CHAPTER XXXV. THE SEARCH FOR NEW MEDICINE.

When a young brave comes to man’s estate his initiation into the religion of his tribe is a great matter. Heretofore he has had no real name. He has been called by several names, perhaps, but they have been those given him by his parents, and are perhaps only the pet names of childhood. Now he is a man and gets the name which in war and on the hunt he is hopeful of making great and long-remembered by the tribe.

Red Knife belonged to the family of the Crow. The signification of that family was painted upon his father’s wigwam, as it would be upon his own when he set up a domicile for himself.

So the medicine-man had put into a bag the dried entrails of a crow, its hard, black claws, and some of its feathers, with various other charms against evil. The young man had watched all night upon a lonely hill, fasting, to guard his shield and arms, as well as the new medicine, from those spirits that are ever warring against human beings--according to the Indian code--and had in other ways proved himself worthy of being a brave in the councils of the Sioux.

The bag, which had been fastened about Red Knife’s neck, was as precious to the Indian as his soul! Having lost it, he had lost caste and all else that an Indian holds of value. He would be considered apostate from the faith of his fathers; all that he had done heretofore in war and the chase would be held as nothing. He would be outcast from his kind, having lost his medicine, unless he could by some wonderful performance, or by some mysterious chance, find and appropriate a new medicine.

There are just so many medicines in the world, according to the Indian belief; there is one for each man. Having lost his medicine, it could not be replaced by the medicine chief or by any other ordinary means. He could not kill an enemy and take _his_ medicine for his own; for as soon as a man is dead the virtue of his medicine accompanies him on the journey to the happy hunting-grounds.

No man would be so foolish as to sell his medicine at any price. With his last breath he will fight for that amulet. Red Knife was undone indeed as he sat there beside the bloody pool. All the manhood had gone out of him. His hard fight and his many wounds seemed as nothing to him now. He was bereft of his choicest possession and could not be comforted.

Yet a desire to be with his kind, to see the faces of his tribesmen again, drove the young man finally from his position. The fire had gone from the forest, and it was midday of the second day before he rose to his feet. The decomposing gases in the body of the bear had brought it to the surface. Red Knife hobbled down, cut off the paws and strung them about his neck, flayed the carcass, cut off some flesh for his own consumption, found a flint-stone, and with the back of his knife struck off sparks which lit a fire, and after eating and renewing his strength he wrapped himself in the gory robe and started for Oak Heart’s village.

This encampment had been well out of the line of the forest fire and had not been disturbed by it. Red Knife reached it in the night and came to his father’s lodge. But he did not venture within. He was pariah--outcast--the lowest of the low.

His mother gave him food in the morning, but his father sent back the bear’s paws. It was soon known that Red Knife had lost his medicine, and the head of the Crow family could not accept food at his hand. Of course, Red Knife knew it would be useless to make the bear claws into a necklace for the White Antelope. She would look at him less now than before. Besides, the White Antelope remained in her lodge, with one old woman, her nurse, most of the time. There was something very mysterious about the movements of the daughter of the chief.

This did not interest Red Knife much at the time, however. He was past thinking of women. His own people looked at him askance. Nobody spoke to him; he was welcome in no lodge, and the very clothing which his mother flung him seemed begrudged. All Indians must harden their hearts against a being so cursed of the Great Spirit that he had lost his medicine!

He could enter no council of his tribe; he had no voice in the general affairs; he could join in none of the sports. All that he had done before was forgotten. Even that he had brought low the white chief who had led the pony soldiers to the battle in the coulée counted nothing for Red Knife now. He was outcast.

Red Knife could not stand for this long. An Indian does not make way with himself. A suicide wanders forever between this life and that to come, and is never at rest. But Red Knife was nearly desperate enough to resort to this awful finish.

At least he determined to go out from among his people and never to return until he had found a new medicine and obtained a new name for himself--in other words, until he could demand the respect of his family and of his tribe.

Now he crept out of the encampment, and from a high hill muttered his farewell address to his home and his people. He would not be Red Knife when he returned--if he returned at all. All the encampment knew that, but only one figure stood by his father’s lodge to watch him go. He knew that was his mother, but it was beneath him to notice a squaw!

Now this young buck had set forth on a search as great as that for the Golden Fleece or the Holy Grail of old! Had the tribe a Homer, some great saga might have been written regarding the labor Red Knife had set himself.

To go forth and kill an enemy and take his medicine was a simple matter. But the medicine of another would surely bring bad luck to the scion of the family of Crow. And to find a man with two medicines--ah! that were a well-nigh impossible task! And, when found, would such a fortunate person be willing to give up his extra medicine? To fight for it might end in the death of the first possessor, and then would the virtue go from the medicine and it become a curse to Red Knife.

The young man left his village and journeyed aimlessly for two days through the mountains. So unnoticing was he that finally he came to a place where he did not know his way out. He was not so far from Oak Heart’s village, but its direction he did not know for sure. And this valley in which he found himself seemed an uninhabited place.

Many of the braves were out on hunting bent, but Red Knife had not seen any of them for twenty-four hours. Nor had he beheld a white man until, coming down to drink at the edge of the stream which watered this valley, he suddenly saw a figure in buckskin sitting upon a great, white horse on the opposite side of the stream. In the fading light of the evening the being looked gigantic to the red man--who was in a state of mind to see ghosts or anything else eerie! The strange figure was that of a white man. He had hair flowing to his shoulders, and he sat his horse with folded arms, staring off into the distance, evidently wrapped in deep thought.

The wind was with the brave, and the horse even did not notice his presence. Red Knife might have crossed the stream and leaped upon the unsuspicious white man. Yet his mind was not upon killing, and when he finally recognized the stranger as the far-famed Pa-e-has-ka or Long Hair he feared and would not, single-handed, have attempted the man’s death.

Seldom might Buffalo Bill have been so easily caught napping. But he had seen no trace of Indians in the valley; he had ridden through it to this spot, and now his mind had reverted to his deep sorrow regarding Dick Danforth’s death, and he thought of nothing else.

He roused at last from his reverie with a sigh, and glanced about him. His vision fell upon the figure of the young brave standing, likewise with folded arms, upon the edge of the stream. He could not repress a start of surprise at the appearance.

“How!” grunted Red Knife.

“How!” repeated the scout, in English.

Then in the Sioux dialect he said:

“Is it peace, brother?”

“It is peace.”

The scout had seen that the young buck was not panoplied for war, and now he dismounted and came to his side of the stream.

“You are one of Oak Heart’s people?” Cody asked.

“I _was_ Red Knife, of the Sioux.”

The scout overlooked the emphasis on the “was” for the moment. His attention was particularly stung by the name the brave gave.

“‘Red Knife!’” he repeated.

The brave bowed and was silent.

“It was you who killed the white chief of the pony soldiers?” gasped Cody.

Red Knife nodded again.

The scout fiercely gripped the rifle he carried. In his heart he felt like shooting the brave down where he stood. But he repressed this momentary feeling and said:

“I have sworn vengeance against all who had to do with the death of that young man. He was as my son. Will Red Knife fight Pa-e-has-ka? Let him choose his own weapons and come against me that I may kill him in fair fight.”

“I heard of your oath over the dead body of the brave white chief,” said Red Knife. “Pa-e-has-ka is a great chief himself. Red Knife is no match for him. But Red Knife now has no name and is of no people. Would Pa-e-has-ka fight with such a one?”

“What’s the matter?” demanded Cody, in English, suddenly seeing that the young man was in a despondent mood.

“I am an outcast from my people.”

“What’s all that for? I should think the bloody devils would have rejoiced over your killing of poor Danforth,” muttered the scout.

“Let me tell Pa-e-has-ka the tale,” began Red Knife oratorically. “The Sioux did indeed rejoice over the death of the young white chief. Red Knife was then a great warrior. But since misery has come upon him.”

“And serve him right!” muttered Cody.

With many a flourish of flowery phrase, the buck went on to recount his fight with the bear and the loss of his medicine-bag. He displayed the half-healed wounds made by the bear, and Cody saw that the story was true. Knowing well how great a matter this loss was to the Indian, the scout could not help but feeling some pity for him.

Besides, Red Knife had only followed out his savage instincts and code of honor in killing Danforth. And putting aside his personal desire for vengeance, Buffalo Bill saw that he might make use of the young brave. It was not against the ordinary bucks who had been in the fight that the scout felt hatred. Boyd Bennett had lied to Oak Heart, made him believe that Danforth’s expedition was after the old chief, and had led and planned the attack upon the soldiers and brought about their massacre.

It was the renegade--he who called himself Death Killer, medicine chief of the Sioux--whom Buffalo Bill wished to get!

Buffalo Bill had taken many desperate chances in his life. From the time when, as a younker of eleven years, he had hired out to the freighter at Leavenworth to do a man’s work for a man’s pay, and became a messenger riding between the long freight-trains on the overland trail, he had faced death in many forms and on many occasions. But in determining to go to the Sioux encampment to keep his tryst with White Antelope, he seemed to be passing the limit of reckless daring!

Yet he believed that he had a chance for life. He would risk it, at least.

For some days he had scouted about Oak Heart’s encampment, and he had learned that something very strange was going on in that neighborhood. He saw in this meeting with the outcast Red Knife a chance to gain a more intimate knowledge of matters in the encampment before venturing himself in the lion’s mouth.

“Let Red Knife join Pa-e-has-ka upon this side of the brook,” the scout said, at last. “There shall be a truce between them. Pa-e-has-ka will share his meat with Red Knife; Red Knife shall smoke and sleep beside Pa-e-has-ka’s fire.”

If the young brave was astonished at this sudden proffer of friendship, he showed nothing of the kind in his face. He did not even hesitate. He crossed the brook straightly and helped prepare the camp in silence.

The fact was the young Indian had put himself in the hands of the spirits. He believed he was being led. Perhaps this white man had a good medicine which Red Knife might fairly obtain and so become a person of consequence in his tribe again.