Part 11

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 was much joy and much feasting. For the bison had come back; the famine was ended.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

XIII

THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then he thought of Hinnagi.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Soon the entire band was rushing about the camp.

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

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

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

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

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

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

It was Hinnagi!

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

It was Little Wolf!

XIV

DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Speak,” said the chief.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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