Chapter 6

There was once a young man who wanted to go on a journey. His mother provided him with sacks of dried meat and pairs of moccasins, but his father said to him:

"Here, my son, are four magic arrows. When you are in need, shoot one of them!"

The young man went forth alone, and hunted in the forest for many days. Usually he was successful, but a day came when he was hungry and could not find meat. Then he sent forth one of the magic arrows, and at the end of the day there lay a fat Bear with the arrow in his side. The hunter cut out the tongue for his meal, and of the body of the Bear he made a thank-offering to the Great Mystery.

Again he was in need, and again in the morning he shot a magic arrow, and at nightfall beside his camp-fire he found an Elk lying with the arrow in his heart. Once more he ate the tongue and offered up the body as a sacrifice. The third time he killed a Moose with his arrow, and the fourth time a Buffalo.

After the fourth arrow had been spent, the young man came one day out of the forest, and before him there lay a great circular village of skin lodges. At one side, and some little way from the rest of the people, he noticed a small and poor tent where an old couple lived all alone. At the edge of the wood he took off his clothes and hid them in a hollow tree. Then, touching the top of his head with his staff, he turned himself into a little ragged boy and went toward the poor tent.

The old woman saw him coming, and said to her old man: "Old man, let us keep this little boy for our own! He seems to be a fine, bright-eyed little fellow, and we are all alone."

"What are you thinking of, old woman?" grumbled the old man. "We can hardly keep ourselves, and yet you talk of taking in a ragged little scamp from nobody knows where!"

In the meantime the boy had come quite near, and the old wife beckoned to him to enter the lodge.

"Sit down, my grandson, sit down!" she said, kindly; and, in spite of the old man's black looks, she handed him a small dish of parched corn, which was all the food they had.

The boy ate and stayed on. By and by he said to the old woman: "Grandmother, I should like to have grandfather make me some arrows!"

"You hear, my old man?" said she. "It will be very well for you to make some little arrows for the boy."

"And why should I make arrows for a strange little ragged boy?" grumbled the old man.

However, he made two or three, and the boy went hunting. In a short time he returned with several small birds. The old woman took them and pulled off the feathers, thanking him and praising him as she did so. She quickly made the little birds into soup, of which the old man ate gladly, and with the soft feathers she stuffed a small pillow.

"You have done well, my grandson!" he said; for they were really very poor.

Not long after, the boy said to his adopted grandmother: "Grandmother, when you see me at the edge of the wood yonder, you must call out: 'A Bear! there goes a Bear!'"

This she did, and the boy again sent forth one of the magic arrows, which he had taken from the body of his game and kept by him. No sooner had he shot, than he saw the same Bear that he had offered up, lying before him with the arrow in his side!

Now there was great rejoicing in the lodge of the poor old couple. While they were out skinning the Bear and cutting the meat in thin strips to dry, the boy sat alone in the lodge. In the pot on the fire was the Bear's tongue, which he wanted for himself.

All at once a young girl stood in the doorway. She drew her robe modestly before her face as she said in a low voice:

"I come to borrow the mortar of your grandmother!"

The boy gave her the mortar, and also a piece of the tongue which he had cooked, and she went away.

When all of the Bear meat was gone, the boy sent forth a second arrow and killed an Elk, and with the third and fourth he shot the Moose and the Buffalo as before, each time recovering his arrow.

Soon after, he heard that the people of the large village were in trouble. A great Red Eagle, it was said, flew over the village every day at dawn, and the people believed that it was a bird of evil omen, for they no longer had any success in hunting. None of their braves had been able to shoot the Eagle, and the chief had offered his only daughter in marriage to the man who should kill it.

When the boy heard this, he went out early the next morning and lay in wait for the Red Eagle. At the touch of his magic arrow, it fell at his feet, and the boy pulled out his arrow and went home without speaking to any one.

But the thankful people followed him to the poor little lodge, and when they had found him, they brought the chief's beautiful daughter to be his wife. Lo, she was the girl who had come to borrow his grandmother's mortar!

Then he went back to the hollow tree where his clothes were hidden, and came back a handsome young man, richly dressed for his wedding.

TWENTY-SEVENTH EVENING

THE GHOST WIFE

TWENTY-SEVENTH EVENING

On this last evening, the children are told to be especially quiet, and to listen reverently and earnestly, "for these are the greater things of which I am about to tell you," says their old teacher.

"You have heard that the Great Mystery is everywhere. He is in the earth and the water, heat and cold, rocks and trees, sun and sky; and He is also in us. When the spirit departs, that too is a mystery, and therefore we do not speak aloud the name of the dead. There are wonders all about us, and within, but if we are quiet and obedient to the voice of the spirit, sometime we may understand these mysteries!"

It is thus the old sage concludes his lessons, and over all the circle there is a hush of loving reverence.

THE GHOST WIFE

There was once a young man who loved to be alone, and who often stayed away from the camp for days at a time, when it was said that Wolves, Bears and other wild creatures joined him in his rovings.

He was once seen with several Deer about him, petting and handling them; but when the Deer discovered the presence of a stranger, they snorted with fear and quickly vanished. It was supposed that he had learned their language. All the birds answered his call, and even those fairy-like creatures of the air, the butterflies, would come to him freely and alight upon his body.

One day, as he was lying in the meadow among the wild flowers, completely covered with butterflies of the most brilliant hues, as if it were a gorgeous cloak that he was wearing, there suddenly appeared before him a beautiful young girl.

The youth was startled, for he knew her face. He had seen her often; it was the chiefs daughter, the prettiest maiden in the village, who had died ten days before!

The truth was that she had loved this young man in secret, but he had given no thought to her, for he cared only for the wild creatures and had no mind for human ways. Now, as she stood silently before him with downcast eyes, he looked upon her pure face and graceful form, and there awoke in his heart the love that he had never felt before.

"But she is a spirit now!" he said to himself sorrowfully, and dared not speak to her.

However, she smiled archly upon him, in his strange and beautiful garment, for she read his thoughts. Toward sunset, the butterflies flew away, and with them the ghost maiden departed.

After this the young man was absent more than ever, and no one knew that the spirit of the maiden came to him in the deep woods. He built for her a lodge of pine boughs, and there she would come to cook his venison and to mend his moccasins, and sit with him beside his lonely camp-fire.

But at last he was not content with this and begged her to go with him to the village, for his mother and kinsfolk would not allow him to remain always away from them.

"Ah, my spirit wife," he begged, "can you not return with me to my people, so that I may have a home in their sight?"

"It may be so," she replied thoughtfully, "if you will carefully observe my conditions. First, we must pitch our tent a little apart from the rest of the people. Second, you must patiently bear with my absences and the strangeness of my behavior, for I can only visit them and they me in the night time. Third, you must never raise your voice in our teepee, and above all, let me never hear you speak roughly to a child in my presence!"

"All these I will observe faithfully," replied the young husband.

Now it happened that after a longer absence than usual, he was seen to come home with a wife. They pitched their tent some way from the village, and the people saw at a distance the figure of a graceful young woman moving about the solitary white teepee. But whenever any of his relatives approached to congratulate him and to bid her welcome, she would take up her axe and go forth into the forest as if to cut wood for her fire, or with her bucket for water.

At night, however, they came to see the young couple and found her at home, but it appeared very strange that she did not speak to any of them, not even by signs, though she smiled so graciously and sweetly that they all loved her. Her husband explained that the girl was of another race who have these strange ways, and by and by the people became used to them, and even ceased to wonder why they could never find her at home in the day time.

So they lived happily together, and in due time children came to them; first a boy, and a little girl afterward. But one night the father came home tired and hungry from the hunt, and the little one cried loudly and would not be quieted. Then for the first time he forgot his promise and spoke angrily to the mother and child.

Instantly the fire went out and the tent was dark.

When he had kindled the fire again, he saw that he was alone, nor did tears and searchings avail to find his wife and children. Alas, they were gone from him forever!