IT WAS A FINE SHOT
IT WAS A FINE SHOT
And at home he said to White Wolf: "Now, listen! Sinopah is going to be a great chief. I know that he is."
"I believe you," White Wolf replied. "I am very proud of him."
Now, while old Red Crane was teaching Sinopah to hunt and kill game with bow and arrow, Otaki's mother was teaching her to do woman's work. The little lodge had been set up for the children in the shelter of thick willow brush where the wind could not blow, and they now had many happy days in it. Lone Bull, Otaki's brother, was with them, and the two boys hunted, while Otaki gathered small pieces of deadwood for the fire, brought water from the river in a small pot, and did all the other work of the lodge, such as sweeping the hard, smooth earth floor with a broom made of a bunch of willow brush, and straightening out the soft robe couches.
Some days the boys would hunt a long time and come home to the little lodgewithout anything. Other times they would bring in a couple of prairie chickens, or one or two rabbits. Arriving at the door of the lodge they would cry out: "Otaki, we have arrived. Come get the meat we have killed."
The little girl would then come out and say: "Kyai-yo! What a fine killing my hunters have made. Go inside now, and I will soon have meat on the fire."
Then, while the two boys sat on their couches before the fire and dried their wet moccasins, she took her little knife from the sheath dangling from her belt, and skinned and cleaned the rabbits or birds, then brought them inside and roasted them on the hot, bright-red coals. It is true that the meat did not taste so good as that of the buffalo and deer and elk and antelope that their fathers brought to camp, but they pretended that it was even better because they had killed it. They were very proud of being able to get their own food from the timber along the river. White children would not have likedthe chicken and rabbit meat that Otaki cooked, because she did not put any salt on it. The Indians never used salt before the white people taught them to put it in their food, and even to this day many of them do not care for it.
One day the two boys went away down the river, farther than they had yet gone on their hunts, and found three bullberry bushes still full of fruit. When first ripe, these berries are so sour that no one can eat them; but the freezing weather of winter turns certain of the acids into sugar, and then the berries taste something like currants, only very much better. They have both a tart and a sweet taste, and not only the Indians but birds are very fond of them, the prairie chickens especially.
When the boys found the three bushes, or rather small trees full of the fruit, the first thing they did was to strip off bunches of the ripe, red berries and eat them. They wondered how it was that the birds and thewomen of the camp had not long since found and taken them all.
They soon ate all they could hold, and then said Lone Bull: "We should have all these berries for our lodge; there is a great quantity of them; enough to last us all winter."
"You talk wisely," Sinopah answered. "But of course gathering berries is not men's work. It is best that we bring Otaki up here to gather them."
"But she isn't strong enough for that," Lone Bull objected. "Of course she should come and help, but I think that we ought to get our mothers to do the work."
"Well, then, you go after them and I will stay here and keep any one who may come along from taking the berries," said Sinopah. "No one shall have them: they are our find."
At that Lone Bull started off on the run for camp. Sinopah ate a few more berries and then began to get cold from standing still so long. He started to walk around,faster and faster, and farther and farther from the trees, and on a larger circle than ever came to some strange-looking tracks in the snow. They were big, round tracks, but not far apart; not near so far as he could step. Most of them showed the heel of the feet, so it was easy to see which way the animal had been going. He looked at the tracks a long time. "Now, if Grandfather Red Crane were only here, he could tell me what kind of an animal made these tracks," he said to himself.
Sinopah made another circle and once more came to the strange-looking tracks. "I do wish I knew what animal made them," he said. "Well, I will just follow them a little way and perhaps I can learn what it was."
The trail of the animal was away from the river and toward a sandstone cliff. Sinopah followed it through the timber. At one place the animal had stood on its hind feet and clawed the trunk of a cottonwood tree, scattering many small pieces of the barkaround on the snow. A little farther on, it had stood looking and listening for something, for here the snow was all packed smooth by its big feet. Still farther on, it had sat down in the snow, and had left the imprint of a long tail. By that Sinopah knew that this was not the trail of a bear, for bears' tails are no longer than a boy's hand.
"It isn't a wolf either," he thought, "for wolves have very bushy tails. The mark of this one in the snow looks as if it has very short hair. Why, it may be that I am following an otter."
Thinking that, he hurried forward on the trail and soon came near the sandstone cliff. Here there was not so much timber. The ground sloped sharply up to the foot of the cliff, and on it were scattered a number of large and small rocks. He could see the trail winding around among the rocks, and said to himself again, "It must be an otter's trail."
He did not stop to think that the tracks were ten times too large to have been madeby an otter. Nor did he know that an otter, when traveling through snow, does not walk: it lays its front feet back against its breast and pushes itself along with its hind feet, making a smooth trough in the snow with two dots in it at intervals, like this:—
* * * ** * * *
Sinopah now began climbing the slope, and soon came to the very foot of the cliff. Right in front of him the trail ended at the mouth of a narrow low hole in the rock. He walked right up to it and tried to see in, to see the animal, but a few feet back there was nothing but the darkness of night. Then on the floor of the cave he saw some bones; big leg-bones and rib and backbones that looked like those of buffalo and deer, and he suddenly became scared. It was enough to scare any boy, that black cave, the freshly gnawed bones with shreds of red meat still hanging to them. He suddenly gave a little squeal of fright and ran back down the slopeand toward the bullberry patch as fast as he could go.
No one was there to meet him and he ran on and on toward camp, soon meeting his mother and old Red Crane and Lone Bull and Otaki and their mother. As quickly as he could, he told the old man about the trail of the animal and the cave and gnawed bones.
"Ah ha! And you saw gnawed bones in the cave!" Red Crane exclaimed. "And the tracks leading to the place were big and round? Well, my young hunter, it was not an otter you were following, it was a lynx; perhaps even a mountain lion."
"Kyai-yo!" the women cried out. "To think that he followed a sometimes killer of children!"
And his mother snatched him up in her arms and said that he should not go anywhere alone again for a long time.
"Huh! the boys must learn," said Red Crane; "and anyhow no harm has been done. Now, son, you go tell your father tocome with his guns and the dogs, and be sure to tell no one else; we want all the berries and the animal in the cave for ourselves."
White Wolf was at home in the lodge. When Sinopah told him what was wanted he snatched up his rifle, called the big dogs, and set out so fast on the trail that the boy had to run to keep up with him. They soon overtook the others, and in a few minutes all were looking at the trail in the snow, while the dogs sniffed at it and growled, their hair bristling straight up on their backs.
"It is the trail of a mountain lion," said White Wolf.
"It is," Red Crane echoed, "and a very large one, too."
White Wolf started to follow the trail and made the dogs keep behind him. After them came old Red Crane, and then the women and children. They all soon arrived at the foot of the slope leading up to the cave, and then White Wolf told them to stand where they were while he went on with the dogs.
When quite near the foot of the cliff, he told the dogs to go on, and they rushed ahead on the fresh trail all in a bunch and barking eagerly. But the moment they arrived at the mouth of the cave, and looking in smelled the animal there, all at once they dropped their tails between their legs and backed away with hoarse growls. They were not hunting-dogs like our hounds. All they were good for was to guard camp, and, before the time of the horse, to carry burdens. White Wolf scolded them, but could not make them go into the cave. They just whined and shivered, and looked at him with pleading eyes.
Seeing that they would not go in, White Wolf at last cocked his rifle and walked slowly to the entrance to the cave, then stooped down and looked in. At first he could see nothing; but he kept looking and looking, and after a time saw two greenish, shining spots away back in the darkness, that he knew was the light of the animal's eyes.Then he raised his rifle and fired it after a long and careful aim.
Boom! went the gun, and the powder-smoke for a moment hid the cave from the view of those watching at the foot of the slope. When White Wolf fired his rifle he at once sprang off to the left of the cave, and none too soon. Out of it and through the smoke came a yowling, tawny mountain lion that rolled and twisted around on the snow while blood streamed from a bullet-hole in its neck. The dogs now turned brave and closed in on it, only to be bitten and clawed by the furious big cat, and knocked off in all directions by its big front paws. Several of them never stopped running until they reached camp.
Sinopah and the other children, as well as the women and the old man, stood watching all this from the foot of the slope, all of them so excited that they never spoke a word. They saw White Wolf hurriedly reloading his rifle, and were fearing that, afterall, the wounded animal would get up and run before he could shoot it again. But no; with one last weak kick it suddenly lay still in the snow, and then they all ran up the slope to look at it. Sinopah took hold of the forelegs and tried to lift it, but he couldn't; the animal was far bigger and heavier than he.
"Ha! It is a she deer-killer," said White Wolf; "and by the looks of her there must be some young ones back there in the cave. Here, father, hold my gun while I go in there."
He was not gone long, and returned with a wee little mountain lion in his arms. It was no larger than a house cat, and its light-colored, fuzzy fur had faint dark spots. It was so young that it did not know enough to be afraid of man, and when White Wolf stroked it and rubbed its head, it purred just as our house cats do, only much louder than they.
"Oh! Oh! Give it to me, father,"Sinopah cried, and soon had it wrapped in a corner of his robe, where it kept right on purring.
While White Wolf and old Red Crane were skinning the big cat, the women and children went back to the berry patch, where they soon gathered nearly all of the fruit on the trees, and then they went home to their lodges, where they spread the berries on clean rawhides to dry. A part of the fruit was given to Otaki to dry in the little play lodge.
That evening, as Sinopah sat beside his grandfather with the mountain lion kitten in his arms, he asked why service-berry bushes had so many sharp thorns.
"Old Man made them grow there," his grandfather replied. "Listen. It was this way: Old Man made the world, and all the animals and trees, and everything on it. But if he was a world-maker, he often was very foolish and forgetful.
"One day Old Man was walking on the edge of a cutbank beside the river, andhappening to look down he saw clusters of beautiful red berries in the water. He was very hungry, so off came his clothes and off he dived from the bank to get some of the fruit. But although he swam and dived a long time he could see no more of the berries, so he climbed up the bank and lay down. Looking at the water again, there were the berries in it, just where he had seen them before, and off he dived again after them, and could not find them when he got into the water.
"And so he kept climbing out on the bank, and diving again after the berries, until he became so weak that the last time he nearly drowned. It was all he could do to get back on the bank, and there, happening to look up, he saw that the little tree over his head was full of berries. At that he tossed a stick at the branches, and saw that when they moved, the branches and the berries in the water also moved. Then all at once he saw that he had nearly died diving after the shadow of the berries, and that made himvery angry. As soon as he could he got up and beat the tree with a club, and made thorns grow thickly on its branches: 'There! after this all your kind shall have thorns,' he said, 'and those who want your fruit in plenty must beat it off with clubs.'
"So it is to-day, when our women gather quantities of the berries for winter use, they have to club it from the branches in order to save their hands."
On a summer day several years after the people wintered on the Two Medicine, old Red Crane and White Wolf sat on the shady side of their lodge smoking a big pipe turn-about, and idly watching a crowd of children playing tag. Swiftest of them all was Sinopah, although some of the other boys were older and taller than he. White Wolf laid down the smoked-out pipe and smiled happily as he softly rubbed his small, firm hands together. Indians, you know, especially those of the plains, were noted for their small and beautifully shaped hands and feet.
"Well, my son," said Red Crane, "why your smiles—what is it that makes your heart glad?"
"That is it," White Wolf replied,pointing at Sinopah, who was far in the lead of the boys and girls who chased him. "I tell you this, father," he added, "there is in this child of ours the making of a great chief. Some day, if we live, we are going to be very proud of him."
"Ai! Ai! That is so. You never spoke truer words," old Red Crane agreed. "How good he is, and how fearless! And how popular also! Children from all parts of the camp are ever coming to ask him to play with them."
"That is the great point in the making of a chief," said White Wolf. "No matter how brave a man is, no matter how successful in war, if his people do not love him, he can never become a leader."
"Huh! As if I didn't know that!" Red Crane exclaimed. "Why, son, that is what I was always teaching you in your young days; because of your goodness, of your kindness to the poor, to the widows and orphans, you are chief to-day."
White Wolf made a gesture of assent. "Well," he said, "it is time that we take Sinopah in hand for his training. As a beginning, let us have him join the Su-is-ksis-iks at their next meeting."
Here, now, I have something to explain that is very interesting, and that is that nearly all Indian tribes of the country had a number of societies, some of them so secret that only a very few of the most prominent men ever learned their mysteries. The tribe that had, and still has, the most fraternities, or secret societies, is the Hopi, or so-called Moqui tribe of northern Arizona. There are several hundred secret orders in this tribe, the greatest of them being the Snake and the Flute societies. It is the Snake order that gives every two years the great snake dance, in which, after many secret rites and prayers in their kiva, or sacred house, the members perform a public dance, during which they carry live and deadly rattlesnakes dangling from their mouths.
All these societies in all the tribes are for a purpose. The Hopi, or "People of Peace," as they call themselves, live in a desert country, and depend upon their little plantings of corn, beans, and squash for their food. They are not, and never were, hunters and warriors. Now, the most important thing in all the world for the Hopi is rain; rain to make their gardens yield a plenty of food. So it is that the object of all their secret societies is to bring the rain. All the secret rites in the kivas, all the dances, have that end in view.
See, now, how different were the Blackfeet. They were hunters, and wanderers over a great country extending south from the Saskatchewan to the Yellowstone River, a distance of seven hundred miles, and from the Rocky Mountains eastward for several hundred miles. That was their country, their hunting-ground, and on it swarmed thousands and thousands of buffalo, elk, deer, antelope, and many other kinds of game. Along theborders of this great stretch of country were many tribes always trying to enter it and kill the game, and to save themselves the Blackfeet were obliged to make war on them and keep them out of the country. So it was that the fraternities or societies of the Blackfeet were societies of warriors and for the making of warriors. The least of these was the society of the Su-is-ksis-iks, or Mosquitoes, which White Wolf mentioned.
The Mosquito Society was composed entirely of young boys, but at the head of it were two or three old men who were their teachers, as they may be called. It was the duty of these old men to give talks to the boys on the right way to live, to instruct them in the ways of war, to pray for their long life and success, to teach them certain dances, and above all to make them honor and obey the teachings of the gods, especially the Sun.
Evening came. Tired and hungry, Sinopah entered the lodge and sat by his father's side. His mother set before him a long, heavyrib of boiled buffalo meat, a dish of service berries, a bowl of soup, and he ate a big meal. Pausing once between mouthfuls, he said: "We played tag and none caught me. We went into the river and I was the leader in the race when we swam to the far shore and back."
White Wolf and Red Crane looked at each other and smiled, and the old grandfather said to himself: "Ai! Ai! The time has come."
The meal was soon over, and then White Wolf said to the boy: "My son, your days of tag-playing are about over. Your grandfather and I have made up our minds that you are big enough now to become a Su-is-ksis-ik. He will take you to the next meeting of the society."
"Oh, that will be good," Sinopah cried. "I am to become a member of a warrior band. How long will it be before I can join a higher one? I would like to be an Ai-in-i-ki-quan."
"Oh, that time is yet some winters ahead," his father answered. "You have to go to war before joining that order, you know."
The Ai-in-i-ki-kwaks, or Seizers, were the police of the great camp. It was their duty to guard it in time of danger and to carry out the orders of the chiefs. For instance, at times when there were great herds of buffalo near camp, the chiefs would order that no one should go out by himself to hunt and so scatter the animals and make it hard for all the hunters to get a plenty of meat and hides. Certain days were set when all the men would go together and make a big hunt. If any one broke that rule, the chiefs would order the Seizers to punish him, and punished he was. Sometimes the man was whipped and his weapons smashed; or, worse, he might not only be whipped, but his lodge and property would be torn to pieces and some of his horses killed.
Besides the Mosquitoes and Seizers, there were a number of other orders, the BuffaloBulls, They Who Carry the Raven, the Dogs, all parts of the great society of the tribe, which was called I-kun-uh-ka-tse, All Friends.
On the morning following the talk of White Wolf and Red Crane, preparations were begun for Sinopah's entrance into the Mosquito Society. First of all, Red Crane changed the manner of dressing the boy's hair. It had been daily combed and plaited into four long braids, two of them falling just behind, and two just in front of the ears. To these was now added a fifth braid, a slender one drooping beside the one just in front of the right ear, and the end of it was wrapped with a narrow strip of otter fur, believed to be the favorite fur of the Sun. This fifth braid was the scalp-lock. Were Sinopah to be killed in battle the enemy would take it as a trophy of the fight.
Right after the morning meal the boy's mother had begun to make a pair of moccasins for him, and she kept at the work for some days. The tops or uppers of them weresolidly embroidered with brightly colored porcupine quills, each small quill tightly fastened in place with many stitches of very fine sinew thread.
In the mean time, old Red Crane fumbled around in his several pouches and finally found four beautifully tanned, snow-white antelope skins. "These your grandmother tanned the summer before she died," he told Sinopah. "I have been saving them for you. They are for your first war-suit. Watch, now, how I cut them, for after this you will have to make your own clothes."
The old man then spread a skin out flat on his couch and cut it into an oblong square after measuring one of the boy's legs. A few stitches then made of the material a wide-flapped legging. Next, the flaps were fringed by slitting them every quarter of an inch along their length, and then ornamented with tufts of red-dyed horsehair and parts of scalps that the old man had himself taken in battle. The other legging was made in the same way.
The other two skins were fashioned into a loose, big-necked, fringe-seamed shirt that reached nearly to the knees. Snow-white weasel skins with black tail tips were hung all around the neck and down the length of the sleeves, along with more red horsehair and scalp-locks; and lastly, Red Crane painted several blue and yellow things, that looked like small lizards, on the back and front of the garment. Sinopah asked what animal they represented.
"That I cannot tell you," the old man answered. "It is my medicine; my secret helper that came to me in my fasting dream. Yes, in that fast, when my spirit wandered far, I found this little water animal, and it promised always to help me when I prayed to it. It has helped me. It has saved my life in many a dangerous place, so I put the mark of it on here and will pray to it, to help you until you get a medicine, a secret helper, for yourself."
"And when shall I get it?" Sinopah asked.
"Let me see; let me see," Red Crane mused. "You are now of age twelve winters. Three winters after this will be your time to fast. You will go alone to some sheltered place away from camp. You will lie there without food. You will pray continually to the Sun; to the Moon; the Stars; to all the world animals. Maybe you will lie there four—five—or even seven days, eating nothing, drinking nothing except the water that your mother will take you every day. And you will sleep; you will dream. In your dream, when your shadow, your spirit goes forth on adventure, then you will find your secret helper. I shall pray that it be, that which you find, very strong medicine."
"It will be strong medicine!" Sinopah declared. "Grandfather, I have the feeling in here, right here in my heart, that in that fasting time I shall find a very powerful secret helper."
The meeting of the Mosquito Society was still some days off, but there was no morethan time for Sinopah to get ready for it. The skin of the otter that Red Crane had captured under the river ice was fashioned into a combined bow-case and arrow-quiver, and ornamented with bands of fine porcupine embroidery. A new bow and new arrows were made by Red Crane and White Wolf to put into it. The bow was longer and more powerful than any that the boy had yet handled, but he was a big-muscled boy and could easily bend it. The arrows were real war-arrows; of thin, straight shafts, firm feathering, and small, sharp, barbed points that would pierce far into any living thing and could not be pulled out; also, a new beaded belt was made, this to hold the knife-sheath and support the breech-clout that covered the loins.
Then came at last one of the great days in the life of Sinopah. Dressed all in his new war-clothes, with otter-skin bow-case slung on his back, he went with his grandfather to the meeting of the Mosquitoes. It washeld in a very large lodge of one of the chiefs. Many boys were there, sitting close together on the couches, but none of them had as fine clothes or were themselves as handsome as was he. But they were all his friends. When he entered they cried out: "Oh, here is Sinopah. Welcome, brother, welcome."
Red Crane went to the back of the lodge and sat with two old men. They talked together for a few minutes, and then one of them, first calling out for silence, made a long prayer. He begged the Sun, and all the gods of the sky, the earth, and the waters, to give them all long life and happiness, and always a plenty of game for food. At the end of the prayer all the boys cried out, "Yes, all you great gods, have pity on us; have pity on us."
Next the old men took up their drums and beat them in time to a war-song they sung. The boys all arose then and danced around and around the fireplace, old RedCrane often stopping them to show one of the dancers his mistakes. Then after the dance they rested, and one of the old men gave them a talk on kindness of heart. During another rest, old Red Crane spoke about bravery, saying, among other things, that for the good of the tribe one must be ever ready to give his life.
And so, in dancing, in listening to talks by the old men, the day passed, and toward sundown, very tired and happy, Sinopah went home to rest. All the evening he was very quiet, and was first of all the family to go to bed. Early the next morning a little girl stuck her head in through the doorway of the lodge and called out: "Oh, Sinopah, get up and come with us. We go to the river to play."
The boy raised himself up and looked at her. "No, little sister," he answered; "I shall go no more to the river to play with you. I am now a Mosquito. I have now to learn how to be a man."
So it was. In one short day, young as he was, Sinopah passed out of his childhood days into those of his youth, the beginning of the life of one of the greatest of Indian chiefs. On that day he for the first time went with his father to hunt, and returned in the evening with meat of his own killing tied to the saddle. With his new bow and on a swift horse, he had joined in a buffalo run and killed a young bull.
THE END