I. Breaking off his song and turning about on his mule, he said quietly, as though he were discussing the best way to make biscuits when you haven't any soda: “Did you ever see a dead liar?” 62 THE LONESOME TRAIL "Perhaps,” said I; “but none in particular.” “And that is why you never sing." That was the last word that day. Up to this time the weather had been rather too warm for winter—an ominous sort of a warm, you know. A mist hung over the country, drifting with a light wind from the southeast. During the night the wind whipped into the northwest, and in the morning we had a genuine frank old blizzard howling around us; one of those fierce old boys that nobody cares to face. We had camped in a wooded nook on the south side of the river bluffs and were pretty well protected, so I decided to lay up there until things brightened up a bit. The man, for I had not yet learned his name, which was not necessary, as the mail I carried at- tended to that, volunteered to gather wood; and so I lay in the tent near the fire that roared in front, smoking my pipe and swapping cusses with myself or account of the delay. After a while the man came in with a big arm load of wood, whistling merrily. “Well, you beat 'em all,” I said. “I say a man who can whistle like that on his last trip is a game one. What's your name and who are you? Here, want to smoke?”. I gave him my pipe. He took it and blew rings meditatively for a while. “Well,” said he, “the name doesn't matter much, and I'm the fellow who's elected to be elevated!” We both laughed strangely, and I began to open THE SCARS 63 my stock of yarns, truthful and otherwise, to relieve the tedium of the day. I had told a number of stories when the man seemed to brighten up all at once. His eyes became on a sudden unusually brilliant. “I know a story that's a fact," said he. “It's about a friend of mine—one of the best friends I ever had, I reckon. At least he never went back on me. Shall I tell it?” “Go ahead," said I. And this is the story he told me: “My friend's name is Narcisse. I knew him when he was just a little shaver. I knew his mother and his father. In fact I was, at one time, just like one of the family. “Narcisse was a wild sort of a boy always, though I do think his heart was in the right place, as they say. Never betrayed a friend, never stole, and never knuckled to an enemy. But he was a wild boy and didn't stay at home much after he was in his first 'teens. Knocked about the world considerable, Nar- cisse did, and wound up out here in this God- forsaken end of creation. Worked on a cordelle gang, handled mackinaws, hammered pack mules, fought Indians, starved and feasted, froze and toasted, like all the others who come out here. En- tered the fur trade as engagé of the Company, and was sent to a post up river. “Now if there was a weak spot in Narcisse, it was his leaning toward women folks. None of your fooling, though! Narcisse loved just like he'd fight- 64 THE LONESOME TRAIL pretty serious, you know. When he said a thing, Narcisse he meant that; and when he wanted to do something real bad, he did that—0, spite of hell he did that! You know the breed? Well, that was Narcisse. “There was an old French trader living at a post further up-old man Desjardins. He had a daugh- ter—Paulette—by an Indian woman who died when the girl was just a baby, and the old man raised her somehow—God knows how-till she grew to be about the prettiest girl you'd see anywhere in a year's tramp, being a good walker. Old man doted on the girl, and until she was full-grown there wasn't any- body could come nigh enough to her to make a sweet grin effective. But once Narcisse and his friend, Jacques Baptiste, got snowed in there on one of their trips. “Now them two, Jacques and Narcisse, was about the best friends you ever saw, I reckon. They never had any secrets from one another; and many's the time they had split the last bit of grub on long winter trails, and made a feast of that little; because there isn't any feast better than a little grub split between friends, is there? “Now Paulette was a slender little creature with black eyes and lots of black hair. Lots of hair ! That makes a woman fetching, don't you think so? Well, Narcisse and Jacques sang old French songs during the blizzard, and kind of got into the old man's heart like. Nothing like old-time songs to THE SCARS 65 fetch a man when he's got to that place where there isn't any way to look but back. So the old man made 'em welcome and said for 'em to come back when they could. “On the trip from old man Desjardins' place to Pierre, them two friends talked pretty frank, like they always did. Both of 'em was in love, and neither of 'em was ashamed of it. Told each other so. “When they camped the first night they talked it all over and Narcisse said: 'Jacques, we've always split even, but here's where we can't. It's for one of us all right, but one of us has to go without. How about this?' “And Jacques puffed at his pipe a long time, and after a while he said: 'Let's agree that we'll always go up there together, and let her take her pick.' And Narcisse agreed; so that's the way they fixed it. " Managed to drop in pretty often after that. But there wasn't any way of telling which was it. One visit she'd smile more at Jacques than at Nar- cisse, and they'd think it was settled; and then next time it was t'other way. “It was a game, and both of 'em played it like a game. They were too good friends to slip a bower or ace up their sleeves. They let Paulette deal the hands and they played 'em the best they could, same as honest poker, you know. And all the time old man Desjardins looked on like the man that runs the gamė, a-raking in the ante, which was the singing 66 THE LONESOME TRAIL and the laughing they did and the things they brought up with 'em, for they never came empty- handed. “Well, the next fall came; the game was still on and neither of 'em had stole a hand nor a chip that wasn't his. And along about the first of September the factor of Pierre sent the two friends on a trip to Benton. They went up on the last boat and were to drop down again in a maciknaw before the winter set in, after doing a little business for the Company. “On the trip up Narcisse and Jacques had a quiet little game, which was poker. They didn't play for money—played for Paulette. Sort of made a jack- pot out of the girl, and it took Jacks or better to open. One deal and a draw and the high hand could go to see the old man by himself and close the game that had hung on so long. “Narcisse insisted on having Jacques deal.. "Well,' said Jacques, after the draw, the jack- pot's mine!' “Narcisse throws down three aces. Jacques gasps a little gasp and throws his cards face up on the table, turns white and walks away. He had two pairs-kings and queens! “There wasn't anything more said about it; but Jacques wasn't the same man at all. Acted like he was thinking, thinking all the time. Face got that peaked look that comes of too much thinking; eyes always looking a long ways off. “How do I know this? W'y, Narcisse told me. THE SCARS 67 “Hurt Narcisse like everything to see this; but hadn't he won fair? Friends can split even on grub and follow the same trail for years, but there comes a time when they must smoke their last pipe together at the forks. But it's all part of the game and a man oughtn't to grumble if he don't get a pat hand, as long as the deal's fair. “Narcisse and Jacques got to Benton, and when they got ready to start back, the river had frozen up, because the winter came down early that year. So they had another winter trail to follow together before they reached the forks. The factor at Benton gave 'em a couple of good dogs to carry their bed- ding and they started out afoot. " Jacques didn't have much to say. With that peaked, set look on his face he went a-trudging on in the snow from sunup to sundown. Narcisse couldn't help feeling a little happy, because Paulette was the prettiest girl that ever haunted these parts since the river was dug. It wasn't any more than human, and he'd won fair. “Well, they passed Union and they passed Les Mandanes and they passed Roubideaux', and then there was a long stretch of lonesome country ahead of 'em till they got to Brown's Landing, about two hundred miles above Pierre. “One day it came on to blow and snow, and they made a camp in the bluff just like we did here. That's what reminded me of the story. Jacques made camp while Narcisse was chopping wood. He 68 THE LONESOME TRAIL cut down a dead cottonwood and when it came down, he tripped up in the deep snow and the tree fell on him. Broke his leg above the ankle. Well, there he was a couple hundred miles toward Nowhere in November with one leg. “Pretty hard on Narcisse, wasn't it? But Jacques all at once began to be his old self again. Set the leg as good as he could and tied it up so it would stay in place, and joked and was kind to Narcisse. "Seems like old times, pard,' said Narcisse to Jacques. 'Danged if I wouldn't be glad it hap- pened if we wasn't so far from somewheres; because we mustn't let the trail fork, old pard. I knew you'd be the same again when I was hard run.' “And Jacques smiled and said there never was any hard feeling, he guessed. But the peaked look didn't go away, nor the far-away look in the eyes. “When the weather cleared up, Jacques said he'd leave a plenty of wood and grub for Narcisse and he'd make a run for Brown's Landing and come back with dogs and a sled. And that made Narcisse's heart warm toward Jacques, because it was just like he was before the girl came between 'em. “And Jacques left before sunup one morning, and when it came day Narcisse went to fix him some breakfast, and there was only enough grub left for five or six days. That scared him, because it was a long trip to Brown's and back, and he couldn't walk. “ But he didn't cuss Jacques. He just said to him- self: 'He didn't go to take so much, and it was THE SCARS 69 dark when he left.' And then he just took the hand that was dealt him and began playing against a run of hard luck. The grub lasted only about a week, and close picking at that. Jacques had plenty of wood chopped up, and Narcisse sat all day by the fire with his leg aching and his stomach a-gnawing, a-looking down the white waste towards Brown's. And night 'd come and no dog sled. Then day 'd come and he'd begin looking, looking. And when the grub was all gone, he soaked up all the leather there was about him and sucked that. And then he'd begin looking, looking, looking into the white waste, till he got so's he could see dozens of dog sleds com- ing and vanishing, coming and vanishing. “But he didn't cuss Jacques. He said: "The poor devil's been killed like as not; he wouldn't go back on his pard.' And one day he felt he was get- ting too weak to watch much more, and so he set a pole in the snow with a strip of blanket tied to it; and that tuckered him out so's he couldn't hardly crawl back to shelter. And with the last strength he had, he dragged the wood that was left up close to him where he could reach it, because he knew that in another day he couldn't get up. “And then he began forgetting everything 'most, and having bad dreams that scared him, all the time a-worrying about the fire like as if he was half asleep, and hearing dogs barking, and trying to get up. “And then at last he didn't know anything, till he 70 THE LONESOME TRAIL was on a dog sled with the feel of hot soup in his belly. And when he came to, he said: 'I knowed you'd come, Jacques; it was hard sledding without the grub, though. “And then he found out it wasn't Jacques at all; only some Jesuit missionaries travelling from the North. They'd seen his signal of distress a-flying, and had come and got him. “And still Narcisse didn't cuss Jacques. He said: ‘Poor devil's got killed or something.' "And by and by the Jesuits got him to Brown's Landing, and he laid up there till the last of Decem- ber, getting so he could walk. There wasn't anybody at Brown's who had seen Jacques; and Narcisse's heart ached; he thought sure Jacques was dead. “And when Narcisse got well, he borrowed a horse from the factor at Brown's and went south to Pierre. It was night when he got to the post. He rode up to the cabin where he and Jacques bached together, and tied his horse. There was a cheery light coming out of the windows, and that seemed odd, seeing that Jacques was likely dead somewheres up the trail. And what seemed stranger, there was someone sing- ing inside, and every now and then a woman 'd laugh. God! man, did you ever hear a woman laughing when your heart had been aching for weeks? "Beats the devil!'Narcisse thought, 'how quick folks fill your place when you're dead!' Gave him a tight feeling in the throat to think how someone was laughing inside, and Jacques somewheres up trail se 72 THE LONESOME TRAIL seem to have anything to say but 'O, it's a devil of a mess! A hell of a mess!' Said it over and over like he was half crazy. And Narcisse said: ‘Last fall I'd have killed the man who'd said this about you, Jacques. It isn't the girl so much, Jacques; but you and I have starved and frozen together many's the time, and we always split fair till now. It was hard sledding up there without the grub and with only one leg. You stole the cards on me this deal, Jacques; but I'm not going to call for a new deal. I'll play the hand.' “ Just that way Narcisse said it. And with Jacques muttering, ‘O, it's a devil of a mess,' they came to an air hole where the black water was gurg- ling and chuckling. “And all at once Jacques flared up and snarled: Why in hell didn't you die?' And slashing out with a long knife, he made a long gash in Narcisse's scalp, and gave him a shove toward the hole. But he didn't go in, Narcisse didn't. He's got that scar yet, but he's got a deeper one where nobody sees. “And then Narcisse somehow forgot the long trails they'd tramped together and the starvings and the freezings together. Couldn't think of anything but the sting of the knife and the trickle of the blood. And the white starlight swam round him like water in a suck hole, and got red like blood, and buzzed and hummed. And he was a better man than Jacques -better fighter. And when the light quit swimming around and got white again and the stillness of the THE SCARS 73 frozen night came back, Narcisse found himself sob- bing and turning his heel round and round in some- body's mouth. And it was Jacques. “And what does Narcisse get?" The man, after finishing his tale, took a handker- chief from his pocket, carefully placed it about his throat like a halter, threw his head to one side and simulated strangulation. We didn't tell any more stories after that. When night came we rolled up in our blankets, after having made a rousing fire. I did not sleep much that night. The man did, however. He was the coolest I ever saw. Went to sleep like a child, knowing full well that he too had a noose awaiting him. When I was sure that he was sound asleep, I got up and carefully took off his bearskin cap, which he had not removed night or day since we had been together. I saw by the blue glow of the falling embers that which I had expected to see a long, ugly gash run- ning across his scalp. It was not yet quite healed. In the morning, as the storm had died in the night, we saddled up. “You take the mule and go on ahead," I said; “ I'll probably catch up with you by noon." The man obeyed. I did not expect to catch up with him, but along about noon I overtook him. “ You seem determined to travel my way," I said. He stared at me for some time, and then said 74 THE LONESOME TRAIL quietly: “ I'm not a coward just because I'm going to hang." And we rode on together. The next morning when we had saddled up, I said: “Narcisse, here is one of my six-shooters and some ammunition. There is the grub. If you travel west far enough, you will come at last to the gold coun- try. Ever think of going to the gold country?” The man gasped and placed his hand to his head. “ When did I have my cap off ? " said he. “You have a good mule there," continued I, evad- ing his question. “You have grub, a gun and am- munition. Why don't you go west ? ” “ Why are you saying that?” he said. “Because," I answered, “because I have seen both scars!” A light came into his eyes. “ And you ?” he questioned. “I?" said I; “well I, while conducting a pris- oner southward, was attacked by Indians. The prisoner was killed while defending me with unusual bravery. I lost all my grub, one gun, some ammuni- tion and a mule. I barely escaped with my life, and rode like the very devil to get to the next post. Go!” I pointed west. The man slowly fastened the grub sack on his mule, mounted, gave me a look which I have never forgotten, and rode west. I have never seen him since. As for me, I got into the next post that evening with a worn-out horse and a tale of calamity. CUTS 76 THE LONESOME TRAIL mother's breast. Yet, huddled close to the group about the evening fire, she loved to listen to the warriors' tales of the strong arm and the fierce heart; and her eyes glowed with an unwonted light as her kinsmen recounted the wild swoop of the ambushed foe or the silent pursuit, swift and relentless. All the glowing ideals of manly prowess that her maiden heart had conjured, were centred in the person of the fearless brave, Big Axe; for had he not the eagle glance that went to the heart of an enemy like an arrow? Was not his the shaggy head of the buffalo bull that strikes with fear the boldest hunter? The breath of his sinewy breast was like a whirlwind when the battle cry awakened in his throat! There was no arm in all the circled tepees that could hurl a tomahawk so straight and far; and none that could heave above the anger of the battle a war club more ponderous ! “Ah,” she would say to herself, while wandering alone with her musings,“ Big Axe is so great a man!" When a band of warriors rode out of the village, bent upon some petty conquest somewhere beyond the blue hills that undulated the horizon with their summits, Shadow Flower would become very lonely, and she would stand for long hours upon some larger hill, scanning the dim sky line for the return- ing warriors; for where the battle was, there was Big Axe. And when at last she would catch sight of the returning band, shouting with the great joy THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 77 of a battle won, how proudly she stared, and with what a light in her eyes, at her graceful warrior astride his swift pony! How anxiously would she search the headdress of her brave for the fresh eagle feather that should speak of some late deed done by the strong arm-her strong arm! Yet her timorous little soul alone knew of the great overflowing passion that she treasured for Big Axe; unless, perhaps, the birds and the green things understood her, for hers was a passion that little words could not carry. Thus did the frail flower long for the golden kisses of the sun! There was war between the Omaha and Ponca tribes. So it happened one morning, in the time when the deer tear the earth with their horns, that Shadow Flower, hunting late blossoms upon the sere hills where the young Dawn danced, heard below her the impatient stamp of ponies, and beheld the mounting of braves, for Big Axe was leading a party of a hundred warriors against the enemy. The purple spikes of the ironweed and the yellow plumes of the golden-rod dropped from her fingers as she gazed upon the sight below her. What a sight! It was as the marshalling of the incarnate Winds from the circle of the heavens. Out of the dust cloud that arose from the dry earth where four hundred nervous hoofs fretted with impatience be- neath the restraining thongs, she caught the dazzle of the sleek and vari-coloured hides of the ponies; 78 THE LONESOME TRAIL some white with the brilliance of the summer sun when it glares upon the false lakes of alkali; some spotted and wiry as the wild cat; some tawny as the mountain lion; some black like the midnight when the storm clouds fly. Their gaunt flanks were heaving with the joy of speed and power. Their nostrils were distent with the influx of prairie winds that know no restraining hand save that of the great invisible Master. They snorted and reared as if about to plunge in a wild heat down the winds. Their neighing was the shout of the tempest in the rocks, and their gusty manes were as clouds that tatter in the storm. And amid this mêlée of dust and noise and dazzle trembled the gaudy headdresses of the warriors, bright with the painted wing feathers of the eagle and the hawk. Now a shout drowns the neighing and the snort- ing. A hundred braves leap to the backs of the plunging ponies. The dust cloud thickens and sweeps down the valley like a whirlwind. A far glint of brandished weapons; a dying shout; the band swoops about the base of a hill. Then the sultry day drones and drowses on the prairie. The grasshopper breaks the slumber of the stillness with his snapping noise; a lone hawk skirts the ground with slow, circling flight. But Shadow Flower stands and stares beneath a shading hand into the brilliance where the warriors vanished. Her ears hear not the snarl and hum of the drowsy bugs, nor THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 79 ink of Pazhe so keen of thope unga [Big Area the shrill chatter of the sly gopher as it rears its striped body from the grass and peers about. She sees not the circling hawk and scarcely does the glit- ter of the yellow grass hurt her eyes. For her ears are filled with the shout that has died, and in her eyes a sinewy, masterful brave urges a black pony down the valley After a while her hand dropped from her eyes, and catching sight of the circling hawk, she cried: “O you who are so keen of eye, tell me, can you not see into the heart of Muzape Tunga [Big Axe] ? O you who are so keen of thought, tell me, does he think of Pazha Hu [Shadow Flower]?” But the hawk circled far away and the day droned on. Among the hills, hidden from one who looked and saw not, the war party rode on with the noses of its ponies to that portion of the sky from which the red sun of summer springs, for in that direction lay the village of the Poncas, perched upon the yellow bluffs of the great muddy river. On the evening of the second day the air grew soft with the scent of flowing waters, and the Omahas, checking their ponies upon the brow of a hill, beheld to their right the swirling stream, red with the last light of the day; and before them, across a deep hollow, the village of the Poncas, upon the summit of a bluff. But while their eyes wandered over the misty stretches of the river, a wild shout startled the calm 80 THE LONESOME TRAIL of the scene, while from the village on the opposite summit a line of mounted warriors issued, taking the precipitous hillside at a brisk gallop. The sudden shout and the beat of flying hoofs hurled the weary ponies of the Omahas back upon their haunches. Yet scarcely had the echoes of the shout cried their last among the distant bluffs, when a hundred Omaha bow thongs twanged and a hun- dred arrows shrieked their shrill death-song in the quiet evening air. A second and a third fight of arrows, and the rushing Poncas were thrown into confusion. Those in the rear were thrown by the floundering bodies of the wounded ponies in the front, the fury of their momentum hurling them pellmell into the valley below. Then the Omahas swept down the valley, as the eagle sweeps, with the battle cry upon their lips, and the remnant of the attacking Poncas turned and fled up the steep hill. side to their village. The village of the Poncas, in addition to its strong position, was further fortified by stockades, con- structed of saplings driven into the ground with their tops sharpened. The fugitives having gained the protection of this barrier, were safe from further pursuit, and emboldened by their protection, they hurled such a flight of arrows into the ranks of the enraged Omahas that the latter were obliged to withdraw beyond arrow flight, contenting themselves with taunting their besieged foes by displaying the dripping scalps of the fallen. THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 81 Now the influence of the fading evening cooled the anger and hushed the shouting. From the height whither the assaulting band withdrew to camp, one could hurl the triumphant gaze unnum- bered bowshots westward, athwart the brown hills that seemed to have been stricken motionless in liquid turbulence by the enchantment of the sunset, marvellous with the pomp of streamers, violet, pur- ple, saffron, sanguine, dun! Far up the river the blue haze of the sky-fringed woodland blended into the purple shadow beneath the contrasting yellow of the bluffs, that looked down into the smooth waters, upon their own scarred and wrinkled images crowned with golden crowns by the last scant sunlight. The cottonwoods placed their long shadows like soothing fingers on the muddy madness of the central stream. The Night awakened in the east and stretched its long black arms into the west, and the glory vanished. The distant woodland and the bluffs grew into indis- tinguishable masses. The river became a faint film above a lower concave of dawning stars. The camp fires in the village reared long towers of light into the darkness, then fell back into a sleepy glow. One dreaming out a sunset on the prairie cannot wonder at the exquisite hyperbole of the Omaha language; that tongue nurtured amid marvellous pos- sibilities of fury and calm, of beauty and terror, all within the sight-tiring circle of stupendous distance. The dawn came, and by the first light the Poncas 82 THE LONESOME TRAIL beheld their enemies camped across the valley. Upon one side the bluff fell sheer to the river; upon the other lingered a cruel and patient foe. So it happened that after many days, moans of suffering arose from the lodges on the bluff; and the Omahas laughed in their tepees, for the sound of an enemy's wailing is sweet. The sweltering suns of the prairie September beat upon the bare summit where the village pined, and the lips of the Poncas burned with thirst, while their eyes drank of the copious floods far below them. So it chanced one day, when a cry went up through the village: “ Our children are dying of thirst; let us beg mercy of our enemies !” that an unarmed brave passed out of the village and across the valley toward the camp of his foes. With tottering step he approached the tepee before which Big Axe waited. His lips were swollen and cracked; his eyes were bleared and sunken, yet they glared as the eyes of a wolf from the darkness of a cavern. In a hoarse, inarticulate whisper he spoke to the chief: “Pity my people, for they are dying of thirst !" There was lightning in the eyes of Muzape Tunga. “Badger!” he hissed; and he struck the suppliant down before him. The sun burned down the glaring blue of the west. A continuous wail arose from the suffering village like the cry of pines in a gentle wind; while from the tepees of the besiegers came the sound of merry THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 83 laughter that mocked like the babble of inaccessible waters. But when the red sun touched the tops of the far hills, another form left the enclosure of the village and took its way down the hillside. As it came nearer, a hush of awe fell upon the Omahas. The form was that of a squaw! With an unfaltering movement she approached, seeming to hover through the mist that arose from the valley. Slowly she climbed the hillside. Not a sound passed the lips of the beholders. They seemed the figures of one dream gazing at the central idea of another. The form emerged from the mist and stood, swathed in the chromatic radiance of the evening before the motionless figure of Muzape Tunga. The eyes of the woman and the chief met in unwavering stare. Had the glance of the former become vocal, it would have been a song with the softness of the mother's lullaby, but with a meaning terrible as the battle cry of a brave. With a langorous movement the woman raised her arms, thus allowing the many-coloured skin that hung about her shoulders to slip to the ground, ex- posing all the dumb eloquence of her brown breasts. Out of the silence her voice broke like the voice of a sudden wind that rises in the night. “Nunda Nu [Man-Heart] fears not Muzape Tunga!” The chief saw the lithe young form, heard the soft, caressing voice and shivered with great passion. 84 THE LONESOME TRAIL A swift smile crossed the face of the young woman, soft as a last ray of sunlight on a hill. Again the voice grew out of the hush. “The heart of Muzape Tunga is strong like his arm and kind like his eye; he will spare my people.” . The chief's great breast heaved with the pleasure of his eye and ear. “Nunda Nu has the heart of a man and the eye of a woman,” he said; “ her voice is soft like the song of a forest stream; Muzape Tunga spares her people." Nunda Nu turned her face to her village and made a signal with her uplifted hands. Soon an unarmed Ponca, manifestly a chief by his garments, was seen taking his way down the hillside. “Come!” said Nunda Nu, turning to Big Axe; “ my father bears the pipe of peace; let us meet him in the valley." Without a word the chief followed the young woman, while his warriors stared after in wonder- ment. In the valley, midway between the village and the camp, the chiefs met. Then both sitting cross-legged upon the grass, the Ponca lit the pipe of peace, and having puffed silently for a while, handed it to his conqueror. The sweet smoke of the red willow arose slowly over the silent three, and Big Axe stared abstractedly into the mounting va- pour. The evening grew old. The sunlight left the summits of the hills and the shadows deepened. Still Big Axe did not speak, but gazed with wide THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 85 eyes into the ascending cloud of smoke. The heart of the terrible warrior had grown tender; a light softer than the twilight was in his eye. It seemed that he could hear the slumberous, singing voice of a squaw and the prattle of children about the door of his lodge. There were pictures for him in the rising smoke. Suddenly he took the pipe from his mouth and re- turned it to the Ponca chief. “We will bury the tomahawk," he said; “our ponies shall sweat no more in the battle, but in the paths of the bison. No more shall our faces be cruel with warpaint." Again there was silence but for the rhythmic puff- ing of the Ponca's pipe. Again Muzape Tunga spoke, and his voice was sonorous with passion. “The eyes of Nunda Nu are deep and dark as a mountain lake; her voice is a song that the slow winds 'sing in the willows. Give me Nunda Nu that my lodge may be filled with laughter; give her to Muzape Tunga that peace may be everlasting be- tween us !” There was a silence. The Ponca forgot his pipe; he puffed deliberately and at long intervals. The ascending smoke dwindled to a thin grey thread. With steadfast gaze the smoker looked before him into the darkness, for his thoughts were deep. At length he laid the pipe upon the grass and arose to his feet, extending his hand to Big Axe. His voice was tremulous as he spoke. 86 THE LONESOME TRAIL “Muzape Tunga asks a great thing of his con- quered brother; had he asked for a hundred ponies, with feet fleet as the winds in winter, his brother would have laughed at the little gift. Nunda Nu is my life; I give my life to my brother.” Already the night had spread into the west and the darkness hid their parting. Some days afterward at sunset, an Omaha maiden stood upon a hill near her village. With hand at brow she peered into the blue distance. Suddenly a cry of delight trembled on her lips. A cloud of dust had grown far away upon the verge of a hill to the northeast, slowly resolving itself into a long line of warriors approaching at a gallop. The column drew nearer. The face of the watching maiden grew darker with anxiety, as a brilliant cloud darkens when the twilight fails. She beheld the masterful form of Big Axe mounted upon a black pony, riding in advance of the band; yet her face darkened. Her brows lowered with the strain of her intense gaze. Was it a squaw that rode upon a pony white as a summer cloud beside her warrior ? A shout went up from the village below. The speed of the ponies was increased to a fast gallop; the band swept up the valley. A strange low cry fell from the lips of the maiden; a stifled cry like that of a sleeping brave who feels the knife of the treacherous foeman at his heart. In the village was the sound of many glad voices; THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 87 but in the darkness of the hill above, a frail form buried its face in the dry bunch grass and uttered a moan that no one heard. The autumn passed: the cold winds came down from the north, shaking the snow from their black wings, and the people of the village began to look upon Shadow Flower with awe. For never a word had she spoken to anyone since the returning of the band in the fall. With a dull light in her eyes she wandered about muttering to herself: “ It was sum- mer when they left; now the prairie is so cold and white, so cold and white." Absent-mindedly she would dwell upon the bitter words, gazing beneath an arched hand into the cold, white glare of the horizon. Then her eyes, at times, · would blaze with gladness. “Shonga saba! Shonga saba !” (a black pony) she would cry ecstatically; and for one intense moment her frail form would be erect and quivering with joy. Then the light in her eye would fade as the fires fade in a camp that is deserted; a cry of anguish would fall from her lips, her hand would drop lifelessly from her brow. “No," she would sigh languidly; “no, it is only a cloud! O, the prairie is so cold and white, so cold and white!” And the old people shook their heads and whis- pered to each other: “ The soul of Pazha Hu has followed the summer, for her soul loved the flowers; can you not hear her body crying for her soul?” 88 THE LONESOME TRAIL When the warm winds came again and the hills were green, the crying of a young child was heard in the lodge of Muzape Tunga. The simplę heart of the stern warrior throbbed with gladness as a cold seed throbs with the blowing of the south wind. But the sound of the infant's voice brought no summer to the heart of Nunda Nu. The touch of its little brown hands stung her breasts, and as she looked upon its face, placid or expressive as its dreams took form or slept, a cold shudder ran through her veins as when one gazes on a snake, for it was the child of an enemy. All through the long winter a slow hate had sapped the kindness from the heart of the future mother; and when she felt the new life throbbing into form, her thoughts grew bitter. So now the unforgotten moaning of the children of her people, dying with thirst upon the barren summit, was loud enough to drown the prattle of her enemy's child, which should have wrought enchantment in her blood. One night a noiseless shadow passed among the tepees hushed in slumber beneath the moonlight., It crept up to the tepee of Muzape Tunga and crouched beside it in an attitude of listening. The bugs chirped and hummed, the frogs croaked, the wolves howled far away; save these and a sleeper's heavy breathing, there was silence. . Suddenly there was a faint sound as of someone THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 89 moving in the tepee; the shadow outside arose and the moonlight fell upon its haggard face, the face of Shadow Flower. She placed her eye to a small opening in the skins that covered the poles. Now she would gaze upon the child of Muzape Tungal Through the opening at the top of the tepee the moonlight entered with intense brilliance and fell upon three faces. One was the face of her once sweet dream and the face that trembled through the visions of her madness, Muzape Tunga's. One was the beautiful, cruel face of her who came upon a pony white as a summer cloud that autumn evening when the sunlight left the prairie. One was a face that she had not seen before, yet her poor heart ached as she looked upon it. It was the face of his child, her child. Ah, it should have been the child of Shadow Flower, she thought, and her brain reeled with sudden madness. As she looked, the woman in the tepee raised her. self upon her elbow. She gazed upon the peaceful face of Big Axe. The moon lit up her features in clear relief. Her eyes were terrible with hate; the lids drawn closely about them until they had the small beady appearance of the snake's. Her lips were drawn closely cross her white teeth in a cold grin. Her form trembled as with a chill, yet the night was warm. Then she arose, and with a noise- less step, sought for something that hung upon the side of the tepee. She returned clutching a toma- hawk. The light caught her whole form, making it 90 THE LONESOME TRAIL ht stand out, clear-cut like a statue, the statue of a prairie Judith. Then she bent over the sleeping Muzape Tunga 'for one moment. There was a dull sound as the weapon entered the sleeper's skull; but more than this there was no sound, no groan. And the one who stood like a shadow without the tepee was stricken dumb with fright. The woman within turned to the sleeping child and raised the dripping tomahawk; but her arm seemed to freeze in act to strike, and the blow did not fall. A strange soft light crept over the face of the woman. She lowered her arm and laid the , weapon aside. Then with the step of a wild-cat she crept to the entrance of the tepee and, gazing cau- tiously about for a moment, slipped silently into the haze of the moonlight, and was engulfed in the dark- ness of the valley. As the dim outline of the fleeing squaw mixed itself with the uncertain haze and vanished, a great happiness leaped into the stagnant veins of Shadow Flower, and her blood rushed like a stream when the ice melts with the breath of the south wind. Even the thought that Big Axe lay dead within the tepee did not quell her happiness, for she said to herself: “Now Pazha Hu shall have her war. rior; he shall be all hers." She crept into the tepee and, kneeling, put her lips to the chilling lips of Big Axe. He did not breathe. She placed her arms about his body, her face against THE FADING OF SHADOW FLOWER 91 his breast, yet he did not move. He lay quietly with the intense moonlight upon his face. She did not sob, she was almost happy; for did she not at last possess that for which she had pined? Her musings were broken by the crying of the child. She took it in her arms and held it to her breast, humming a low lullaby, half-persuaded that the child was her own. But the child was frightened by the strange voice and cried piteously. Then Shadow Flower thought, “ It cries for its father, yet its father has gone.” “Hush!” she said to the child; “we will go and find the soul of Muzape Tunga; it cannot be far away." She wrapped a blanket about the infant, muffling its cries, and tied it about her shoulders. Then she went silently through the village and out into the open prairie, weird with the blue haze of the moon and the lonesome cries of the wolves. A rabbit hopped past and stopped near her as if gazing at the maiden. “O Rabbit!” cried Shadow Flower, “tell me, have you seen the soul of Muzape Tunga?” The rabbit, awed by the strangeness of the voice, moved its long ears; then it hopped away into the shades. The maiden followed and was swallowed in the moonlit mist. When the sun looked into the village, the women were stricken with terror and the men with anger. The wise people shook their heads by which to 92 THE LONESOME TRAIL say: " Ah, yes; we thought such things of Nunda Nu.” The days passed; the moons came and went; yet Shadow Flower did not return. There was a com- mon thought concerning her disappearance which was never spoken aloud; but when the fires burned low and the night grew late, it was often whispered with awe: “She has gone in search of her soul; it iled last year with the summer.” VI M THE ART OF HATE ANY tales have been told of noble sacrifice for love, and I have seen such in my time; I but I have in mind an instance in which a man reached a sublime height through the least ex- alted of human passions—hate. There are some who argue that love is born at first sight. However that be, I am certain that it is often thus with hate. I have seen men in my time the first sight of whom was an insult to me—sudden, stinging like a slap on the cheek. It is a strange thing, and I have never heard it explained satisfac- torily. Sometimes in my own case I have attributed it to even so slight a thing as a certain turn of the nose, a curve of the lip, a droop of the eye. And again I have felt that it was due to nothing visible about the man, but rather to some subtle emanation from the very soul of him, that maddened me as though I had inhaled the fumes of some devilish drug. Have you ever felt this? Well, I am telling you about Zephyr Recontre. He was a little, wiry half-breed, with a French father and a woman of the Blackfeet tribe for a mother. Quite a promising combination, if you think it over! I came across him 'way up at Fort Union 93 94 THE LONESOME TRAIL in the early '30's, when I was in charge of a keel boat of the American Fur Company. He was em- ployed at the Fort as interpreter, being a fuent speaker of several Indian tongues as well as English and French. His forehead was a narrow strip of brown be- tween his wiry black hair and the continuous streak of black that was his eyebrows. His eyes were large and black and quiet. His cheek bones were promi- nent and his jaw was so heavy as to throw his whole face out of balance, as you might say. The face of a stayer, you know. Never said much except as his duties demanded, and then he went straight to the point with a quiet directness that left little need for a question. Superb little animal he was, too; had the maxi- mum strength with the minimum weight, and a cool head to run it with. I never saw him impelled by sudden anger except once, and that is where the story begins. In the spring of '39 I took charge of the steam- boat Yellowstone, as captain. We were loaded with supplies for the American Fur Company's posts on the upper Missouri, and carried a number of en- gagés of the Company, and a certain Frenchman, Jules Latour, who had been appointed bour- geois of the old Fort Union, and was going up to take charge. If there ever was an emperor in this country it was J. J. Astor, the head of the Company at that time, 96 THE LONESOME TRAIL heard an angry snarl below me, and looking down, I saw Recontre lift the struggling Latour in his arms and hurl him into the river. I immediately stopped the boat and ordered a crew to man the yawl and rescue Latour, at the same time having Ręcontre seized. Latour came aboard coughing and spitting, a most ludicrous object. But to my surprise, he immediately commanded that Recontre should be released. I wondered much at this at the time; but ten years later I had a talk with Recontre, which threw some light on the subject. He was leaving the country, and, as we had become close friends, he did not hesitate to tell me what he had kept a close secret for years. We were taking a friendly glass together at a St. Louis bar, when I purposely brought up the name of Jules Latour, who had starved to death some years before in a mackinaw boat that got caught in the ice far up the river. I had heard stories of how Re- contre, who was with Latour on the trip, had shown a faithfulness to his master equalled only by the faith- fulness of a dog to a man. This had always seemed strange to me, and so I brought up Jules Latour. At the sound of the name I saw the black fire grow up in my companion's eyes, just as I had seen it ten years before on the forward deck of the Yellow- stone. “You got that story, too, did you ?” he said dreamily, staring straight ahead of him as into a THE ART OF HATE 97 great distance. “Well, it's all over now, and for the first time, I am going to tell the truth about the death of Latour and my great faithfulness. When I first saw that man, I felt as though he had struck me between the eyes with his white fist. I hated him as I had never hated before, and as I hope never to hate again. It hurts to hate; it eats into a man like some incurable blood disease. “You saw me throw him into the water. I can hardly explain why I did that; only, the man spoke to me in a way that insulted me more than if he had blackguarded my mother. It wasn't in the words, for I have forgotten what he said. “We hated each other. I knew how much I hated, but I did not know how great was his hate until he smilingly ordered my release. I knew then that his hate was a great hate-stronger than love can be. And also I knew that this hate would grow until one of us was killed. And it did.” “What!” said I; “ did you kill Latour?" Recontre smiled one of his enigmatic smiles and said quietly: “Nature killed Latour; I merely helped Nature!” And then he laughed softly, while the black fire grew again in his eyes. Recontre led the way to a table in the back of the room and we sat down, when he began talking rapidly, never hesitating in his story, and seeming, at times, wholly unconscious of my presence. “When we arrived at Fort Union," said he, “no 98 THE LONESOME TRAIL one could have guessed the hate that we nursed for each other. Being a new man in the country, Latour consulted me upon many phases of the busi- ness, and we were much together. The whole post considered me a most favoured person; little know- ing, as I did, that hate can bind two persons as closely as love. “My hatred for the man made his a most fas- cinating personality to me; and I often found him studying my face with a diabolical fondness. “ Latour heaped favours upon me, and I received them with a strange gladness of heart that even now I cannot explain. One day in November he sent for me to come to his office. I found him in a mood seemingly most agreeable. His face beamed with a light that any other would have taken for kindness. I saw in it only the ecstatic anticipation of triumph. And when he spoke I knew that I was right. "My dear Recontre,' said he, 'it seems that I am forced to fall back upon you for everything. I have a difficult task on hand, and you are the one man to perform it; I know of no other so peculiarly fitted for it. I shall carefully lay before you the dangers of the mission I have in mind, leaving you free to consent or refuse just as you see fit. Perhaps the undertaking is impossible. It may be that no man is sufficiently equipped with strength and daring to do what I wish. You shall decide.' “You see he imagined that he was wheedling me through my vanity. He then stated that he wished THE ART OF HATE 99 to open trade with the Blackfeet tribe. He drew strongly upon his imagination to explain the great dangers in store for him who should undertake the task. The Blackfeet were at that time deadly ene- mies of the whites. They had killed and mutilated a number of traders. I would of course stand a poor chance of coming back alive. He was convinced of that. “Will you go, Recontre?' said he, staring steadily into my eyes. “I was dumbfounded at the audacity of the man. I saw the light of doubt wavering in his eyes; but I did not wish to flinch before my enemy. “ Certainly,' said I; - and I will go alone!' “I saw the triumph glisten in his eye. “Very well,' said he; 'you may start in the morning. Make your own arrangements. I give you full power to transact the business in hand as your wisdom may dictate.' “And I started in the morning. Two weeks later I returned, successful beyond all hope. I not only brought back a band of the leading men of the tribe for a council, but I brought also a young woman for my wife. I called her Pelagie after one of my sisters. “As I think of it now it seems miraculous that I succeeded. I am half convinced that I was inspired from out the profundity of my hate to do and say the right things. “ Latour played skilfully the part of gratitude and 100 THE LONESOME TRAIL joy, but I saw, nevertheless, the deep, devilish dis- appointment that he felt. And I was very glad, for I had conquered in this first combat; and also Pela- gie was a pleasant woman. “As the winter deepened, Latour and I became more and more inseparable. We outdid each other in acts of seeming kindness, until all the post was jealous of my intimacy with the master. “They little guessed how we played a ghastly game that would be finished only when one of us could smirk and flatter no more. “The winter grew bitter; heavy snows fell. And I wondered much what great honour Latour would heap upon me next, seeing that I was so capable and willing. Near Christmas Latour called me to his office, and the light of anticipated triumph was upon his face. "My friend,' said he; 'I do not wish to impose upon you, but I have in mind a great service that you may render me, as a friend, mind you, Re- contre. I am sure that you will succeed unless you freeze to death or get killed by the Indians. None but a brave man would attempt what I shall mention. I have a very important communication to forward to the office at St. Louis. It must be there before the middle of March or the Company will suffer heavy losses. If you can get this there at the time stated, you shall be advanced considerably, with a raise of wages. Now how would you like being my private clerk?' THE ART OF HATE 101 “I stared into Latour's eyes and saw all hell deep down in them. "Give me a good dog to carry my bedding,' said I, and I will be at St. Louis by the middle of March,' and then I thanked him extravagantly for this last and greatest of favours. All the time I hated the man more pitilessly than ever before be- cause of his shallowness in hoping to flatter me into getting myself frozen to death. “I started the next day with 1700 miles of frozen prairie before me. I felt a strange joy at the thought of my hardships. Once again I would have the joy of seeing disappointment in the eyes of my enemy, and my soul could laugh again. I say I was glad to go, even though I was obliged to leave Pelagie be- hind at a time when the post was ravaged with the smallpox. " It was a trip to make one love hell by compari- son. Nothing but my hate sustained me. On March Toth I delivered the written message to the official at St. Louis. He read it wonderingly. "What!' said he; 'haye you walked from Union to deliver this?'. “I stated that I had and he shook his head, frowned and dismissed me. I never knew what was in that message. I surmise that it was nothing of much importance. “When the first boat started up the river for the North I went with it and arrived at Fort Union in late June. Latour was at the landing when the boat 102 THE LONESOME TRAIL pulled in. He threw his arms about my neck and actually kissed me upon the cheek. He then and there made me his private clerk with my former salary doubled. He treated me as a brother. “ But I saw in the depth of his eyes the soul-fret of a wounded beast. “When we reached his office walking arm in arm, he gently told me of the serious sickness of Pelagie, and how he had looked after her like a brother through the hard winter. “I hurried to my home. I found Pelagie deliri- ous with the fever of smallpox. All that night I sat beside her, my heart aching, for I felt that she would die. “And for the time I forgot my hate for Latour, until, in her feverish tossing about, she threw her bare arm over the side of the bed. Then I saw that which made me shiver with a desire to kill. There was a scratch on the arm, and the flesh about it was swollen and blue. It came to me that Latour had caused her to be inoculated that she might die before my return, and thus make my heart sore that he might see. “I grasped the dirk and ran wildly out of the house in search of Latour. I reached his door. Then I faltered. It was not fear that made me falter. It was that I knew my revenge could not be completed in this way. I wanted to see him suffer more than I had ever suffered. Also I wished to ' come away with clean hands. I did not know how THE ART OF HATE 103 it could be done then, but I trusted to some mysteri- ous power that had seemed to be with me all through my terrible winter tramp. “I stole back to the bedside of Pelagie. She died at dawn. “Latour mourned with me. He wept and spoke touchingly of his own wife. I gritted my teeth and strained every nerve to keep from choking him. “The summer passed. Latour was so kind that I often found it an effort to keep alive my belief in his treachery. And at other times, I was obliged to leave him abruptly, feeling a madness in my blood for striking him down, trampling him, tearing him with my teeth and nails. “Oh, all the great actors have not appeared upon the stage! I must confess that Nature and Zephyr Recontre killed a great actor! “The fall came, and our friendship did not abate. I began to fear that my chance would never come, and I would be obliged to kill him as one brute kills another. Many nights I lay awake shaping impossi- ble schemes of revenge that were rejected in the sanity of the morning. “In the first week of October I had occasion for a great joy. Latour called me to his office and stated that certain conditions of the trade which had been wholly unforeseen, made it necessary that he should be in St. Louis before the winter set in. Unfortu- nately, the last steamboat had left Fort Union for the South, making it necessary that the trip be made in ble schem Many nidged to kiince would'd 104 THE LONESOME TRAIL a mackinaw boat. Would I, his dearest friend, con- sent to accompany him on the trip ? “With a studied reluctance that hid my insane joy, I consented. Latour left a clerk in charge of affairs, and we started. We made very slow progress, as we depended almost entirely upon the current, hay- ing no oars, and there being little wind to fill the square sail we carried. “ This was as I wished it to be. I kept longing for the ice to come down and shut us in. Time and again I managed to run the boat aground on bars in order to kill time. Latour seemed not to notice this. In fact, he was unusually pleasant in his bearing toward me. "We had a small hut built on the mackinaw, fitted with two bunks, and a small box stove for cooking. When we tied up to the shore for the night and turned in, I was often obliged to choke back laughter at the comedy that we played—a grim comedy. Each of us would at once feign deep slumber, ever now and then opening our eyes to see how the other slept. Once our eyes chanced to meet in the dim candle light of the room, for Latour insisted upon the can- dle. We both grinned and rolled over. “Our understanding seemed perfect; and yet, owing to the devilish refinement of our mutual hate, neither really feared any vulgar act of violence from the other. We knew that the thing would not be done in that way. “We had made about five hundred miles down THE ART OF HATE 105 stream into the very heart of the wilderness, when the ice began running. Within twenty-four hours after that, we were frozen in. A heavy snow began falling and continued for a week. It lay three feet deep upon the level, and was so light as to make it impossible to take the trail. “Latour and I merrily set about to chop wood, not knowing how long we might be forced to live in the little cabin of the mackinaw. “We had brought only about half enough provi- sions for the trip, having depended upon hunting for much of our food, as there was a great deal of game in those days. The deep snow made it impossible to get much game, so that in less than two weeks our little supply of lyed corn was almost exhausted. “One morning Latour said that he was sick, and remained in his bunk. At first I looked upon this with suspicion, thinking that he thus sought to throw the duties of seeking game wholly upon me, who had proved myself so capable and willing. But the next morning I knew it was no sham, for he had a high fever, and was delirious at times. You see, he had been used to luxury, and his feeble constitution had not been equal to the thorough soaking we got while chopping wood in the deep snow. “Often in his delirium he linked my name with bitter curses. At last he had betrayed his hate, and I smiled, knowing that he would lose the game at last, since he no longer had the cunning to continue it. “ Again it began to snow; it was a hard winter. 106 THE LONESOME TRAIL Much as I might have wished to seek game for my sick enemy, I could not even seek it for myself. Nature had taken a hand in the game; I began to feel her master-touch in the bitter scheme of things. She seemed determined to starve us both; but I knew that I could last longer than Latour with his consti- tution weakened by too much easy life. “So I blessed the snow as it deepened. Latour would die before my eyes; and then afterward I too would die, the winner of the game.' It would be a most sublime revenge, it seemed to me; for I think I was hardly sane when I was near Jules Latour. It would be like Samson crushing his enemies and him- self together. No one could blame me, should our bodies be found. I would have had my reyenge and still none could blame me. “There was a small quantity of lyed corn left. I ate sparingly of this, carefully saving Latour's share for him when he should wish to eat. “One morning he awoke from his delirium; he asked for food. "'I have saved your share for you,' said I. 'I might have eaten it, for I think we shall starve to death in a week or so. The snow is too deep and soft for hunting. Still I have divided fair with you, remembering your great kindness to Pelagie, remem- bering your great kindness in allowing me to distin- guish myself among the Blackfeet, remembering your generosity in allowing me to take your message to St. Louis. Do you remember?'. THE ART OF HATÉ 107 “He groaned, and his eyes became cold and sav- age, like a starved wolf's. “I gave him his lyed corn and he ate. His de- lirium returned. He cursed Recontre bitterly. He clenched his feverish, white hands about the imagi- nary neck of Zephyr Recontre; and I smiled. “In two days more all the lyed corn had been eaten. In the meanwhile the surface of the snow had hardened with the intense cold. I could have hunted, for I was not yet too weak, and there was a gun and plenty of ammunition. But I did not go hunting. I saw Latour weakening rapidly. He might die dur- ing my absence, and I would thus lose the sweetness of my revenge. It seemed to me that this would be like selling my birthright for a mess of pottage. “I could have taken the gun and gone south over the snow to Fort Pierre, several hundred miles down the river. But I did not go. Latour had not died yet. After he died, if I could still walk, I might go. “All day I sat beside the little box stove, gazing upon Latour. At night I slept lightly, awakening often to see how fever and hunger dealt with Latour. He might die while I slept. “One day in December, I cannot remember just when, for I myself was often delirious with hunger, Latour again awakened from delirium. "'Food, food!' he gasped. 'For God's sake, Recontre, don't let a man starve like this! Let's make it up between us; only give me something to ous en C D ne sa eat!' THE ART OF HATE 109 coming over the frozen snow from the direction of Fort Pierre. I remember hearing them call my name as with the voices of a dream. I remember that I cried out, ‘Latour has just died!' And then I re- member laughing and crying, not knowing why I did. "I remember that these men gave me food—warm food—and that after a long sleep I awoke and saw a Jesuit missionary kneeling at my bedside. " It was then that I tasted the full sweetness of my triumph. The priest was blessing me! He spoke of the Christlike kindness of Zephyr Recontre, who had not deserted his sick master. "I did not see Latour again. The Jesuit's party had chopped a hole in the ice and had given his body to the river." VII THE SINGER OF THE ACHE The Old Omaha Speaks OW this is the story of one who walked not with his people, but with a dream. To you I tell it, О White Brother, yet is it not for you, unless you also have followed the long trail of hunger and thirst—the trail that leads to no lodge upon the high places or the low places, by flowing streams or where the sand wastes lie. It shall be as the talking of a strange tribe to you, unless you also have peered down the endless trail, with eyes that ached and dried up as dust, and felt your pony growing leaner and shadow-thin beneath you as you rode, until at last you sat upon a quiet heap of bones and peered and peered ahead. Moon-Walker was he called—he who walked for the moon. But that was after he had called his pony from the grazing places and mounted for the long ride. Yet was there a time when he ran about among the lodges laughing very merrily with many boys and girls, who played with hoop and spear, made little bloodless wars upon unseen peoples, and played in little ways the big, sad games of men. And then ΙΙΟ THE SINGER OF THE ACHE III III he was called by many names, and all of the names, though different, meant that he was happy. But once his mother and his father saw how that a man began to look out of his eyes, began to hear a man talking in his throat; and so they said: “It is the time for him to dream." So they sent him at nightfall to the hill of dreams —as is the custom of our people. Wahoo! the bitter hill of dreams! Many have I seen go up there laughing, but always they came down with halting feet and with sadness in their faces. And among these many, lo! even I who speak —therefore should my words be heard. And he of the many names went up into the hill of dreams and dreamed. And in through the mists that strange winds blow over the hills of sleep burst a white light, as though the moon had grown so big that all the sky was filled from rim to rim, leav- ing no place for sun and stars. And upon the sur- face of the white light floated a face, an awful face -whiter than the light upon which it floated; and so beautiful to see that he of the many happy names ached through all his limbs, and cried out and woke. Then leaping to his feet, he gazed about, and all the stars had grown so small that he looked thrice and hard before he saw them; and the world was shrunken. And frightened at the strangeness of all things, he fled down the hillside into the village. His mother and his father he wakened with bitter crying. V 112 I I2 THE LONESOME TRAIL “How came the dream ? " they whispered; for upon the face of him who went up a boy they saw that which only many years should bring; and in his eyes there was a strange light. “A face! a face!” he whispered. “I saw the face of the Woman of the Moon! Whiter than snow, it was, and over it a pale flame went! Oh, never have I seen so fair a face; and there was some- thing hidden in it swift as lightning; something that would be thunder if it spoke; and also there was something kind as rain that falls upon a place of aching heat. Into the north it looked, high up to where the lonesone star hangs patient. " And there was a dazzle of white breasts beneath, half-hidden in a thin blanket of mist. And on her head, big drifts of yellow hair; not hanging loose as does your hair, O mother, but heaped like clouds that burn above the sunset. My breast aches for something I cannot name. And now I think that I can never play again!" And there was a shaking of heads in that lodge, and a wondering, for this was not good. Not so had others, big in deeds, dreamed upon the hill in former times. Always there had been a coming of bird, or beast, or reptile, wrapped in the mystery of strange words; or there had been the cries of fighting men, riding upon a hissing of hot breaths; or there had been a stamping of ponies, or the thin, mad song of arrows. But here it was not so, and the mother said: 2 THE SINGER OF THE ACHE 113 “Many times the false dreams come at first, and then at last the true one comes. May it not be so with him?" And the father said: “ It may be so with him." So once again up the hill of dreams went the boy. And because of the words of his father and mother, he wept and smeared his face with dust; his muddy hands he lifted to the stars. And he raised an ear- nest voice: “O Wakunda! send me a man's dream, for I wish to be a big man in my village, strong to fight and hunt. The woman's face is good to see, but I cannot laugh for the memory of it. And there is an aching in my breast. O Wakundal send me the dream of a man!” And he slept. And in the middle of the night, when shapeless things come up out of the hills, and beasts and birds talk together with the tongues of men, his dream came back. Even as before the moon-face floated in a lake of cold white fire-a lake that drowned the stars. And as he reached to push it from him, lo! like a white stem growing downward from a flower, a body grew beneath it! And there was a flashing of white light- ning, and the Woman of the Moon stood before him. Then was there a burning in the blood of the boy, as she stooped with arms held wide; and he was wrapped about as with a white fire, through which the face grew down with lips that burned his lips 114 THE LONESOME TRAIL as they touched, and sent pale lightnings flashing through him. And as the dream woman turned to run swiftly back up the star-trails he who dreamed reached out his arms and clutched at the garments of light that he might hold the thing that Aed, for dearer than life it seemed to him now. And he woke. His face was in the dust. His clutching hands were full of dust. Wahoo! the bitter hill of dreams! Have you climbed it, О White Brother, even as I ? And in the morning he told the dream to his father, who frowned; to his mother-and she wept. And they said: “This is not a warrior's dream, nor is it the dream of a Holy Man; nor yet is it the vision of a mighty bison hunter. Some strange new trail this boy shall follow—a cloudy, cloudy trail! Yet let him go a third time to the hill—may not the true dream linger?". And the boy went up again; his step was light; his heart sang wildly in his breast. For once again he wished to see the Woman of the Moon. But no dream came. And in the morning the pinch of grief was upon his face and he shook his fists at the laughing Day. Then did he and a great Ache walk down the hill together. All things were little and nothing good to see. And in among his people he went, staring with eyes that burned as with a fever, and lo! he was a stranger walking there! Only the Dream walked with him. THE SINGER OF THE ACHE 115 And the sunlight burned the blue, much-beaded tepee of the sky, and left it black; and as it burned and blackened, burned and blackened, he who dreamed the strange dream found no pleasure in the ways of men. Only in gazing upon the round moon did he find pleasure. And when even this was hidden from him for many nights and days he went about with drooping head, and an ache was in his eyes. And in these days he made wild songs; for never do the happy ones make songs—they only sing them. Songs that none had heard he made. Not such as toilers make to shout about the camp fires when the meat goes round. Yet was the thick, hot dust of weary trails blown through them, and cries of dying warriors, and shrieks of widowed women, and whim- pering of sick zhinga zhingas; and also there was in them the pang of big man-hearts, the ache of toiling women's backs, the hunger, the thirst, the wish to live, the fear to die! So the people said: “Who is this nu zhinga who sings of trails he never followed, of battles he never fought? No father is he—and yet he sings as one who has lost a son! Of the pain of love he sings —yet never has he looked upon a girl!” And it was the way of the boy to answer: "I seek what I do not find, and so I sing !" And the nights and days made summers and win- ters, and thus it was with the Singer of the Ache. He grew tall even to the height of a man—yet was 116 THE LONESOME TRAIL he no man. For little did he care to hunt, and the love of battles was not his. Nor his the laughter of the feast fires. Nor did he look upon the face of any maiden with soft eyes. And the father and mother, who felt the first frosts upon their heads, said: “Our son is now a man; should he not build a lodge and fill it with a woman? Should we not hear the laughter of zhinga zhingas once again before we take the black trail together?” And because his father had many ponies, many maidens were brought before him for his choosing. But he looked coldly upon them and he said: “The stars are my sisters and my brothers, and the Moon is my wife, giving me songs for children. Soon shall there be a long trail for me.” Thereat a cry went up against him and more and more he walked a stranger. Only the Dream walked with him; and he sang the songs that ache. Harsh words the father spoke: “Does the tribe need songs? Can hungry people eat a silly shout, or will enemies be conquered with a singing ?" But the mother wept and said: “Say not so of him. Do not his songs bring tears, so strange and sweet they are at times? Does a man quarrel with the vessel from which he drinks sweet waters, even if it be broken and useless for the cooking ?” And the father frowned and said: “Give me many laughers, and I will conquer all the enemies and fill all the kettles of the feasts! Let the weepers THE SINGER OF THE ACHE TT 117 and makers of tears drag wood with the women. Always have I been a fighter of battles and a killer of bison. This is not my son!”. And it happened one night that the Singer stood alone in the midst of his people, when the round Moon raised a shining forehead out of the dark, and grew big and flooded all the hills with white light. And the Singer raised his arms to it and sang as one who loves might sing to a maiden coming forth flashing with many beads from her tepee. And the people laughed and a mutter ran about: “To whom does the fool sing thus?” Soft, shining eyes he turned upon them, and he said: “Even to the Woman of the Moon! See where she looks into the North with white face raised to where the lonesome star hangs patient!" And the people said: “This is the talk of a fool -no woman do we see!” And then the Singer sang a new song through which these words ran often: “Only he sees who can-only he sees who can!”. So now he walked a fool among his people, sing- ing the songs that ache. Wahoo! bitter it is to be a fool! And yet, O White Brother, only they who have been fools are wise at last! And it happened one summer that the village was builded in the flat lands by the Big Smoky Water. And there came snoring up the stream a monda geeung, the magic fire-boat of the palefaces. Up to 0 THE SINGER OF THE ACHE 119 SLIIT their meanings await me. There shall I ride-there shall I ride ! ” And the fires of the day burned out the stars and died; downward and inward rushed the black, black ashes of the night. And still he rode toward the North. And like the flashing of a midnight torch through a hole in a tepee flashed the days and passed. And still he rode. Through many villages of strange peoples did he ride, and everywhere strange tongues and strange eyes questioned him; and he answered: “Into the North I ride to find the Woman of the Moon!” And the people pitied him, because he seemed as one whose head was filled with ghostly things; and they fed him. Further and further into the waste places he pushed, making the empty spaces sweet and sad with his singing; and the winter came. Thin and lean he grew, and his pony grew lean and thin. And the white, mad spirits of the snow beat about the two. And now and then snow ghosts writhed up out of the ground and twisted and twirled and moaned, until they took on the shape of her he sought. And ever he followed them; and ever they fell back into the ground. And the world was bitter cold. Wahoo! the snow ghosts that we follow, O White Brother! And the time came when the pony was no longer 120 THE LONESOME TRAIL a pony, but a quiet heap of bones; and upon this sat the man who walked for the moon. Then did the strength go out of him, and he turned his sharp face to the South. He sang no more for many days, for his body was as a lodge in which a fair woman lies dead with no mourners around. And at last he wakened in a strange lodge in a village of strangers. And it happened when the green things pushed upward into the sun again that a young man who seemed very old, for he was bent, his face was thin, his eyes were very big, hobbled back into the village of his people. And he went to a lodge which was empty, for the father with his frowning and the mother with her weeping had taken the long trail, upon which comes no moon and never the sun rises—but the stars are there. Many days he lay within the lonesome lodge. And it happened that a maiden, one whom he had pushed aside in other days, came into the lodge with meat and water. So at last he said: “I have sought and have not found; therefore will I be as other men. I will fill this lodge with a woman—and this is she. Hence- forth I shall forget the dream that led me; I shall be a hunter of bison and a killer of enemies; for after all, what else ? " THE SINGER OF THE ACHE 121 I 21 And this he did. So all the village buzzed with kindly words. “The fool has come back wise!” they said. And as the seasons passed there grew the laughter of zhinga zhingas in the lodge of the man who walked no more for the moon. But a sadness was upon his face. And after a while the dream came back and brought the singing. Less and less he looked upon the woman and the children. Less and less he sought the bison, until at last Hunger came into that lodge and sat beside the fire. Then again the old cry of the people grew up: “The fool still lives! He sings while his lodge is empty. His woman has become a stranger to him, and his children are as though a stranger had fathered them! Shall the fool eat and only sing?" And a snarling cry grew up: “Cast out the fool! ” And it was done. So out of the village stumbled the singing fool, and his head was bloody with the stones the people threw. Very old he seemed, though his years were not many. Into the North he went, and men saw his face no more. But lo! many seasons passed and yet he lived and was among all peoples ! For often on hot dusty trails weary men sat down to sing his songs; and women, weeping over fallen braves, found his songs 122 THE LONESOME TRAIL upon their lips. And when the hunger came his strange wild cries went among the people. And all were comforted! And this, o White Brother, is the story of the fool who walked for the moon! VIII THE WHITE WAKUNDA E was the son of Sky-Walker's oldest squaw and he was born in the time when the lone goose flies (February). It was a very bitter winter, so that many years after the old men spoke of it as “the winter of the big snows." Sky-Walker, his father, was a seer of great visions, and he had a power that was more than the power of strong arms. He was a thunder man, and he could make rain. And when Sky-Walker's oldest squaw bore a son there was much wonder in the village, for she was far past her summer and the frost had already fallen on her hair. Also, she was lean and wrinkled. So the old men and women came to the lodge of Sky-Walker and looked upon the newborn child. They looked and they shook their heads, for the child was not as a child should be. He was no bigger than a baby coyote littered in a terrible winter after a summer of famine. He was not fat. “ He can never be a waschuscha [brave]," said one old man; “I have seen many zhinga zhingas [babies] who grew strong, but they were not like this one. He will carry wood and water.” And Sky-Walker's old squaw arose from the blan- 123 THE WHITE WAKUNDA 125 “And see, it is a boy, even as she dreamed. Also he has come in the time when the lone goose flies. I see much in this. He shall be alone, but high in loneliness, and he shall go far, far! Look where he gazes upon you with man-eyes! Are they the eyes of a zhinga zhinga?”. The old folks looked and pitied no more, for the eyes were not as other eyes. They had a strange light, making the old ones wonder. So the word passed around and around the circle of lodges that Sky-Walker's oldest squaw had a son who was not a common zhinga zhinga. And as the talk grew, the name of the child grew with it. So he was called Wa-choo-bay, “the Holy One." And as Wa-choo-bay grew, so grew the wonder of the people, for he never cried, and he talked soon. Also from the first he appeared as one over whom many winters had passed. When he reached that age when he should have played with the other boys, he did not play, but was much alone upon the prairie without the village. He never took part in the game of Pawnee zhay-day, the game of spear and hoop, which made the other boys laugh and shout. One evening in his fifth year, his father, Sky- Walker, said to him: “It is the time for the coming of the dreams to Wa-choo-bay. Let him go afar into a lonesome place without food and lift his hands and his voice 126 THE LONESOME TRAIL to Wakunda. Four sleeps let him stay in the lone- some place, that his dream may come.” So his mother smeared his forehead with mud and muttered to the spirits: “ Thus shall you know Wa-choo-bay, who goes forth to have his first dream. Send him a good dream." And Wa-choo-bay went forth into a lonesome place without food. And on the morning of the fifth day, when the squaws were making fires, he returned, and as he entered the village and went to the lodge of his father the squaws gazed upon his face, seeing that which was very strange. They wakened the sleepers in the lodges, say- ing: “Wa-choo-bay is come back with a strange medi- cine-look upon his face! He has had a great dream; come and see.” And the village awoke and crowded about the lodge of Sky-Walker, who came forth and said: “Go away! Something great has happened to my nu-zhinga [boy], and he is about to tell me his dream." And the people went away, awed and silent. In the stillness of his lodge Sky-Walker gazed upon the boy's face and said: “ What has Wa-choo-bay seen?" And Wa-choo-bay said: “I went far into a lonesome place; there was THE WHITE WAKUNDA 129 And the two neighbouring tribes had taken the peace trail and come to the Omaha village. Then there was much painting in the colours of peace, and the village that the three tribes made was more than one could see with a look. In a great circle it lay in the flat lands of Ne Shoda, with an opening to the place of morning. And in the centre there was built a large semicircu- lar shade of willow boughs, in which the braves would dance and sing, giving away presents of ponies, furs, hides, and trinkets that please the eye. One day there was a great dancing and a great giving away. Many ponies had been led into the sunny centre of the semicircular shade, and given away to those whom the criers called. And Wa-choo-bay was there, standing tall and thin, alone amid all the revellers, for more and more as the sunlights passed he thought deep thoughts. Among the Poncas sat a young squaw who was good to see, for she was slender and taller than a common brave. And upon her forehead was the tattooed sunspot that marked her for the daughter of the owner of many ponies. She was called Umba (Sunlight), and she was the best to see of all the daughters of the assembled tribes. To-day she sat amid the revelling and saw none of it. She saw only the tall youth, standing alone like a beech tree among a cluster of scrub oaks. And her eyes grew soft as she looked. And when the centre of the place of shade had 130 THE LONESOME TRAIL cleared, she arose and walked into the centre. There she stood, a stately figure, with soft eyes fixed upon Wa-choo-bay. At length she raised her arms toward him and sang a low, droning song, like that a mother sings to her child in the evening when the fires burn blue. And all the people listened, breathless, for she was fair, and the song, which was a song of love, was sung to Wa-choo-bay alone, standing thin and tall and deep in thought. Then when her song had ceased, she took off her blanket of dyed buckskin, and, holding it at arm's length toward Wa-choo-bay, she said: “I give my blanket to the tall and lonesome one. Let him come and take it, and I shall follow him on all his trails, even if they be hard trails that lead to death!” And Wa-choo-bay raised his eyes and gazed with a sad look upon the Ponca woman. His voice came strong, but soft: "I cannot take the blanket; neither shall I ever take a squaw. For I am a dreamer of dreams. I shall never hear zhinga zhingas laughing about my lodge. I am going on a long trail, for I follow a dream. Yet have I never seen a woman so good to see. There is an ache in my breast as I speak. Let this woman follow one who kills enemies and hunts bison. I dream dreams, and a long trail is before me, and its end is in the mist." THE WHITE WAKUNDA 131 Then Umba moaned and walked out of the circle with her head bowed. And Sky-Walker, seeing this, said: “ It is even as I said. He was born in the time of the lone goose. He shall be alone, but high in loneliness; and he shall go far, far." And the time came when the tribes took the home- ward trail. Then one day Wa-choo-bay raised his voice among the people and said: “My time is come to go. I take a long, lonesome trail, for a dream dreamed many times is lead- ing me.” Then he went down to the great river where a canoe lay, and the people followed. They said no word as he pushed the canoe into the current and shot downstream, for a white light was upon his face, and the dream rode with him. Then Sky-Walker and his old squaw climbed a high bluff and watched the speck that was Wa-choo- bay fading in the mist of distance. “This is the last I shall see," said the old woman, “for I am old and the winter is in my hair. But great things will happen when I am gone." And under the shade of a lean hand raised brow- ward she saw the black speck vanish in the blue of distance. Summers and winters passed. Sky-Walker and his old squaw died; the name of Wa-choo-bay be- came a dim and mystic thing. Yet often about the 132 THE LONESOME TRAIL fires of winter, when the wind moaned about the lodges, the old men talked of the going away of the Holy One, making the eyes of the youths grow big with wonder. And often the old men and women gazed from the high bluff down the dim stretches of the muddy river, wondering when Wa-choo-bay would come back, for it was said that great things would happen at his coming. It happened many years after the going away of Wa-choo-bay that the Omaha tribe had its village in the valley on a creek near the big muddy water. It was the time when the sunflowers made sun- light in the valleys and when the women were busy pulling weeds from the gardens. One evening a band of youths, who had been play- ing on the bluffs overlooking the far reaches of the river, came with breathless speed and terror-stricken faces into the village. “Monda geeung [devil boat] !” they cried, pointing to the river. “A big canoe breathing out smoke and fire is swimming up Ne Shoda.” The whole village scrambled up the bluffs, and what they saw was not forgotten for many moons. It was a boat, but it was not as other boats. It breathed smoke and fire. It grunted and puffed like a swimmer in a heavy current. It had a great arm that reached before it. Also it had two noses, where the smoke and fire came out. It had eyes along its side that sparklęd in the THE WHITE WAKUNDA 133 evening sunlight. There was none to paddle it, yet it moved steadily against the current. The people stood bunched closely together and shivering with fear as the monster approached. With a chugging and a swishing and a coughing, it swam, turning its head towards the bluff where the people watched and reaching out its one big arm toward them. “It sees us! It wishes to eat us!” cried the people, and like a herd of frightened bison they ran and tumbled down the bluff. They hid in their lodges with their weapons grasped in their hands. They made no noise, lest the monster should find them. But the devil-swimmer did not come. The people listened. At length the sound of the mighty breath- ing stopped, then it began again and grew dimmer and dimmer until it died away far up the stream. And when the people came forth cautiously from their hiding, a man, tall, thin, with a strange look upon his bronze face, stood in the centre of the village. Awed by the mien of the stranger, the people stared in silence. The sun had fallen and the shadows of the evening were about him. Also he wore garments that were not as Wakunda meant garments should be. The stranger cast a long gaze about him, then raised his arms and said in a voice that was strong but soft: 134 THE LONESOME TRAIL “I breathe peace upon my people.” The words were Omaha words, yet they sounded strange. Again the voice was raised in the shadows and passed like a wind among the people, shaking them. “I am Wa-choo-bay—he who followed the long dream-trail—and I am come back with a great wisdom for the tribes." But the people only trembled, and the old men whispered: “ It is not Wa-choo-bay, but his spirit. Well is the face remembered, but the words are not man- words." Then the stranger passed about the circle of the wondering people, touching them as he went, for he had heard the whispering of the old men. And the people shrank from him. “I am Wa-choo-bay,” cried the stranger again. “I am the son of Sky-Walker. I am a man, and not a spirit. Give me meat, for I am hungry.” And they gave him meat, and he ate. Then only did the people know him for a man. In the days that followed, Wa-choo-bay told many strange things of the white-faced race whose camp fires were kindled ever nearer and nearer the people of the prairie. Also he said words that were not common words. They were medicine-words.. And before many moons had grown and died these things travelled far and wide across the prairie, until in many tribes the wonder grew. Around many W nearer THE WHITE WAKUNDA 135 camp fires was told the tale of how an Omaha had come back after being many years in the lands that lay toward the place of summer; also of the devil- boat in which he came, and of the new wisdom he was talking. So there was a great moving of the tribes toward the village of the Omahas. The Poncas, the Paw- nees, the Osages, the Missouris, the Otoes—all heard the strange tale and took the trail that led to the village lying in the flat lands of Ne Shoda. And in the time when the prairie was brown there was a great gathering of the prairie peoples in the flat lands. The cluster of villages that they made was so broad that a strong man walked from morning until the sun was high before he reached the other side. Then one morning when the tribes had gathered Wa-choo-bay went to the top of a bluff that stood bleak against the sky, and the people followed, sitting below him upon the hillside, for they wished to hear the strange words that would be spoken that day. Wa-choo-bay, standing thin and tall against the sky, raised his arms and his face to the heavens, breathing strange words above the people, upon whom a great hush fell. And it happened that in the hush a tamed wolf among the people near the summit of the bluff raised its snout and mourned into the sudden stillness. And its master beat it for the noise it made until it cried with pain. 136 THE LONESOME TRAIL Then a strange thing happened. Wa-choo-bay walked in among the gazers and laid caressing hands upon the wolf, calling it by gentle names until it licked his hands. And when he returned to the summit, the wolf fol- lowed, licking the feet of Wa-choo-bay as it went. Then Wa-choo-bay raised his voice, and it went even to the farthest listener, though it seemed a soft voice. “This is the first I shall teach you: be kind to everything that lives." And the people wondered much. This was a new teaching. In the hush of awe that fell, Wa-choo-bay spoke again, while the wolf sat by him, licking his feet. He told of his being in the lands that lay toward the summer; of the great white-faced race that lived there; of the great villages that they built, having lodges bigger than half a prairie village. He told of the strength of this great white-faced race; of how they were moving steadily toward the people of the prairie. And then he told in quaint phrases the story of Christ and His teachings of kindness. “These things I learned from the great medicine- men of the white-faced race, and they are wise men,” said Wa-choo-bay. “It is this that has made their people great. So I have come to say: Have no more fighting on the prairie; be one great tribe, even like the white-faces; build great villages like THE WHITE WAKUNDA 137 them, for I have learned that only they who build great villages and do not wander shall live. The others must flee like the bison when hunters follow. “And I will teach you the wise words of the great white Wakunda's Son, who died because he loved all the tribes. It is a teaching of peace-a teaching that we be kind to our enemies." Then there arose one among the Osages, an old man, and he said: “These are big words. Let Wa-choo-bay call down rain upon us if this big white God loves him.” Then arose one among the Pawnees, and he cried in broken Omaha : “I say with my Osage brother, let Wa-choo-bay do some medicine-deed, that we may know him for a holy one." And still another among the Poncas arose and said: “If this be true that we have heard, how: Wa- choo-bay came back in a holy boat, and that his big white Wakunda is so strong and loves Wa-choo-bay, let him send the rain, and we will fall upon our faces." Then the whole concourse of tribes sent up a shout: “Give us some medicine-deed!" And when the shout had died, Wa-choo-bay smiled a smile of pity and said: “I am not the big white Wakunda; I am only one who talks for Him and loves Him, for I have THE WHITE WAKUNDA 139 And Wa-choo-bay said: “I have not forgotten.” Then said Umba, the Ponca woman: "Even now it is the same as then. I have come to take the hard trail with you, even the trail that leads to death, for in all these winters and summers I have taken no man." And she wiped the blood from his face with her blanket of buckskin. There was an aching in the breast of Wa-choo-bay as he said these words, which the Ponca woman could not understand, though her tongue was one with his: “From now through all the summers and winters that follow, your name shall be Mary.” “Have you heard my words ?” he said after a long silence. “I have heard,” said the woman, " and I believe. I alone among all the villagers believe." “Then shall you follow me on my lonesome trail. I see not its end, for it is in the mist." 7S C was on The days when the prairie was brown passed, and the snows came. And there was one who followed a bitter winter trail. From village to village he went, speaking words of kindness and doing good deeds. But everywhere he was driven from the villages. And there were two who followed him—two faithful disciples—the woman, whose name was changed to Mary, and the wolf. 140 THE LONESOME TRAIL. an And ever the tall thin man, whose face was pinched with hunger and the cold, gave kind words to those who offered blows. It happened in the time of Hunga-Mubli—the time when the snows drift against the north sides of the lodges, that a rumour ran across the prairie-a rumour that a strange sickness had come to the vil- lage of the Poncas. It was the sickness called Gcha- tunga, the sickness of the big, red sores. Then Wa-choo-bay and his two disciples turned weary feet toward the stricken village of the Poncas. It was a hard trail, with little food and much cold. And when the three entered the stricken village there was a rejoicing among the Poncas, for they said: “Might it not be that this one whom we have spurned is stronger than we thought?” But Wa-choo-bay sang no medicine-songs; he per- formed no mystic rites. With tender hands he nursed the sick. Also he knelt beside them and said soft words that were not the words of the prairie. And it happened that the invisible arrows of the Terror fell thicker and thicker among the Poncas. The sickness spread, and the village was filled with the delirious shrieks of the dying. So a great, angry wail went up against Wa-choo- bay. “The sickness grows greater, not less," said those who were still strong. “This Wa-choo-bay's words are not true words. There is a black spirit in him.” THE WHITE WAKUNDA 141 So it happened that arms that were still strong seized Wa-choo-bay and bound him with thongs of buckskin. Then he was led afar from the village to the bleak, cold summit of a hill. There they planted a post and bound Wa-choo- bay to it. And the woman, whose name was changed to Mary, begged for him, and the wolf, with its four feet huddled together in the snow, mourned with an upward thrusting of the snout. But Wa-choo-bay said: “Do not wail for me. This is the place where my trail ends. This is what was in the mist. Let these whom I love do as they will do.” And when they had bound him to the post they whipped him with elkhorn whips. “Where is your white Wakunda ?” they cried, and it was a hate cry. “Here beside us stands the white Wakunda and His Son!” said Wa-choo-bay; and his brow was wet with the sweat of agony. But the whippers did not see, and the whips fell harder. And after some time Wa-choo-bay raised his head weakly to the darkening heavens, for the sun had fallen, and moaned soft words that were not prairie words. Then his head fell forward upon his breast. The whips fell no more. The whippers departed. The sky was like a sheet of frosty metal and the stars were like broken ice. 142 THE LONESOME TRAIL Against the sky hung the thin figure of Wa-choo- bay lashed to the post, and beneath him in the shadow huddled two who sent trembling cries of sorrow into the empty spaces of the snow—a woman and a wolf. IX THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA THEN Seha had grown to be a tall youth, he said to the old men: “Now I am almost a man; what shall I do?” For being a youth, he dreamed of great things. And the old men answered: “That Wakunda knows; there- fore, take yourself to a high hill; there fast and pray until sleep comes, and with it a vision.” So Seha arose and laid aside his garments, and naked, went out on the prairie. When he had gone far, he climbed to the top of a lonely hill, bare of grass and strewn with flakes of stone that made its summit white like the head of a man who has seen many winters. Then he knelt upon the flinty summit, and raising his palms to the heavens, he cried: “O Wakunda, here needy stands Seha!” Four times he uttered the cry, yet there was no sound save that of the crow overhead, and the wind in the short grass of the hill- side. Then he fell into an agony of weeping, and wet- ting his palms with his tears, he rubbed them in the white dust and smeared his face with mud. Then he cast his wet eyes to the heavens, and again raised his hands in supplication. 143 144 THE LONESOME TRAIL "O Wakunda, Seha is a young man; he would do great things like the old men; send him a vision ! " The night came down and still he held his eyes upon the darkening heavens, crying for a vision. But only the coyote answered him. The stars looked out of the east and steadily climbed upward, gazing upon his tearful face. But when the grey of age began to grow upon the forehead of the Night, he grew so weary that he fell forward upon his face and slept. And lo! the vision came! It seemed that the skies were black and fierce as the face of a brave in anger. The lightning glared; and the thunder shouted like a warrior in the front of the battle! Then the cloud split, and through it rushed a mighty eagle with the lightning playing on and its eyes were bright with the vision that sees far. Its wings hovered over Seha, and it spoke: “ Seha shall be a seer of things far off. His thought shall be quick as the lightning, and his voice shall be as thunder in the ears of men !" Seha awoke, and he was shivering with the dews of morning. Then he arose and walked back toward his village, slowly, for his thoughts were great. Four days he went about the village, speaking to no one; and the people whispered: “Seha has had a vision; do you not see that his eyes are big with a strange light?” One night after the four days had passed, Seha THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA 145 arose from his blankets and, creeping stealthily out of his tepee, he went to the lodge of Ebahamba, who was a great medicine-man, for Seha wished to tell his vision into a wise ear. Pulling back the buffalo robe that hung across the entrance he saw the great man sleeping in the moon- light that fell through the opening at the top of the tepee. Entering, he touched the shoulder of the sleeper, who awoke with a start, and, sitting up, stared at the young intruder. Then Ebahamba being thoroughly awakened, spoke: “Seha has come to tell his vision; I knew he would come; speak.” “You are a great man," began Seha," and your eyes are like the sun's eyes to see into the shadow. Hear me and teach me." Then he told of his vision on the lonely hill. As Ebahamba listened to the wonderful thing that had befallen the youth, his heart grew cold with envy; for certainly great things were in store for Seha, and might it not come to pass that the youth should grow even greater in power than Ebahamba himself? So, when the youth had ceased, breathless with the wonder of the thing he told, the old man said coldly: “Wakunda will teach Seha; let him go learn of the wind and the growing things!” Then the youth arose and left the lodge. But the big medicine-man slept no more that night, for jeal- ousy is sleepless. 146 THE LONESOME TRAIL At that time it happened that the winds were hot from the southwest, and the maize grew yellow as the sun that smote it, and the rainless air curled its blades. And the old man Ebahamba cried to Wa- kunda for rain; but the skies only glared back for answer. Then a great moan went up before the lodge of the big medicine-man, Ebahamba. “ Ebahamba speaks with the spirits; let him pray to the thunder spirits that we may have food for our squaws and our children!” And Ebahamba shut himself in his tepee four days, fasting, crying to the thunder spirits, and per- forming strange rites. But every morning the sun arose glaring like the eye of a man who dies of fever, and the hot wind sweltered up from the southwest, moaning hoarsely like one who moans with thirst; and the maize heard the moan and wilted. Then when the people grew clamorous before the lodge of Ebahamba, he came forth and said: “The thunder spirits are sleeping; they are weary and drowsy with the heat." And the hooting of his people drove him back into his lodge. Then Seha raised his voice above the despairing murmur of the village, saying: “ Seha is a young man, yet the thunder spirits will hear him, be they . ever so drowsy, for Seha has had a vision. Seha will call the rain." The murmur of the people ceased, for so strange THE TRIUMPH OF SEHA 149 when a youth had succeeded? Ebahamba sat sul- lenly in his tepee, thinking great and fierce thoughts; and after many days of fasting, his magic came back to him. Then he summoned to his lodge one by one, the men of his band, and he said to each: “Behold! Seha speaks with evil spirits. May he not destroy his people? Then let us perform the rite of Waz- hinadee against him that he may be forsaken by man and beast and so die!” The men of his band believed Ebahamba, for his magic was very great now, and he forced them to believe. So each man went to his tepee, shut himself in, feasted and thought sternly against Seha. For this is the manner of the rite of Wazhinadee. Then after his enemies had thought strongly for many days against him, Seha was seized with a strange weakness. His eyes lost their brightness, and he could not see far as before. All through the days and the nights he went about the village, crying for his lost power; and the people said: “The coy- otes are barking in the hills.” They could not see him for the mist that the terrible rite had cast about him. Then Seha wandered out on the prairie, wailing as ever for his lost power. And after many days, he laid himself down by a stream to die. But he did not die. He slept; and the vision came again. When he awoke, he was strong again and his eyes could see far as before. Then he said: “I will cleanse myself in the 150 THE LONESOME TRAIL stream and go back to my people, for I am strong again.” But lo! as he leaned over the clear stream, he be- held the reflected image of an eagle far above him. Now a medicine man can change himself at will into anything that walks or crawls or Alies or is still; and as Seha watched the eagle, he knew that it was Ebahambal So gliding into the stream, he quickly changed himself into a great fish floundering temptingly upon the surface. The eagle, which was Ebahamba, being hungry, swooped down upon the fish with wide beak and open talons. In a moment, Seha changed himself into a huge vooping bird dashed furiously, crushing its beak and talons. Then it arose, and with bloody wings, fluttered across the prairie. Seha stepped out of his rock and laughed a loud, long laugh, and the eagle, which was Ebahamba, heard and knew. So Seha returned to his village and was a great man among his people. But Ebahamba hid himself in his tepee; and a rumour ran that his arms were broken and his face crushed. And there was much wonder in the village! X THE END OF THE DREAM . NHE old woman Gunthai had nothing but a past over which she brooded and a son upon whom she doted. Had she been able to write the latter in the letters of that tongue which came to the prairie many moons after her death, breaking with syllables of magic the spell of the centuries, she would have written it with a “u”; for her son was as the day to her; his coming was the morning and his going was the sunset. When he laughed, there was summer in the wretched little tepee; when he cried, the snows drifted about the mother-heart. Winter and summer the old woman sat in her lodge, her back bent with the burdens of many sea- sons and her face seamed with many memories; yet stern and expressionless as of one who has followed a long trail and cannot see its end though the sun be falling. All day she would sit in her lodge, weaving bas- kets of willow, which she exchanged with her tribes- men for meat and robes; for the father of her child was dead. Her little boy, whom she tenderly called Nu Zhinga (Little Man), would lie long hours m 151 152 THE LONESOME TRAIL before her with his chin resting upon his little brown hands, watching the fingers of his mother weave the pliant twigs into form with marvellous skill, as it seemed to him; and often when the hours crept lamely, he would sing to her a monotonous song like the wind's, timing the irregular air with the beating of his toes upon the floor. And when the little singer would cease, the old woman Gunthai often forgot the unwoven basket with gazing into his big black eyes, for in them her hope could read great deeds that were to be done after many unborn moons had waned. Then she would tell him tales of his father; tales that were loud with the snarl of war drums, the twang of bow thongs, the shriek of arrows, the beat of hoofs! But there was no responsive glitter in the eyes of the boy; his heart was not the warrior's, and the old mother seeing this, sighed and fell to work with nervous haste. And the days of sun and snow wove themselves into years, until Nu Zhinga had reached that time when boyhood begins to deepen into manhood; and yet as the mother looked upon her son, she found him scarcely taller than a weak man's bow. His legs were short and bowed, his hips narrow, and upon shoulders of abnormal breadth sat his monstrous, shaggy head. It was as if he were the visible body of a black spirit's joke, save for his lustrous eyes, that were like two stars that burn big in the air of evening through a film of mist. THE END OF THE DREAM 153 And thus it was that when Nu Zhinga passed through the village, those who were still foolish with youth jeered at the lad, calling his name in con- tempt; but the old men and women who had grown wise, only shook their heads and pitied Gunthai in silence. But the boy would take no notice of his tormen- tors, walking on sullen and silent. He lived in a little world of his own, which was isolated from the great world by the unkindness of his people, like a range of frozen hills; and in this small world there were but three dwellers; Gunthai, a tame grey wolf, and one other. That other was a despised little crip- ple and her name was Tabea (Frog). These three, and about them the chromatic glory of dreams like a sunrise that lingers—this was the world of Nu Zhinga. All day amid the quiet of the summer hills Nu Zhinga and Tabea played to- . gether; he telling of the great indefinite things that he would do in that big mysterious sometime when the days would be pregnant with wonders! For in his soul the pulse of uncertain but lofty resolve bounded, and as he peered into the future, lol it was vast, yet dim with misty possibilities like a broad stretch of prairie expanding under the new moon! And she, with all of her crooked little body attentive, listened and believed even more than she heard; which is the way of those who love. And then these two, after the manner of children, would play at life, building a tepee with willows 154 THE LONESOME TRAIL from a convenient creek; and Tabea would groan as she bore the heavy burdens, thus showing how she would toil for him and suffer. Then when the tepee was built, she would go about droning a song, with her back bent as with the weight of an infant, thus showing how she would carry the child of Nu Zhinga in that big and sunlit sometime. One day when the last white footstep of the win- ter had vanished from the coldest valley, the old woman Gunthai laid aside a finished basket and called her boy to her side. " It is the time," she said; " the time is ripe with summers. Nu Zhinga must eat no meat for four days; then he must go to the hill where the visions come, that he may know what is to be for him in the light of the unborn moons." So Nu Zhinga ate no meat for four days, and when the fourth evening came, as the fires roared upward among the circled lodges, he passed through the village and took his way to the high hill of dreams. It was the time when the valleys are loud with the song of frogs and when the Earth begins to learn anew the pleasant lesson of the Sun. When he had stopped, breathless with toiling up the long incline, for he was weak with hunger, he turned and looked back upon the jumbled village and saw, indistinctly through the mist of the even- ing, his mother standing before the door of her lodge, straining her gaze that she might see her boy for the last time, climbing to the height where the 156 THE LONESOME TRAIL “I saw the stars that were like the eyes of a friend,” said the boy, “and I heard the wind as it sang to itself in the gulches. I slept and woke and the Sun was laughing on the hills !”. Many seasons sit lightly upon a form when Hope sits with them; but Despair is heavy, and again the weight of many years bent the shoulders of the mother. When the sun leaves a cloud of glory, it leaves a mass of murk; thus passed the light from the wrinkled face of Gunthai. There was a sigh in her voice as she spoke; a sigh like that of a wind that is heavy with rain: “ There should have come a dream loud with the noises of battle and shrill with the flight of arrows! Thus did your father dream.” So Nu Zhinga went a second and a third and a fourth time to the hill of dreams, and the last answer that his mother heard was like the first. And on the fifth day the heart of the old mother was sore with sorrow, and all that night she did not sleep, but wept and moaned: “How shall Gunthai be com- forted when her eyes are dim and her fingers stiff? Her son shall not be mighty in the hunt and battle, for he has had no dream.” The lad, awakened in the night by the moaning of his mother, knew in an indefinite way that he was the cause of so much grief; and in his breast grew a great pang of soul hunger that would not pass away. Even with the giant joy of the sunrise it did not pass away. THE END OF THE DREAM 157 In the early light Nu Zhinga passed out of the vil- lage, for his heart was heavy. As he walked, lo everything was sad except the sun, and the light of its gladness deepened the shadow of his sorrow. The sound of the wind moving in the bunch grass of the hillside was like a faint cry of a great pain. At length he threw himself down and buried his face in the grass. The despair of those who dream day- dreams was upon him. There was night in his heart; his small body shook with sobs. A long while he lay thus, nor did he hear the soft step that stopped beside him. At length Nu Zhinga raised his head from the grass and saw Tabea sitting beside him with pity in her eyes and in the attitude of her crooked little body. Without a word they stared each into the face of the other; and as Nu Zhinga looked, the desolate grey of the world began to develop its wonted brilliance of colour, as though the union of their tears had produced a prism. At length these two arose and walked among the hills, dreaming as was their wont, and again the sun- light entered the heart of Nu Zhinga. When the two outcasts entered the village, even though the youths trooped behind them shouting “ Peazha!” (no good), yet the sunlight did not pass; for upon one hand walked the dreams of Nu Zhinga and upon the other, Tabea. One day in the time of the gathering of the maize, when the brown hills shivered with the first frosts, 158 THE LONESOME TRAIL the voice of a crier was heard through the village calling the braves to battle; for the big chief of the Omahas would lead a war party against the Sioux. So the old woman Gunthai took down the weapons of her fallen brave from the side of the tepee where they had hung in idleness for many moons. She strung the long unbent bow with a thong of buckskin and retipped the arrows with the feathers of the hawk. Then she wept over them, and blessed them with weird songs; and calling Nu Zhinga to her side, placed them in his hands, and said: “ Bring them back red with the blood of the Sioux !" And the youth took them, wondering why it was so very great a thing to kill. Then the war party rode out of the village and Nu Zhinga rode with it. And there were two who climbed to the highest hill and, shading their eyes with their hands, watched the braves disappear into the distance. They were Gunthai and Tabea; and the hopes of each were great. For might not even Nu Zhinga do great deeds ? Such things had been. After many days the returning band rode up the valley that rang with the song of victory. But when it rode into the village, a great cry went up against Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted. For in the battle with the Sioux his pony had fallen with an arrow in its breast, and when the Omahas returned from the pitiless pursuit of their flying foes, they found him crying like a squaw over the carcass of the animal. THE END OF THE DREAM 159 When the people heard this concerning Nu Zhinga, an angry cry, like that of a strong wind in a thicket, passed over the multitude gathered about the braves. “Let him go work with the squaws ! ” they cried. And the unanimous cry of a people is · a law. So Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted, carried water and wood with the women and was patient. At least he had Tabea ever near him, which was like living in the light of perpetual sunrise, and hope, like an incurable disease, would not leave his breast. The old woman Gunthai seeing how more than squaw-hearted her son had grown, sat in her lodge weaving the baskets of willow. But the hope of her heart was gone. How she had dreamed of the prow- ess of her little man! How he would be mighty among his people; mighty with the arm that is piti- less and strong—a slayer of enemies! But nową and the old woman's thought would check itself at that barren gulch in the hills through which Death comes like a blast of bitter winds, for she could see no further. So the suns came and went; but there was night for her in the brightest noon; the seasons passed, but for her heart there was cold, even in the kind midsummer. One day in the time of the cubs (December) it happened that a child of the village was stricken with a mysterious sickness. The fierce heat of the time of the sunflowers blazed in its blood. Its eyes Slayer of would checkich Death 160 THE LONESOME TRAIL glowed with the brightness of a burning thing. Its lips muttered strange words that were not the words of men; and those who listened, trembled. And after some time, the whole burning body of the child became one mass of sores. It was then that Washkahee, the big medicine-man, came to the lodge of the sick, sang his most potent songs and performed his most mysterious rites. But one day the child leaped to its feet and stared at the wall with eyes that were glazed with terror; then shrieked and fell back limply into its blankets. And when the winter had crept into its burning blood, they buried it upon a hill; and the wonder of the village was great. But the end was not yet. Another and another crept into his blankets, stricken with the same sick- ness. Then another and another, until from many lodges came the moans of the afflicted. Those who dwelt in the lodges where the scourge entered, fled from their stricken kinsmen as from the visible body of Death. They who could laugh back at the chal- lenge of the Sioux, quailed before the subtle creeping of this invisible foe. They who were as yet un- touched by the unseen Hand, huddled terrified and speechless about their fires, in the light of which they stared at each other and found each face ghastly, as though it were the mirror of their dread. In the stillness of their bated breaths they heard the lonesome monotony of the winter wind and the swish of the drifting snow, through the drone of THE END OF THE DREAM 161 which pierced like arrows of ice the occasional shrieks of the deserted dying or those who battled with gro- tesque terrors in the giddy whirl of feverish delirium. With trembling fingers the women bound blankets closely across the doors of the lodges, in the hope of barring out the black spirit that wandered about the village. Vain hope! Through the walls of the strongest lodge crept the subtle spirit. One night the sound of a wild voice crying through the storm beat into the lodges : “Washkahee has cried to Wakunda [God] and lo! Washkahee has dreamed! Only a tuft of hair from the head of the white bison can save us! So spoke the dream to Washkahee; who will seek the white bison ? " It was as though the winter wind had found words! The people, huddled about their fires, knew the voice to be that of the big medicine-man, Wash- kahee, yet they did not move. The bravest had become weak as a child at the back of a squaw. That night Nu Zhinga, lying in the lodge of his mother, heard the cry that came out of the storm; and when he slept he dreamed. He had walked far across the white prairie and his legs were aching with toil and his heart with despair. Then there broke upon his dream a mighty roar, and lo! he saw, charg- ing down upon him, the white bison, tossing the crusted snow from its lowered horns. “ Tae Ska! Tae Ska!” (white bison) Nu Zhinga cried, and was awakened by his own voice. 162 THE LONESOME TRAIL So in the early light of the morning, Nu Zhinga took down the bow and arrows of his father, and wrapping himself in a buffalo robe, he strode out into the prairie with his tame wolf trotting at his heels. To him the dream was an omen. Might he not find the white bison, and thus drive death from among his people? As he walked, the dream that had ever crept like a slow music through his blood, grew into the sway- ing fury of a battle-song. He timed his brisk steps with a joyous chant that echoed up the frosty valleys. He would find the white bison! Then his people would shout his name without derision. Gunthai would be glad; Tabea would be glad. Tabea ! The word was music. But meanwhile in the village thicker and thicker fell the invisible arrows of the Terror; and in the lodges where they fell dwelt the cry of agony and delirium and the muffled shriek of death. The old woman Gunthai and the cripple Tabea were not spared. The old and the young, the weak and the strong, the brave and the cowardly found no spell to ward away the stroke of the hidden Hand. At length the fear of the tribe grew into a frenzy. It needed but an incident to lash it into madness. One evening as the night crept westward across the hills, a brave leaped upon a pony and yelling sent the frightened animal flying up the valley. He was fleeing from the curse that hung over the village. Then the fear became a madness. The people THE END OF THE DREAM 163 rushed from their lodges and, fighting for the near- est pony, fled after the lone rider who had disap- peared into the night. Those who were too weak or too unfortunate to gain the back of a pony hung to the mane and were dragged in the snow until their grips weakened, when they ran with frantic shrieks after their disappearing tribesmen. The valley leading from the village be- came choked with the fleeing people. Many of the stricken leaped from their blankets and followed in the wild rout, until their knees weakened and their brains swam, when they lay shrieking in the snow until death came. From the deserted village the cries of the helpless followed the unhearing refugees, who fled as the bison flee when the pitiless hunter follows. Fainter and fainter grew the yelling until it was swallowed up in the wind that lashed the spraying snow. When the morning looked into the valley, it found no smoke arising from the silent lodges. Only the dead were there; the dead and the winter. On the evening of the second day after the flight of the tribe, a lone form topped the hill above the village and looked down into the still white valley, where lay the snow-choked lodges, quiet as a dream. The form was short, and bent as with the toil and hunger of a long, hard trail. At its heels a gaunt, grey wolf limped and whimpered with the ache of emptiness and the frost. The short, bent form stood still upon the summit 164 THE LONESOME TRAIL and shading its eyes with a hand that trembled, cast a long and searching gaze upon the lodges of his people. No smoke, no voice, no roar of fires, scented with the evening meal! The form straightened itself and stood with head thrown back, making a thin and pitiful figure against the cruel white glare of the icy evening sky. It put a hand to its mouth, trumpet-wise, and raising the other above its head, waved about a tuft of long, grey hair. "Tae Ska! Tae Ska!”. The voice was scarcely raised above a faint, dry wheeze that sighed dirge-like above the lifeless val- ley. The grey wolf with its four trembling legs drawn together in the snow, raised its frost-whitened muzzle to the fading sky and with a long, wild wail drowned the feebler voice of its master. With limping stride, grown short and uncertain as the first steps of a papoose, the form went down the hillside and entered the village where the Winter dwelt. “Tae Ska! Tae Ska! I have found the white bison!” The wheezing voice passed among the lodges like a mournful wind that haunts the lonesome places of a bluff. Round and round the village went the man and the wolf, crying into the silent lodges; and the man's face was wolflike with weariness and hunger; and the wolf's eyes were grown half human with the pinch of emptiness and frost. THE END OF THE DREAM 165 "Why do you not come forth, for I have suffered and I have the tuft of hair? No more shall the black spirits dwell among us! Come forth and look upon the face of him whose heart was the heart of a squaw!" The crisp snow whined beneath his step and the wolf whined beside him. At last the form stopped before a lodge and with a trembling hand drew away the covering at the entrance. It was the lodge of Gunthai. Two forms lay within, huddled in their blankets, and the snows had drifted about them. The 'man pulled the blankets from their faces. One was Gunthai and the other Tabea. Each was pinched with the pinch of death and winter, and the mystery of the last long, lone- some trail was about them both. With a moan the form tottered and fell upon its face in the snow. And over all the valley there were but two sounds—the wail of the winter wind and the howl of a lone wolf. Days passed, and the people who had fled from home with the pitiless scourge at their heels grew faint and weary with their wandering, and at last the homeаche drove them back upon their trail. Footsore, famished, racked with the now dead terror, they toiled in silence homeward, where they could die with the sound of their own fires in their ears. At last one morning a lone rider cautiously peered from under the brow of the hill upon the village. Nothing moved below. He urged his emaciated votn. 166 THE LONESOME TRAIL pony to the summit of the hill and stopping, gazed again, shading his eyes with a hand grown weak and thin. There seemed nothing in the valley to fear. Turning about upon his pony, he raised his arms in the light of dawn and cried back into the valley be- yond to the waiting remnant of his people—a long, exultant cry, for he had looked upon his home. Slowly the returning tribe, now dwindled to half its former numbers, toiled up the hill. Only the strong were left, and now the strong were weak. The straggling band of men, women and ponies reached the summit, a pitiful, ragged multitude, and gazed for a moment into the valley. Then a great shout arose above the silent spaces, scintillant under the dawn, as the halting, famished band swooped down the hill to be again at home. Again the fires roared upward from the lodges, and the voices of a happy people drove away the silence of the winter. There was no longer any dis- ease; the winter and the flight had purged the tribe. Who had saved them from the black spirits ? Could a tribe run faster than the things which are not good? The sun was at the centre of its short path when the answer to this question of the tribe broke into the lodges where the people sat about their steaming kettles. For it was then that one ran through the village waving a tuft of long, grey hair and startling the ears of his people with a shout: “ See! The tuft of hair from the head of the THE END OF THE DREAM 167 white bison! It has saved us; for do you not remem- ber the words of Washkahee?" The people rushed from their lodges and thronged about the man who held the tuft of hair. “Who has found the white bison ?" they cried. And the answer of him who held the tuft of hair struck the people silent with wonder: " It was Nu Zhinga, the squaw-hearted; even he who could not dream a dream!” THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP 169 slep' none for a week, and you go on a-trampin' and a-gabbin' till you got me all on needles! Why can't you leave me be? O damn it!" The last words were more like a sob than a curse; and the white, thin face and quivering lips seemed too impotent for the words. Hank stopped pacing up and down, and with his fists resting upon his hips he stared at the little man. “Now, Sheep,” he drawled kindly, "you hain't got no call to talk that away. Hain't I tryin' to be your friend to the finish? I was just thinkin' to cheer you up so's you'd make a respect'ble, manly hangin'. I didn't go to rile you." The little man thus addressed as “ Sheep " drew himself up into a shivering bunch among the furs and groaned. The big man shook his head slowly and sat down, leaning against the wall of the cabin. “ Pore Sheep,” he muttered. For an hour he sat with his chin in his hands, staring with pitying eyes upon the huddled little man, who now and again shook with shuddering sobs. The candle flame flickered dismally in the night wind that came in through the chinks in the wall. At length a series of stifled groans grew up among the furs, accompanied by a spasmodic jerking of the limbs of the little man. With a deep sigh he sat up. With an imbecile droop of the lower jaw, and eyes that burned feverishly with utter horror, he stared at his companion. 170 THE LONESOME TRAIL : “O cuss you, Hank!” he broke out querulously, “why can't you talk none? You goin' to let me keep a-slippin' down, down, down right into hell and never say a word to me? What you settin' there like a bump on a log for?” “W'y, Sheep," said the big man kindly; “ thought you was tryin' to snooze.” "Snooze! How can I snooze with a million little devils runnin' up and down my backbone and a- dancin' all over my head? You knowed I couldn't sleep! You knowed I hain't slep' for a week! Snooze! O damn it! Hain't I goin' to get plenty of snoozin' when they drag the cart out from 'n under me in the mornin'?”. Sheep's voice broke; the fire went out of his eyes; his teeth chattered as though a sudden gust of winter had struck him. “Now, Sheep," said Hank,“ don't be so riled up like. I know it's hard to go out that away; but it won't last long, and it can't hurt much after the first jerk. I reckon it don't matter much how a feller goes out after he's gone." “Oh, shut that up!" The little man leaned against the wall and closed his eyes. After a considerable silence the big man produced a flask of liquor and spoke soothingly. “Want a drink, Sheepy, old man?” The little man leaped up with a glimmer of hope in his eyes. “ 'Course I do! What made you keep a-hidin' SE THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP 171 it when you knowed all along that's what I been wantin'?" He grasped the flask and drank with great eager gulps until it was empty. Then he sat down against the cabin wall, staring fixedly at the candle flame. The empty, sheepish, cowardly face began to gain expression as the liquor mounted to his head. A light of fearlessness began to grow in his eyes. Lines appeared and deepened in his thin face, suggesting at once a certain degree of mastery and infinite malev- olence. The wolf that lurks somewhere in the fastness of every man's soul had come forth and routed the sheep. “What in thunder you doin' with all that heavy artillery hangin' to you, Hank? Take 'em off! I don't need no guards. Who said I was thinkin' of breakin' camp? I hain't tryin' to run, am I? Damn me, I'm glad I done it and I'm a-goin' to walk right straight into hell a-grinnin'! Sheep, am I?" The little man laughed a strange laugh that had the snarl of a mad wolf in it; a moment since he had been bleating like a scared lamb. “You set there and listen. Sheep, sheep, sheep! That's what they all been a-callin' me, but when I get done tellin' you about it, I guess you won't call me no sheep. Hain't a danged one of you big fellers as would 've done it up better 'n me! “You've knowed me quite a spell, Hank; and you never knowed no bad of me till now, did you? And I hain't had any easy trail most of the time neither. 172 THE LONESOME TRAIL When I was jest a little feller goin' to country school back East, the other fellers always picked onto me 'cause I was so easy to pick onto. Never had a fight in my life. Always scared to death of fightin'; sucked it in with my mother's milk, I guess. Used to get off alone and bawl 'cause I couldn't make myself fight. “Never was a real boy; always a kind of a stray sheep, bleatin' around in lonesome places. Guess I must look like a sheep; anyway the boys called me that; and it stuck. Pretty hard bein' a sheep amongst wolves, Hank! “I was always shy and easy scared, Hank. I never owned it to a livin' man before; but a man is like to say things just before he goes out for good that he wouldn't say before. “You knowed ol' man Leclerc, didn't you? Her dad, you know. Used to live down-river half a day's hard walkin'. I reckon that ol' man was about the best friend I ever had, 'ceptin' you, Hank. Kind of seemed to understand me like. Wonder if he's hearin' me now! Don't give a damn if he is! He knowed it wasn't in me to be bad, and he knows I done right. I tell you, Hank, I ain't scared, nor 'shamed nor nothin'. Damn me, I can see Donahan a-dyin' yet, and it does me good, Hank! Does me good!” The little man's eyes blazed, and his face seemed to take fire from them. But the light died as quickly as it was kindled, like a fire in too little fuel whipped THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP 173 by a wind too strong. A soft light of reminiscence lingered where the fiercer glow had died. “ Used to go down there pretty often when I could; part to see the ol' man, and most to see his girl. Nice little thing, Hank; awful nice little thing! Don't you think so? Good as an angel, too, but weak like a woman can be. I hain't nothin' again' her, Hank—so help me God, I hain't! I wasn't the man for her. She'd ought to 've had a big, strong, quiet feller what wasn't afraid of the devil. Some feller like you, Hank-or Donahan. “Oh, let the hottest fires in hell eat Donahan!” The little man shook with a passion that seemed grotesque, because it was too big for him. “And I kep' goin' down there, and goin' down there, till I begun to be happy, Hank. Begun to thinkin' part of this world was made for me. Begun to thinkin' about havin' a woman and babies; and somehow I got to feelin' bigger and stronger, and not sneakin' any more. " 'Peared like the girl liked me. Never had nothin' to do with no woman 'cept my mother, you know. Oh, Hank, why can't a feller be a man when he wants to so bad? I dunno. I tried. "Well, one time I went down there and ol' man Leclerc was pretty sick. Said he was a-goin' to die sure thing. Wheezin' already and pickin' at the blankets. Calls me up to him, and after he got done tellin' me what he was goin' to do d'rectly, he says: “Sheep, my boy, I've brought her up as near THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP 175 could and watch her skip about the place makin' things comfort'ble like a woman can when she's a mind. “And by and by I was happier'n ever. That was i when the little boy come. Cute little feller, that boy was. Don't you mind? Had blue eyes, and that tickled me half to death, 'cause black eyes is the rule in my fambly and hers, and it seemed like God was tryin' to be kind to me. “When Father Donahan christened the young'n, I drawed his attention to them blue eyes and Dona- han (no, I ain't goin' to call him Father no more, 'cause if he was a priest, he was a priest of the devil!) What was I sayin'?” At the sound of Donahan's name upon his own lips, the little man's face writhed into malevolent contortions. “What was I sayin'?” he repeated dazedly. “Blue eyes,” suggested Hank. “Quit breakin' in onto me that away!” snapped the little man peevishly. “And when I showed him the blue eyes, Donahan grinned and said, 'Yes, God had been very kind.' And it did look like it, didn't it? “Donahan named the boy; asked me if I'd let him. Called him James for a front name and Donahan for a middle one. Well, things went along smooth until one day the little feller died. Made me feel pretty bad-like to tore my heart out. But Donahan he come and cried too, and that helped. Always helps 176 THE LONESOME TRAIL to have somebody feel bad with you; don't you think so? “After that things dragged on like they have a way of doin'. I kep' on tryin' to be like a man. But the girl, she seemed to be takin' it pretty hard. Got stranger and stranger toward me, like as if she didn't care for me no more. Donahan used to come in often and console her, and she seemed to brighten up at them times—'cause she was always strong on the religion business. That's what made her so good, I guess. “But by and by there was goin' to be another youngster, and I kind of got into the way of whistlin' again somehow. Got to thinkin' how it'd be a boy with blue eyes like the one that died. About that time the Factor sent me off on a long trip. Hated to go, but it couldn't be helped. You'd ought to seen me travel, Hank! Wantin' to get back, you know; 'feared all the time mebbe she was sick and a-wantin' me. Made a quick trip-quicker'n most big men could, Hank. And when I come in sight of home, I was that glad that I couldn't feel my feet and legs achin'. " It was night when I got back, and I thought I'd just take a peep in at the winder before I went in; light was shinin' out so home-like. You know how a boy looks a long time at a big, red apple be- fore he eats it; gettin' his eyes full of it before he fills his belly? That was like me. “I crep' up and looked in; winder was raised a 178 THE LONESOME TRAIL T was a woman. “Never was a better woman. I ain't blamin' her." He rocked himself back and forth for some time. His sobbing ceased. Suddenly he raised his face and the flames of hell glittered in his tear-washed eyes. "I'm a white-livered coward, so I didn't go in and kill him. He was a big man, and I ain't no fighter. I run; don't know why. Didn't feel sore nor achy in my legs no more. I run and run and run till my breath give out, then I fell down and the stars swum 'round and went out. Then after awhile I was up and walkin', and nothin' would stand still. Things danced round and round me and the air was full of little spiteful, spittin' lights and sounds like devils a-laughin'. And by and by I come to old man Leclerc's place. Don't know why I went there. Nothin' there but the place. “I went in and laid down on the floor all broke up. And when I went to sleep, I dreamed of killin' Donahan. I woke up and it was mornin'. “First thing I heard was the rattle of some Red River carts goin' north. I guess it was the devil that whispered somethin' in my ear then. I run out and told a big lie to the bull-whackers. “Man a-dyin' in here! Go as fast as you can to the next post and tell Father Donahan to come down to see the pore devil through with it!'. “Guess I looked like I'd been settin' up for a THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP 179 week, so the bull-whackers believed it and went on north a-whackin' their bulls into a swingin' trot. “Well, Donahan come all right." Here the little man lapsed into a stubborn silence. He leaned against the wall and for several hours there was no sound in the cabin but that of heavy breathing. At length Hank got up and walked over to the little window. A dull grey blur had grown up in the East. It would soon be time. Hank sighed. Suddenly the little man was aroused from his lethargy as though he had heard a shout. He began talking rapidly. “I stood behind the door of the cabin, and when he come in I downed him with a club. Then I tied his hands and his feet and fastened him to the floor. I sat beside him and spit in his face till he come to a-groanin'. And it was a couple days before he could talk sense or knowed who I was. “And he begged and he cussed, but I didn't say nothin'. He got hungry; so I chawed at some pem- mican I had left from the trip so's he'd get hungrier. He got thirsty; so I drank more'n I wanted so's he'd get thirstier. “Said he'd get me into heaven for just one sup of water; so I went out with my cup; I filled it with dust; I put it to his lips. “ Said he'd send me to hell if I didn't give him just one drop. So I give him more dust. And by and 180 THE LONESOME TRAIL by he got luny like, and cussed like a bull-whacker and whined like a sick woman by turns. “God, Hank! How that man hung on! “ And by and by he seemed to get a little sense for a spell, and he yelled out: 'He had blue eyes, didn't he? Look at mine!' And I cuffed him in the mouth till his teeth was bloody, 'cause his eyes was blue.” The little man hesitated. Suddenly an expression of supreme terror came over his face. The wolf was dead—the frightened sheep looked out of his eyes. There was a sound of footsteps. The shabby light of early dawn had already cheapened the glow of the guttered candle. The door opened—a priest entered. The little man gave a yell of terror and shrank into his corner. “ Take it away, Hank!” he screamed. “Take it away!” Hank spoke a few words into the ear of the priest, who muttered a prayer and went out. For some time the little man stared appealingly into the eyes of the bigger man. When he spoke his voice was husky and low: “Won't you look after the woman a little, Hank? If it's got blue eyes__" There was now a sound of other footsteps ap- proaching. The little man gasped like one who has suddenly been thrust into cold water. “Oh, Hank !” he moaned;“ hold me tight. Don't let 'em take me! They'll stand me in the cart under THE REVOLT OF A SHEEP 181 a tree and they'll put the rope around my neck and they'll drag the cart away! Oh!” The footsteps were now very near the door. The little man on a sudden became very quiet. He bit nervously at his finger-tips. His body stiffened. His face seemed transparent. When the sound of a hand at the latch was heard, his jaw dropped nervelessly. He stared upon the soon-to-be-opened door with wide, dilated eyes, in which all that had been human was burned to dust. XII THE MARK OF SHAME N the old times there were two brothers, Seha and Ishneda; and because of hate for him, 1 they did many acts of unkindness to a man whose name was Shonga Saba. And one night a man was killed and the man was Ishneda. So with the coming of the light, a whisper ran about the village, saying “Shonga Saba has killed.” And the whisper was true; for Shonga Saba sat in his lodge all day, speaking no word. And when any came to speak, he lifted his lip in a bad way and snarled. A sick wolf does so. It happened that morning that some hunters went forth, for it was the time for the hunting of bison and the tribe was resting on the trail. And when the hunters returned, their eyes were like the eyes of a scared deer. They told a story that frightened the people. They had shot at three elk and their aim was true; but the arrows came out on the other side-bloodless. And the elk changed into wolves, running away very swiftly. So they who were wise saw famine coming. They recalled old times; how the game had often failed after a murder. For the spirit of the dead man makes it so. And the wise old men told these things, 182 THE MARK OF SHAME - 183 and the old women said it had been so; they remembered. So there was a space of little speaking, for Fear sat upon tongues. When the sun was going down, the people gath- ered about the big chief's tepee where the fathers were sitting with great thoughts. They did not smoke nor talk. They shivered as the long shadows crept out of the hills—yet it was the brown hot time. And when it was dusk a chief made words which were whispers: “Let a wachoobay [holy man] take strong weapons and travel the back trail till the middle of the night, that he may meet the spirit that comes and kill it; for Famine walks with the spirit that comes, and there shall be the wailing of children and many flat bellies." And the wachoobay went forth with strong weapons. He took the back trail; he looked straight ahead. And the people stared after him until the dark came between, as he walked to meet the two comers. Then the chief's voice went over the people in the darkness, for the fires were not lit; an enemy was coming, and there is safety in darkness: “Let him who killed come among us." So one went and brought the man. He stood among the people, felt but not seen; and with him came a sobbing that grew into words: “I, Shonga Saba, am here; and I have killed. Have my people seen a bison bull stung with 184 THE LONESOME TRAIL a fly until he tore the earth with his horns? It was so. After a long time of heat the storm comes out of the night; it does angry deeds, and in the morning it is past. It was so. My breast aches. I struck my enemy, but myself I struck also. Something has died within me. So I go to do as the others have done. I will take the punishment." And though the people did not hear nor see him go, they knew that he was gone. That night only the children slept. When Shonga Saba reached his tepee, he did that which was the custom. He cut his hair, he took off his garments, he smeared his forehead with mud. Of tears and dust he made the mud. Upon his fore- head he put the mark of his shame. From the peak of his tepee, where the smoke comes out, he tore the rawhide flap. It was black- ened with the smoke of many fires. About his shoulders he bound it; and it was the garment of his shame. And then he went forth from the camp. He pitched a lonesome tepee without the circle of his people; for thus he should live four summers and four winters. It was the custom. And in the first light his woman came to him with water and cooked meat. Also, she brought moan- ing. Shonga Saba spoke no word nor looked up. The mud of tears and dust was upon his forehead, and the blackened garment of shame was upon his shoulders. There was a lump in his throat; but the Udlom. THE MARK OF SHAME 185 water did not wash it away. There was an empti- ness in him; but the meat did not fill it. And when he cut the meat, which was well cooked, the man groaned, for blood ran forth and made the food look like a wound. Again the tribe took up the trail; they wanted to find the bison, for there was little meat. And the man followed at the distance of an arrow's flight behind his moving people, for such was the custom. But no thunder of bison came from the brown valleys where the trail went; neither was there any dust cloud of pawing hoofs. And the old women remembered old-time famines, and their hands trembled as they pitched the tepees in the dusk that ended the day's toil. And in the mornings the old men gazed into the shining distance, looking from under their hands with eyes that glared as in battle. And all day, sweating and toiling on the trail, the people ate the distance with hungry eyes.' Round bellies flattened; for the evil days had come. And the man who had killed saw all this. He too walked with hunger and something bigger than the food-wish. Also lonesomeness was ever by his side. In the nights he felt the mark upon his fore- head like the sting of an angry knife; and the smoke- flap was as a fire upon his shoulders. And one night he said: “I have brought these days of toiling without food upon my people. It 186 THE LONESOME TRAIL was for this that my mother groaned at my coming. I should have been the food of wolves on that day when my eyes were not yet open. I will go away, for evil walks with me, and my feet scatter trouble in the trail. My woman is as one who has no man, and my children are as a stranger's children. I will walk far and seek peace among other peoples, among strange hills and valleys." And he went in the night. He was far into the lonesome places—and it was morning. He was weak with the night walking, for famine had made him thin. So he lifted his face and his hands to the sun. His palms he turned to the young light and he spoke earnest words to the Spirit: “Wakunda, trouble have I met, and trouble have my people met through me. Help me to walk in the good trail!” And as he said the words, a cloud passed across the sun; it was like a smutch of mud across a shining forehead. The man who had killed, groaned. He hid his face in the grass that he might not see the mark of his shame. But as the day grew older the hunger pinched more, and the man got up, set his face away from the sun, and went on further into the lonesome places. And in the evening he killed a rabbit with his bow and arrows. And as the rabbit leaped up at the sting of the arrow, it made a pitiful sound like that of a man struck deep with a knife in his sleep. And the man fed, for a strange sickness had THE MARK OF SHAME 187 gripped him. The mark upon his forehead burned, and the smoke-flap was as a heavy burden upon his shoulders. In the last light he found wild turnips and ate. They could not cry out; they could not bleed. And then sleep came, but not rest. While his body slept, his spirit killed Ishneda over and over again. And he saw the first light with haggard eyes. And when he had eaten again of the wild turnips he said: “I will go to the village of the Poncas; they will take me in, for I will speak soft words.” That day he travelled, and the next and the next. But two others had travelled faster than he-Famine and the Story of his bad deed; for none travel so fast as these. And these two had travelled across the prairie together. And after much walking, Shonga Saba came to the top of a hill and turned hungry eyes upon the Ponca village in the valley. It was the time when the old day throws big shadows. He stood thin, bent against the sky. The smoke-flap at his shoul- ders lifted in the wind that the eyes in the valley might see. And a dead hush crept over the village; the sound of children died; the people disappeared. Full of wonder and fear, the lean, lonesome one walked with halting step down the dry hillside. He entered the village, and it was as a place where all are dead. He came to the centre of the village. He lifted his palms and made a piteous cry, which was like a 188 THE LONESOME TRAIL dry wind moving in a wilderness. And then the head of an old man was thrust forth from a tent- flap, and from it came a husky voice: “Begone, O Bringer of Famine!”. And the man went forth. His head was bent, his shoulders stooped as with a weight. He walked far and met the Night. He lay down in its shadow. . His forehead ached, and the smoke-flap was as a burning brand. And in the darkness he made a cry: “Wakunda, very far have I walked seeking peace; but it has fled before me. Help me to find the good trail !" He was very tired, and on a sudden it was day again, and the dew was upon him. He found wild turnips and ate. He drank at a little creek that ran very thin among dying reeds. Then he walked, he knew not where. But now and then he whispered bitter words into the lonesome air: “In the land of the spirits is peace; there I would walk, but I can- not find the trail.” The day was very hot. The prairie wavered in the heat; the bugs droned; the light wind sighed in the dry grasses like a thirsty thing. The far hills seemed floating in a lake of thin oil. They looked lean and hungry, yellow as with a fever; and upon their sides the dry earth was broken like old sores. Into the heat-drone the man sent his sighing. His feet were heavy; he wished to die, he wished to die. And when the day was past the highest place, a rumbling grew below the rim of the earth, like the 190 THE LONESOME TRAIL ine Bringer! The Famine Bringer!” Stricken with a common fear, they fled. And the storm broke upon the valley. It poured down water and fire upon one who lay there upon his face. It roared, it shrieked, it flamed about him; but he moved not. His breast ached with the ache of the lonesome, for even Death had fled him. And when the storm had passed, the stillness came back like a new pain. The drenched man arose and saw the blood-red sun slip down a ridge of steaming hills. 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 192 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 prai- rie, and the snows came. More and more the lone- some 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 home-ache 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 XIII THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS I TE could never be a strong waschusha (brave). When he was born he was no bigger than a baby coyote littered in a ter- rible 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 194 THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS 195 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 com- plete 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 yow 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 yan- ished 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 tend- ing the baking of the squaw corn cakes and the yellow watuh (pumpkin) in the embers. The old women, their backs bent with their loads, 196 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 sympa- thetic kindness passed through his small body. And especially did the wolfishness of his little heart melt into an indefinite feeling of love for hu- manity 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 wield- ing the stone axe with mighty force in some mys- terious 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 198 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 de- lirium 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 THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS 199 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 over- powering 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 lone- liness 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 re- turned. 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 202 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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. THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS 203 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 D AIN 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 breath- ing,” 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; 204 DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN 205 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 fash- ioned him a man-de-hi, which is a long spear, tipped with sharp Aint; 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-s5-s! go away! I sting!”. And the man went, for it is not good to see a man act like a snake. 206 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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; DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN 207 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. 210 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN 211 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 2 THE LONESOME TRAIL 1 2 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 writh- ing 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. 214 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 him- self. Then he built a fire and lit his pipe and made choobay smoke. Then he spoke to the various wa- kundas 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 DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN 215 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 pleas- antly 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. 216 THE LONESOME TRAIL Il 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." “Tellit, 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 vil- DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN 217 lage 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 bur- dens 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 218 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 \HE 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 bleach- ing 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. 219 220 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 blacken- ing 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, THE SMILE OF GOD 223 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, Ashun- hunga 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 ques- tion 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 Sha- nugahi lay curled up in sleep in the shadow of a tepee. Suddenly his sleep was broken by a heavy ma 224 THE LONESOME TRAIL hand reaching out of the darkness. He shook him- self, 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, whis- pered 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 mean- ingless eyes upon his tribesmen and leered. Strong arms seized him and placed him astride the wait- ing 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 de- mons ! 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 226 THE LONESOME TRAIL Leade 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 find. ing 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. 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! Dis- THE SMILE OF GOD 227 mounting, 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 spell- bound; 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!) XVI THE HEART OF A WOMAN | HE 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 wis- dom 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 229 THE HEART OF A WOMAN 231 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 be- cause 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 232 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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. THE HEART OF A WOMAN 233 “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 pale- face 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 gather- ing 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 234 THE LONESOME TRAIL runs man can 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 zhin ga [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 THE HEART OF A WOMAN 235 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; there- fore 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 THE HEART OF A WOMAN 237 m 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 XVII MIGNON UT, 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 ca- dences 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 in- dulged 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 hill- tops my eyes looked forth. For from my first moc- casins my feet caught the itch for going. And in many villages of strange peoples I have lived for 239 240 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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 MIGNON 243 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 even- ing. 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; 244 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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." as 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 ! MIGNON 245 “ 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 under- stand? 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 246 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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. MIGNON 247 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. MIGNON 249 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 bit- terly 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 cut in the lonesome places that the mate may hear. That spirit went calling down the trail I fol- lowed. “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 any- MIGNON 253 pooked upon herd she turned up called her 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 XVIII A POLITICAL COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA HE struggle for Congressional honours in the Third District of Nebraska was to be a hard one. The white voters of the Dis- trict were about evenly divided between the two parties, and therefore the necessary elective ma- jority 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, igno- rant band of semi-savages who should choose by chance the national representative of educated thou- sands. 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, accord- ingly, scattered broadcast throughout the reservation considerable quantities of the meat of superannuated 255 256 THE LONESOME TRAIL bulls; sat in the feasts with cross-legged condescen- sion; 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 re- joicing in local Democratic circles over the bright prospects for a sweeping majority. It was not until the first of October that the oppo- sition suddenly hurled a thunderbolt out of the blue sky of its seemingly serene inactivity. The Agent, holding his appointment under a Republican adminis- tration, 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 an- nouncement 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 open- ing 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). A COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA 257 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 reserva- tion thrust themselves up into the autumn glare, unashamed of their poverty of soil. The Agency building nestled forlornly in a creek valley sur- rounded by the yellow, wrinkled hills. In the early morning a lazy string of vehicles be- gan 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 mort- gage; 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 A COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA 259 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 for- gotten 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 col- lector of any description shall be allowed within a radius of half a mile from the pay station." Accord- ingly, 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 high- way, 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 A COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA 261 “ 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 doubt. less 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 atten- tion. The grocer, who spoke the Omaha tongue fluently and had a snug fortune laid away in conse- quence, walked rapidly in advance of the others and met Mr. Rainwalker at the line, followed by the straggling crowd of expectant creditors like a trail- ing 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 262 THE LONESOME TRAIL 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, Rain- walker? ” roared the bearlike middleman. “I want my money for them wives I buried for you—two of 'em!” squeaked the scorpionlike under- taker, holding up two explanatory fingers and thrust- ing his thin, pale face into the melee. “Ugh!" the old man answered rather unsatis- factorily. “If you don't pay me," shrieked the incensed little undertaker, “I'll go right out on the hill and dig up them boxes, by God!” “Muska ningay!” (no money) said the old man. “No pay 'em chil'n's money tall. All time lie to us. Goan votem Dimmiticrat, guess.". And with this statement, bearing with it the fate of a national representative, the old chief kicked the tenacious slumber out of his pony and rode back to the Agency. A COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA 263 “Eh?" ejaculated the politician; “ Votin' Demo- cratic, eh? Well, I'll be cussed! It'll snow us under! Why in thunder do they refuse to pay the money to the minor children? I tell you, gentlemen, it'll snow us under!” “Drat politics ! ” squeaked the little undertaker. “ Wisht I'd a-buried 'em all afore now. Cussed if I don't go right out on that there hill and dig them boxes up!" The day wore on with an alarming recrudescence of Democracy among the red men (who are not red, but chocolate). In the afternoon, the little under- taker chased White Horse, another leading man of the tribe, into the brush and returned with a broad grin upon his face. “ Beats the devil! ” ejaculated the thin politician, “where a body sometimes finds merriment! How's he votin', Comfort?” “Votin' Democrat—the whole cussed posse of 'em! But I don't give a cuss—Democrat or Re- publican money's all the same to me. I got $15; one of his kids I planted five years ago; died of Cuban itch; four-foot pine box! He, he, he! I don't give a cuss how they're votin'." That night there was a meeting of Republican politicians at the Agency office. A most alarming landslide had begun that day, bearing disaster to the ranks of the Grand Old Party. “Some more of those confounded departmental rulings ! " exclaimed the Agent to the company pres- 264 THE LONESOME TRAIL ent. “It's this grandmotherly solicitude for the Indian that makes him an irresponsible scamp. Why, if the Government had turned them all loose to sink or swim a decade ago, Natural Law would, by this time, have solved the much mooted Indian question. But what are we to do?” And the Agent stroked his Van Dyke beard in perplexity. “We've got to do something," said the lean wolf with the body like a question mark; "and there's only one thing to doget Meekleman here. You remember how he wheedled them into line four years ago. If there's a man in the world who can bring them around, it's Meekleman. And we'd better get McBarty here, too. The two of them may be able to kick up a successful powwow.” Charles D. Meekleman was a Nebraska politician who was almost a statesman, and had held important positions in Washington official circles. McBarty was the Republican candidate for Congress. It was decided that they should be sent for at once. It was Friday evening when the two great men arrived; and upon Saturday morning they came forth and allowed themselves to be gazed upon freely. McBarty was a heavy-set, middle-sized man, with an earnest expression of countenance, and the rather bewildered air of a candidate being led forth to sacrifice for the first time. Meekleman was tall, superbly built, clad in the faultless manner and bear- ing about him that air of refinement which had won him from his rural constituents the name of “Gen- A COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA 269 are not too good, he says, to smoke and eat with us, he says. He likes you pretty much, guess." The old chief talked again for some time, and then lapsed into dignified silence. “He says," continued the youth, “that you have lived in the same lodge with the Big Father at Wash- ington, and you can get the money for the chil'ns, he guess. That's what he says." “Tell my dear brother," said Meekleman, “ that my heart is warm toward my brown brothers, and that the children shall have their money. Tell him that I played with the Big Father when he was a little boy, and that I know the Big Father would be terribly angry if he knew that the children had been refused their money. Tell him that I will see that they get it.” This short speech translated, sent a murmur of joy around the circle. White Horse arose from the opposite side of the circle and brought a cup of hot soup to his white brother as a special favour. “And now," said Meekleman, arising majestically as befitted the erstwhile playmate of the President, “I shall introduce to you Mr. McBarty. He will go to Washington for you and he will do many good things for the Omahas.” Mr. McBarty came forth and fell to shaking the brown hands of the grown-up children. He started with Rainwalker, who carefully rubbed his left hand upon his blanket before presenting it to the future saviour of his race. Then after having shaken all A COUP AT LITTLE OMAHA 271 is not in the valleys any more, nor on the hills. We cannot talk to the big white Wakunda. What can we old men say to our foolish people when they need wise words ? Every day they are more like badgers. They eat much, drink firewater, and are very foolish. But we have these white brothers and we will listen to them. Their wisdom is the new wisdom; we will listen to them.” “Ah, ah!" assented the listeners. For an hour the circle sat staring into the flame, thinking of the old times. Then without a word, Rainwalker and White Horse arose and passed out of the lodge and the others followed. “Well," said Meekleman to McBarty, as they walked along the lonesome road toward the Agency, “I have the honour to address the Hon. James McBarty!" The other did not answer for several minutes. “Meekleman,” said McBarty at length,“ don't you suppose I can do something for these poor devils ? " “Ah, McBarty," returned Meekleman, “I am afraid you will never be a politician!”. Upon the following Monday morning when the tribe gathered for the continuation of the big pay- ment, the news began to circulate that the great white man had gone to see the Big Father at Washington about the payment of the money to the minor chil- dren. As this news was authenticated by White Horse and Rainwalker themselves, it was readily 274 THE LONESOME TRAIL the horse with the whiplash; “lather up there! ” And the horse dashed about the circle until its flanks were dripping and its mouth was white with foam. At length the man took out his watch, saw that it was 5:30 o'clock, and untying the lariat, he mounted and put the spurs to his already jaded animal, dashing at a furious pace down the dusty old trail toward the Agency. A few moments later McBarty and the Judge caught sight of a furious rider dashing toward them in a cloud of dust. “Who do you suppose that can be riding so fast? ” said the Judge. “Oh,” said McBarty, smiling broadly, “that, Judge, is merely my election coming up at the gallop!” Amid dust and yelling and a general spectacular confusion the horseman dashed up to the door of the pay station, threw his horse on its haunches in stop- ping, and cried: “A telegram from Washington for the Agent!” In a few moments a great crowd of Indians had gathered about the horse and rider. The Agent, with a smile upon his face, rushed out of the station and seized a bit of yellow paper that the rider held in his hand. Breathlessly the crowd of Omahas waited. "Listen ! " shouted a crier in the Omaha tongue, standing by the Agent, who was reading the tele- gram. “The Big Father at Washington sends this 280 THE LONESOME TRAIL his return would find his most valuable possessions untouched. I tell you, gentlemen, the Indian is like a prairie flower that has been transplanted from the blue sky and the summer sun and the pure winds into the steaming, artificial atmosphere of the hothouse! A glass roof is not the blue sky! Man's talent is not God's genius! That is why you are looking at a perverted growth. “Look into an Indian's face and observe the ruins of what was once manly dignity, indomitable energy, masterful prowess! When I look upon one of these faces, I have the same thoughts as, when travelling in Europe, I looked upon the ruins of Rome. “Everywhere broken arches, fallen columns, tumbled walls! Yet through these as through a mist one can discern the magnificence of the living city. So in looking upon one of these faces, which are merely ruins in another sense. They were once as noble, as beautiful as— " In his momentary search for an eloquent simile, the minister paused. “As pumpkin pies !” added the newspaper man with a chuckle; and he whipped out his notebook and pencil to jot down this brilliant thought, for he had conceived a very witty “story” which he would pound out for the Sunday edition. “Well," said the Agency Physician, finally sucked into the whirlpool of discussion, “ it seems to me that there is no room for crowing on either side. Indians are pretty much like white men; livers and kidneys THE LAST THUNDER SONG 281 and lungs, and that sort of thing; slight difference in the pigment under the skin. I've looked into the machinery of both species and find just as much room in one as the other for a soul!" “And both will go upward,” added the minister. “Like different grades of tobacco," observed the Indian Agent, “ the smoke of each goes up in the same way." “Just so," said the reporter; “but let us cut out the metaphysics. I wonder when this magical cuggie is going to begin his humid evolutions. Lamentable, isn't it, that such institutions as rain prayers should exist on the very threshold of the Twentieth Century?" “ I think," returned the minister, “ that the Twen- tieth Century has no intention of eliminating God! This medicine-man's prayer, in my belief, is as sacred as the prayer of any churchman. The differ- ence between Wakunda and God is merely ortho- graphical.” “But," insisted the cynical young man from the city, “I had not been taught to think of God as of one who forgets! Do you know what I would do if I had no confidence in the executive ability of my God?” Taking the subsequent silence as a question, the young man answered: “Why, I would take a day off and whittle one out of wood!” “A youth's way is the wind's way," quoted the preacher, with a paternal air. THE LAST THUNDER SONG 285 cros of Night. A clarion challenge shrilled across the years. Never before in all the myriad moons had such a thing occurred. It was too great a cause to pro- duce an effect of grief, or anger. It stupefied. The old men and women sat motionless. They could not understand. With uneven step and with eyes that saw nothing, Mahowari passed from among his kinsmen and tot- tered up the valley toward his lonesome shack and tepee upon the hillside. It was far past noon when the last of the older Omahas left the scene of the dance. The greater number of the white men who had witnessed the last thunder dance of the Omahas went homeward much pleased. The show had turned out quite funny indeed. “Ha, ha, ha! Did you see how surprised the old cuggy looked? He, he, he!” Life, being necessarily selfish, argues from its own standpoint. But as the minister rode slowly toward his home there was no laughter in his heart. He was saying to himself: “If the whole fabric of my belief should suddenly be wrenched from me, what then?” Even this question was born of selfishness, but it brought pity. In the cool of the evening the minister mounted his horse and rode to the home of Mahowari, which was a shack in the winter and a tepee in the summer. Dismounting, he threw the bridle reins upon the 286 THE LONESOME TRAIL ground, and raised the door flap of the tepee. Ma- howari sat cross-legged upon the ground, staring steadily before him with unseeing eyes. “How!” said the minister. The old Indian did not answer. There was no expression of grief or anger or despair upon his face. He sat like a statue. Yet, the irregularity of his breathing showed where the pain lay. An Indian suffers in his breast. His face is a mask. The minister sat down in front of the silent old man and, after the immemorial manner of ministers, talked of a better world, of a pitying Christ, and of God, the Great Father. For the first time the Indian raised his face and spoke briefly in English: “God? He dead, guess!” Then he was silent again for some time. Suddenly his eyes lit up with a light that was not the light of age. The heart of his youth had awak- ened. The old memories came back and he spoke fluently in his own tongue, which the minister under- stood. “These times are not like the old times. The young men have caught some of the wisdom of the white man. Nothing is sure. It is not good. I can- not understand. Everything is young and new. All old things are dead. Many moons ago, the wisdom of Mahowari was great. I can remember how my father said to me one day when I was yet young and all things lay new before me: ‘Let my son go to a high hill and dream a great dream'; and I went up raised his cat Father. Fini, Pitying Christ He dead briefly in ime the Ind: 100 THE LAST THUNDER SONG 287 in the evening and cried out to Wakunda and I slept and dreamed. “I saw a great cloud sweeping up from under the horizon, and it was terrible with lightning and loud thunder. Then it passed over me and rumbled down the sky and disappeared. And when I awoke and told my people of my dream, they rejoiced and said: 'Great things are in store for this youth. We shall call him the Passing Cloud, and he shall be a thunder man, keen and quick of thought, with the keenness and quickness of the lightning; and his name shall be as thunder in the ears of men.' And I grew and believed in these sayings and I was strong. But now I can see the meaning of the dream-a great light and a great noise and a passing." The old man sighed, and the light passed out of his eyes. Then he looked searchingly into the face of the minister and said, speaking in English: “You white medicine-man. You pray?”. The minister nodded. Mahowari turned his gaze to the ground and said wearily: “White God dead too, guess." XX THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES VRENCHY called for two cards and reached for a glass and the bottle. His head swam - dizzily. The clinking of glasses at the bar smote upon his ears like gongs. He was about to risk upon one “show-down " the realisation of a five- years' dream. He felt certain of losing; that was the strange thing about it. Yet somewhere in the buzz- ing back of his head a compelling little devil whis- pered and he obeyed. He drank three big ones straight, and for a mo- ment things stood still and the buzzing ceased; but in the sudden silence the hissing of the little devil increased to a roaring like the river's in the June rise. “ All on the deuces!' All on the deuces! Every damned cent!” That is what the little devil in the back of his head was howling now. “But if I lose it all—and wanting to go back home in the spring ?” That was the question his pounding heart hurled at the insistent little devil. “You won once- didn't you—didn't you? DIDN'T YOU?” howled back the little devil jeer- ingly. “Five hundred," said Frenchy quietly. His bronze face had grown livid; his black eyes narrowed and 288 THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES 291 to him that he was the centre of a silent hollowness; only a voice, that was rather an ache felt than a sound heard, kept up a pitiless jeering. “They'll stay—they'll stay,” shrieked the little devil; “your bluff won't work-you're a dead horse and they're crows-crows-crows!”. “They're weakening !” beat the heart of Frenchy. “Deuces—ha, ha! Deuces! And they've both got face cards—deuces—ho, ho!-going home, eh? -win on deuces ?-ho, ho, ho-deuces !” The in- sistent devil laughed spitefully. “Raise you five hundred more!” The words echoed and re-echoed in the lonesome hollowness. Frenchy stared at his cards. “Five hundred more!” Frenchy winced and shivered. It seemed to him that a long, thin-bladed knife had reached out of the silent hollow that surrounded him and stabbed him twice in the breast. “Ho, ho, ho!" went the little devil at the back of his head. “Stay with 'em! Put up the horses- everything on the deuces—ho, ho, ho!” “But I can lay down now and save the horses," urged the sick heart of Frenchy. “You won on the deuces once!” shrieked the little devil; “ didn't you—DIDN'T YOU?" Frenchy now heard his own voice growing up out of the hollow. “Taken: my five horses and outfit are good for it.” Then he emerged from the soundless hollow and 292 THE LONESOME TRAIL was aware of the circle of glittering eyes staring down on the field whereon he had just staked five years of his life and his last cherished dream. “ Full house-aces on queens.” Frenchy heard the words and grinned exultantly. The little spiteful devil was silent. “ Four kings!” Frenchy dropped his cards face up and reached for the bottle. “Ho, ho, hol” went the little devil, dancing all over his brain; "everything lost on the deuces—dead horse for the crows to pick he, he, he!” A ripple of exclamations ran about the circle of loungers as they leaned forward to see the hand upon which Frenchy had staked all that he owned. “Deuces! By the jumping-four dirty deuces ! ” “ Deuces?” “Four of 'em.” “How's that for a bluff?” “ Fool play!" A buzzing undertone of comment filled the room and steadily grew into a chattering as of crows about a spot where something has just died. Frenchy seemed not to hear; he was busy filling and refilling glasses. The man with the four kings quietly raked in his winnings. “And the horses ?” he sug- gested. Frenchy set the drained glass down with a bang, and with a snake-like forward thrusting of the head leered hideously at the winner. “ Can't you shut up THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES 293 about the horses?” He forced the words menac- ingly through his shut teeth. A hush fell 'upon the loungers as they looked upon the pinched, malignant face with the upper lip lifted quiveringly and the close-set teeth showing beneath. This was no longer the Frenchy of legend; that Frenchy had always been known as one who lost or won large sums with the utter nervelessness of a machine. This was no longer the face of Frenchy— the gay, careless, haughty face of him who flirted with Fortune. This was a new Frenchyma terrible Frenchy; with a coiled snake lurking just behind each glittering eyeball. This face sent a shiver through the crowd-like the sight of an ugly knife unsheathed in anger. The loungers with affected carelessness began to move away. With a lightning sweep of the hands Frenchy drew his guns and banged them down vio- lently on the table before him. “ Stay where you are, gentlemen!” he said; “ I'm going to talk and I want an audience. When I'm done talking, I'm off on the long trail and the first man that moves goes with me!” There had always been a winsome something in the voice of the man. It was now commanding, irre- sistible. The loungers stood still and stared dumb- founded upon this terrible new version of an old legend. Frenchy picked up four cards from his hand and held them up fanwise before his enforced listeners. THE NEMESIS OF THE DEUCES 301 “I reeled in the saddle, yet the mad wish to live lashed my hands to the pommel. But this was only for a moment. The meanest worm that ever wrig- gled in a dunghill holds fast to his life. I forgot the Kid again; I remembered only myself and that I must ride to win. I pulled the horse down and held him steady. Never did I throw a leg across a better horse than the Kid's-honest, rangy, clean-limbed and deep in the chest! My heart leaped with joy when I heard his long even breathing. I had a great delirious love for the big-hearted brute as I felt his long, even reach, the tireless rhythmic stride that throws the miles behind. The drifting red sea of smoke above cast the wild glare down upon the prai- rie and made the footing sure. I threw my guns away; I stripped off my coat and gave it to the wind. I knew what an extra pound might mean. “ An elk forged slowly past, his wide antlers tipped with light. An antelope sprang up and bounded away into the twilight ahead. A coyote leaped from a shoe-string clump; he cowered and whined like a whipped dog with his tail between his legs, then raced away down the wind. Snorting shadows. began to move to right and left in the further gloom and disappear in the smoke-drift. I was now a part of the ragged edge of the flotsam tossed up by the approaching lip of the flood. I gave my horse another inch of rein and held him steady. The thunder in the rear grew louder; I could hear dimly the wild confusion of animal cries.