CHAPTER XVII

THE STORY OF A MAN-KILLER

"Yes," said Jack, "this is bully; I'd love to hear it."

"Well," said Joe, "this happened a long time before the white people came. In those days we didn't have any guns. I expect the bears knew that they were stronger and better armed, and they weren't a bit afraid of the people. Often they wouldn't move out of the road if they saw people coming; but the people were always afraid of them and willing to let them alone. Very few men ever killed a bear, and those that had done so were thought brave. It was more to kill a bear than it was to kill two or three of the enemy, and a man who had killed a bear used to string its claws, and make a collar that he wore about his neck.

"In those times we had no horses, and the only animals that we packed, or that hauled the travois, were the dogs; and so the people did not wander far over the prairie as they do to-day; they used to stop in one place for a long time, and did not move camp except for some good reason. You see, the people could pack some of their things on the dogs, but besides that, men and women, and sometimes even the children, had to carry heavy packs on their backs whenever they moved. In those days, a great place for camping in summer was the valley of Two Medicine Lodge River. You know where it is, Hugh?"

"Yes, I should say so," said Hugh.

"That was a good place. Berries grew there, big and sweet; and along the river were high steep bluffs, over which the hunters used to lead the buffalo, which were killed by falling on the rocks below.

"One summer the people were camped there, as usual. It had been a good summer. All about the lodges, whichever way one looked, you could see only red, the red of meat hanging on the trees and bushes, and scaffolds, drying, above the reach of the dogs; and all over the ground, spread out so thick as to cover almost all the grass, were the skins of buffalo, elk and deer, on which were heaped berries, curing in the sun, to be used during the winter. No wonder the people were happy, and that you could hear laughter and singing all through the camp. They had plenty of food; they feared nothing. No enemies were near at hand; the Stonies of the north, the Kutenais and Flatheads of the west, ran away when the Piegans came in sight; they did not dare to wait to fight them.

"It was a very hot day; there was no wind, and the sun burned down, so that no one could work. The lodge skins were raised, and all the people sat or lay in the shade, some smoking, some talking and others sleeping. Even the little children had stopped playing, and the camp was quiet. Suddenly, at the west end of the village, a great noise was heard, cries and screams, and wailing by women; and from all directions men and women and frightened children began running to the place, crying to each other, 'What has happened? Who is it that is suffering?' About two women who were seated on the ground a crowd had gathered. These women were mourning and crying and sobbing as they wailed, 'Our husband! our husband! a great bear seized him, and carried him away into the bushes. Oh, we shall never see him again.'

"The chief talked to them; their relations and friends tried to help them, and little by little in broken words the women told what had happened. Early that morning, with their husband, they had gone up the river to pick berries. They had gone far, and the sun had reached the middle by the time they came to the bushes where the berries hung ripe and red. There were so many that it had taken but a little time for them to gather all they wished, and they had started toward home along the game trail which followed the stream. The women were walking ahead, their husband following, and were crossing a grassy opening between two points of trees, when suddenly the husband shouted to them, 'Run, run fast to the nearest trees; a bear is coming.'

"Looking back, they had seen their husband running as fast as he could, and behind him a whitish colored bear, so large that it seemed almost as great as a full grown buffalo bull. Its mouth was wide open, and they could see its long white tusks as it raced over the grass with great jumps. The women dropped their berry sacks and ran as fast as they could. Their husband was now close behind them, and kept urging them on; but fast as they ran, the bear ran faster, and the husband, seeing that it would soon overtake them, had once more shouted to them to 'run fast,' and then had stopped to face the bear, calling out that he would try to save them. Just as they reached the trees they heard a fierce growl, and looking back saw that the husband had shot an arrow into the bear, but before he could shoot another, the beast was upon him, threw him down, and taking him by the shoulder dragged him to the timber near the river. The women had continued to run, and had come to the camp as fast as they could.

"When they had told their story, a Kutenai woman, a captive, who had learned to speak Blackfoot, spoke and said, 'This bear is surely he whom my people have named Man-eater. He is a great traveler. One summer he may be living in the valley of the Beaverhead, and the next season perhaps he will be found on the Elk River of the north. The Kutenais, the Flatheads, and all the mountain people know him too well. He likes the flesh of human beings better than that of game, and has killed many of us. In vain the hunters have pierced his sides with their sharpest arrows. They cannot harm him, and we think that he possesses some strong medicine, and cannot be killed. Indeed, now they no longer try to kill him, but as soon as he appears, they move camp, and travel a long distance to some other place. Listen to my words: tear down your lodges now, pack the dogs, and move away at once, before he shall kill more of you.'

"That night the chief and all his warriors talked together about all this, and after they had counciled for a long time, they said, 'We are not Kutenais, to run away from a bear. We will go to hunt this animal, and avenge the death of our friend.' The next day they started, many brave warriors, and when they reached the park they placed some of the strongest and best bowmen at the upper end of the bottom, while the rest went through the timber to drive it toward them. They found the body of their friend, partly eaten, but there was no sign of the bear; he had disappeared. It seemed as if such a large and heavy animal must leave behind him a plain trail of weeds crushed down, grass flattened, deep marks of feet in soft and sandy places; but from where he had eaten that poor man no signs were seen.

"Why did they not listen to the Kutenais woman's words! The very next day, almost at the edge of the camp the great bear killed two women and carried one of them away to feast upon, as he had before done with the man. In the camp the screams of the poor women were plainly heard, but before the men could arm themselves and rush to the place, they were dead.

"Now the whole camp turned out, every man; and making a ring about the point of timber, they all drew toward its center. They moved slowly, carefully, each man with his arrow fixed on the string, and said to each other, 'Surely now this bear will not escape.'

"A thicket of close-set willow stems grew beneath the great cottonwoods, and from a clump of these willows the bear sprang on one of the men, and crushed his head with a single blow of his paw. 'Here he is,' cried those nearby, and they let fly their arrows into its sides, as the bear stood growling and tearing the dead person; but when the arrows struck him the bear sprang here and there among the men, turning like a whirlwind of fur, while his claws cut and his jaws snapped; and four more men fell to the ground dead or dying. The people all ran away.

"Now there was great sorrow and mourning in the camp. After a little time some of the men ventured back into the timber, and brought away the bodies of their companions; and the women, wrapping them in robes, lashed them on scaffolds in the trees, as was the old way. Then at last they listened to the words of the Kutenai woman. The lodges were pulled down, everything was packed up, and the tribe moved southward, to the banks of the Big River. Six long days they were on the trail, and the man-eater did not trouble them again. Perhaps he did not wish to follow them; perhaps some one of the arrows shot into him had killed him. So the people talked; but the Kutenai woman laughed. 'You may be sure,' she said, 'that he is not dead. The arrow has not been made that will reach his heart. His medicine is strong.'

"All through the winter the people talked of what had happened, and of the camping place under the cliffs of Two Medicine Lodge River. There was no place where it was so easy to kill meat as there, and when spring came they moved back there once more. The day after they had camped, the hunters went out, up and down the valley, and found the buffalo and elk and deer as plenty as ever; but they saw no sign of the great bear.

"The next day the chief's son went out with his mother and sister, to watch for them while they dug roots, and as they were going along, without any warning the great bear sprang from a thicket by the trail, struck the young man before he could draw an arrow, and carried him away without a glance at the women, who stood silent in their fear.

"When the chief was told what had happened, he was almost crazy with anger and sorrow. He ordered all the men in the camp to go with him to the place. But not one of them would go. 'It is useless', they said; 'we are not fools to throw away our lives trying to kill an animal whose medicine is so strong that he cannot be killed with arrows.' The chief begged and threatened them, but no one would go with him to recover the body of his son. All feared the bear. That day camp was broken, and the people once more moved away from the place that they loved best of all their camping grounds. It was no longer theirs. The bear had driven them from it.

"From that day the chief seemed different. Now he no longer laughed and made jokes and invited his friends to feast with him. Instead, he kept by himself, seldom speaking, eating little, often sitting alone in his lodge, and thinking always of the dear son who had been taken from him. One day he took his daughter by the hand, and went out to the center of the camp, and called all the people together. When all had come, he said to them, 'My children, look at this young woman standing by me. Many of you here have tried to marry this daughter, but she has always asked me to allow her to remain unmarried, and I have always said that she should do as she wished. Listen: I am still mourning for the death of my son. Now, I call the Sun, who looks down upon us, and who hears what I am saying, to hear this: whichever one of all you men that shall go out and kill that bear, to him I will give my daughter for his wife.' Then he turned to the girl, and said to her 'Have I spoken well, my daughter? Do you agree to my words?' The girl looked at him, and then said aloud, 'Since you wish it, I will marry the man who will kill that bear, and will thus wipe away our tears.'

"Then the girl hurried back to her father's lodge.

"All through the camp now the only thing talked about was the offer the chief had made, and the young men were trying to think how it might be possible to kill this bear; yet none of them said that he intended to try to marry the girl, for they all believed that the bear could not be killed.

"There was one young man who, when he heard the words of the chief, was glad. Ravenhead was very poor, he had not a single relation, and as far back as he could remember he had lived as best he could. That means that he had been often hungry, and had worn poor clothing, and had often lain shivering through the winter nights; that he had run errands for every one, and had often been scolded. Now he was grown up; he had gone out to dream for power, and had become a warrior. His dream had been good to him, and in his sleep there had come to him a secret helper, who had promised to aid him in time of danger and of need. For a long time the young man had loved the daughter of the chief, but he knew that one so poor as he could never hope to marry her. Sometimes when he happened to pass her on the trail, as she was going for water or as she walked through the camp, she seemed to look at him kindly and as if she were asking him something; yet she never spoke to him, but hurried by, and he was always afraid to speak to her; yet sometimes he used to ask himself what her kind looks meant.

"But now, since the chief had spoken, it seemed as if Ravenhead might hope. Those words had rolled away the clouds that hung over him, and if he could only kill the bear, he could marry the girl. He determined that he would kill the bear; some way could be found to do it, he felt sure. Now, for a little while Ravenhead kept by himself, praying, thinking, planning, trying to devise a way by which he might kill the bear, and yet himself not be hurt. Four days passed, and yet in all the camp no one had said that he intended to try to marry the girl. This made Ravenhead glad.

"And there was another thing. For four nights he had dreamed the same dream. In his sleep he saw the picture of a great bear, painted as large as if alive, upon the side of a new lodge. It was painted in black; the long claws, and open jaws, with their great white tusks, showed plainly; and from the mouth ran back the life line, a green band passing from the mouth back to the heart, which was red. Ravenhead was sitting by the river, considering his dream reaching out dimly with his mind for its meaning when suddenly he sprang to his feet as if he had been stung, for all at once there had flashed upon him what seemed to be the way of success. The dream had shown it to him.

"He turned toward the village, and there, only a step or two away, stood the chief's daughter, holding her water-skin, looking at him as she had looked before. Ravenhead stepped forward and stood near her. Twice he tried to speak, but the words would not come. Then he looked at her, and as she smiled at him, he said, 'I am going to hunt the great bear, and if I return I shall come to you.' The girl dropped the water-skin, and put her arms about his neck, as she said, 'I have tried to make you see, so far as a girl can, that I love you.' They kissed and clung to each other, there by the river; but soon the girl sent him from her, telling him to take courage; to go, and to return safe and successful. When he had gone she stood there by the river, and not able to see before her for the tears which filled her eyes, as she prayed to the Sun to protect the young man.

"Ravenhead travelled for four days before he reached the old camp grounds, near the Two Medicine Lodge cliffs. He had left the village alone; no one but the girl had known his purpose. He came out into the valley, and looked up and down it, seeing nothing except the game, feeding peacefully, and, lashed on their platforms in the branches of the trees, the silent forms that the bear had killed. He wondered if he, too, was to become a prey of this medicine animal.

"All that day Ravenhead walked about the valley, looking for the bear, keeping in the open timber or along its borders, where he could look over the parks and the slopes of the valley. He did not pass close to the thickets of brush, or to sloughs of tall grass, where the bear might lie hidden. On his back, in case and quiver, were his bow and his arrows; only three of these, for he had been too poor to trade for more, and he would not beg for any. He carried also a pouch of dried meat, that he had killed and roasted the day before, and a little bag of small stones.

"Although he kept looking until dusk, he did not see the bear, and then, building a platform of poles in a tree, he lay down on it and slept. That night, in his dream, he again saw the picture of the bear; and as he was looking at it, his secret helper came to him, and pointing at it said, 'Thick fur, tough hide, hard muscle, and broad ribs may stop the sharpest arrow. The easy way to reach the heart is down through the throat.'

"This was what had come to him so suddenly the day he sat thinking and planning by the riverside back of the village. He did not believe that this bear had powerful medicine, or that he could not be killed. If he only could shoot an arrow down its throat, he believed that he would be successful.

"As soon as day had come, Ravenhead climbed down from the tree, and again began to search for the bear, hopefully now, yet constantly praying to the Sun to grant him success.

"It was yet early in the morning when he saw the great bear, lazily walking across a little park toward the river, and stepping out from the shelter of the timber, Ravenhead shouted to attract its attention. The bear reared up at the sound; then Ravenhead first saw how great he was; and as the bear stood there on his broad hind feet, he turned his head slowly, this way, that way, smelling the air. Ravenhead waved his robe, and shouted again, calling the bear coward and other bad names; and presently the bear slowly dropped down on all fours and came toward him. The young man had gone out some little distance into the park, but now he began to go back toward the timber, and as he went faster, so did the bear, until both were running very fast, and the bear was gaining. To the young man, looking back, it seemed scarcely to touch the ground; and it drew nearer and nearer, though he was running as fast as he could. Presently, he could hear the bear pant, and just as he did so he reached the foot of the nearest tree. Almost in an instant he was up among the branches, but he was not too soon. The claws of the bear almost grazed his heels, and tore away a great piece of the bark. From the limb on which he sat, Ravenhead, panting for breath, looked down at the bear as it sat at the foot of the tree. The beast was huge, its head monstrous, its eyes little and mean, and from its mouth, in which the long white teeth showed, the foam dripped down over its neck and shoulders.

"The young man drew his bow from its case, and fitted an arrow to the string, and then taking a stone from his sack, threw it down, hitting the bear on the nose. The bear jumped up, growling with rage and pain, and then came a shower of stones, one after another, hitting him on the head, the body, and the paws, and each one hurting. He bit at the places where they struck, growled, and tore up the ground, and at last rushed to the tree, trying to drag it down, or to climb up it, reaching up as far as he could, in his attempt to seize his tormentor.

"Here was the chance that Ravenhead had been planning for, praying for, waiting for. He bent far over toward the bear, and drawing the arrow to its head, drove it with all his might down the bear's gaping throat. The great jaws shut with a snap, the growl died away to a wheezing cough, and then, after a moment, while the blood streamed from his nose and his lips, the great bear sank back to the ground. His gasping breath came slower and slower, and then, with a long shudder which almost frightened Ravenhead, so strong was it, he died."

* * * * *

"There was great excitement in the village; people running to and fro and calling to one another; women and children standing in groups and pointing to a young man who was entering the camp. Ravenhead had returned, weary, bloody, and dusty, and staggering under the weight of the head and part of the hide of the great bear. The people gathered about him, calling out his name and singing songs of what he had done, and followed him to the door of the chief's lodge, where he threw down the heavy burden. The chief came out, and put his arms about him, and led him inside, and gave him the seat at his left hand. The chief's daughter set food before him; she did not speak, but her face was happy. The young man told the chief how he had killed the bear, and while he was talking, the women hurried to make a sweat lodge for him, and when it was ready, with the chief and the medicine men, he entered it and took a sweat, purifying his body from the touch of the bear. Then, after the sweat had been taken, and the prayers said, and he had plunged in the river, they all returned to the lodge, just as the sun was setting. The chief pointed to a new lodge, set up near his own. 'There is your home, my son; may you live long and happily.' Ravenhead entered and saw his wife.

"Without, the people were dancing around the scalp of the bear. They were happy, for the death of the bear had wiped away the tears of those whose relations he had killed."

"That's a splendid story, Joe," said Jack. "That's about the best story I ever heard. I wish I could remember it to tell it when I get back east, the way you tell it."

"Yes," said Hugh, "that's a mighty good story, and mighty well told. Who did you hear it from, Joe?"

"I heard it first from Four Bears, and then afterwards I heard my uncle tell it."

"Well," said Hugh, "you told it mighty well, but I don't wonder much, for Four Bears is about the best story teller I ever heard. But you remember it mighty well, and tell it well. It's a right good story.

"Now, boys," he added, "I think to-morrow we'll pack up and go a day or two further down the creek here, and then see what turns up. These horses of ours have filled themselves up pretty well now, and are able to go along all right, and we might as well go on a little further. So, say we pack up to-morrow morning."

"All right," said the boys, and they went to bed.