Sometimes when the silver coins were very, very scarce, when her shoulders ached with the cold, and her lips longed for tea and her mouth for bread, when the smoked salmon revolted her, and her thin garments grew thinner, she would go out and stand gazing at the Totem Pole, and think of the great pile of coin that the last "collector" had offered for it—a pile of coin that would fill all her needs until Tenas was old enough to help her, to take his father's place at the hunting, the fishing, and above all, in the logging camps up the coast.
"I would sell it to-day if they came," she would murmur. "I would not be strong enough to refuse, to say no."
Then Tenas, knowing her desperate thoughts, would slip, mouse-like, beside her and say:
"Hoolool, you are looking with love on our great Totem Pole—with love, as you always do. It means that I shall be a great man some day, does it not, Hoolool?"
Then the treachery of her thoughts would roll across her heart like a crushing weight, and she knew that no thirst for tea, no hunger for flour-bread, no shivering in thin garments, would ever drive her to part with it. For the grotesque, carven thing was the very birthright of her boy. Every figure, hewn with infinite patience by his sire's, his grandsire's, his great-grandsire's, hands meant the very history from which sprang the source of red blood in his young veins, the birth of each generation, its deeds of valor, its achievements, its honors, its undeniable right to the family name.
Should Tenas grow to youth, manhood, old age, and have no Totem Pole to point to as a credential of being the honorable son of a long line of honorable sons? Never! She would suffer in silence, like the little grey, hungry Hoolool that scampered across the bare floors of her firwood shack in the chill night hours, but her boy must have his birthright. And so the great pole stood unmoved, baring its grinning figures to the storms, the suns, the grey rains of the Pacific Coast, but by its very presence it was keeping these tempests from entering the heart of the lonely woman at its feet.
It was the year that spring came unusually early, weeks earlier than the oldest Indian recalled its ever having come before. March brought the wild geese honking northward, and great flocks of snow-white swans came daily out of the southern horizon to sail overhead and lose themselves along the Upper Coast, for it was mating and nesting time, and the heat of the south had driven them early from its broad lagoons.
Every evening Tenas would roll himself in his blanket bed, while he chatted about the migrating birds, and longed for the time when he would be a great hunter, able to shoot the game as they flitted southward with their large families in September.
"Then, Hoolool, we will have something better to eat than the smoked salmon," he would say.
"Yes, little loved one," she would reply, "and you are growing so fast, so big, that the time will not be long now before you can hunt down the wild birds for your Hoolool to eat, eh, little Spring Eyes? But now you must go to sleep; perhaps you will dream of the great flocks of the fat, young, grey geese you are to get us for food."
"I'll tell you if I do; I'll tell you in the morning if I dream of the little geese," he would reply, his voice trailing away into dreamland as his eyes blinked themselves to sleep.
"Hoolool, Ididdream last night," he told her one early April day, when he awoke dewy-eyed and bird-like from a long night's rest. "But it was not of the bands of grey geese; it was of our great Totem Pole."
"Did it speak to you in your dreams, little April Eyes?" she asked, playfully.
"No-o," he hesitated, "it did not reallyspeak, but it showed me something strange. Do you think it will come true, Hoolool?" His dark, questioning eyes were pathetic in appeal. Hedidwant it to come true.
"Tell your Hoolool," she replied indulgently, "and perhaps she can decide if the dream will come true."
"You know how I longed to dream of the great flocks of young geese flying southward in September," he said, longingly, his little thin elbows propped each on one of her knees, his small, dark chin in his hands, his wonderful eyes shadowy with the fairy dreams of childhood. "But the flocks I saw were not flying grey geese, that make such fat eating, but around the foot of our Totem Pole I saw flocks and flocks of little tenas Totem Poles, hundreds of them. They were nothalfas high as I am. They were just baby ones you could take in your hand, Hoolool. Could you take my knife the trader gave me and make me one just like our big one? Only make it little, young—oh,verytenas—that I can carry it about with me. I'll paint it. Will you make me one, Hoolool?"
The woman sat still, a peculiar stillness that came of half fear, half unutterable relief, and wholly of inspiration. Then she caught up the boy, and her arms clung about him as if they would never release him.
"I know little of the white man's God," she murmured, "except that He is good, but I know that the Great Tyee (god) of the West is surely good. One of them has sent you this dream, my little April Eyes."
"Perhaps the Great Tyee and the white man's God are the same," the child said, innocent of expressing a wonderful truth. "Youhave two names—'Marna' (mother, in the Chinook) and 'Hoolool'—yet you are the same. Maybe it's that way with the two Great Tyees, the white man's and ours. But why should they send me dreams of flocks of baby Totem Poles?"
"Because Hoolool will makeyouone to-day, and then flocks and flocks of tenas poles for the men with the silver coins. I cannot sell them our great one, but I can make many small ones like it. Oh! they will buy the little totems, and the great one will stand as the pride of your manhood and the honor of your old age." Her voice rang with the hope of the future, the confidence of years of difficulty overcome.
Before many hours had passed, she and the child had scoured the nearby edges of the forest for woods that were dried, seasoned, and yet solid. They had carried armfuls back to the fir shack, and the work of carving had begun. The woman sat by the fire hour after hour—the fire that burned in primitive fashion in the centre of the shack, stoveless and hearthless, its ascending smoke curling up through an aperture in the roof, its red flames flickering and fading, leaping and lighting the work that even her unaccustomed fingers developed with wonderful accuracy in miniature of the Totem Pole at the north-west corner outside. By nightfall it was completed, and by the fitful firelight Tenas painted and stained its huddled figures in the black, orange, crimson and green that tribal custom made law. The warmth of the burning cedar knots dried the paints and pigments, until their acrid fragrance filled the little room, and the child's eyelids drooped sleepily, and in a delightful happiness he once more snuggled into his blanket bed, the baby Totem Pole hugged to his little heart. But his mother sat far into the night, her busy fingers at work on the realization of her child's dream. She was determined to fashion his dream-flock of "young" totems which would bring to them both more of fat eating than many bands of grey geese flying southward. The night wore on, and she left her task only to rebuild the fire and to cover with an extra blanket the little form of her sleeping boy. Finally she, too, slept, but briefly, for daybreak found her again at her quaint occupation, and the following nightfall brought no change. A week drifted by, and one morning, far down the Sound, the whistle of a coming steamer startled both boy and woman into brisk action. The little flock of Totem Poles now numbered nine, and hastily gathering them together in one of her cherished cedar-root baskets she clasped the child's hand, and they made their way to the landing-stage.
When she returned an hour later, her basket was empty, and her kerchief filled with silver coins.
On the deck of the steamer one of the ship's officers was talking to a little group of delighted tourists who were comparing their miniature purchases with the giant Totem Pole in the distance.
"Youarelucky," said the officer. "I know people who have tried for years to buy the big Pole from her, but it was always 'No' with her—just a shake of her head, and you might as well try to buy the moon. It's for that little boy of hers she's keeping it, though she could have sold it for hundreds of good dollars twenty times over."
That all happened eleven years ago, and last summer when I journeyed far north of Queen Charlotte Sound, as the steamer reached a certain landing I saw a giant Totem Pole with a well-built frame house at its base. It was standing considerably away from the shore, but its newness was apparent, for on its roof, busily engaged at shingling, was an agile Indian youth of some seventeen years.
"That youngster built that house all by himself," volunteered one of the ship's officers at my elbow. "He is a born carpenter, and gets all the work he can do. He has supported his mother in comfort for two years, and he isn't full grown yet."
"Who is he?" I asked, with keen interest.
"His name is Tenas," replied the officer. "His mother is a splendid woman. 'Hoolool,' they call her. She is quite the best carver of Totem Poles on the North Coast."
The Wolf-Brothers
Leloo's father and mother were both of the great Lillooet tribe of British Columbia Indians, splendid people of a stalwart race of red men, who had named the boy Leloo because, from the time he could toddle about on his little, brown, bare feet, he had always listened with delight to the wolves howling across the canyons and down the steeps of the wonderful mountain country where he was born. In the Chinook language Leloo means wolf, and before the little fellow could talk he would stand nightly at the lodge door and imitate the long, weird barking and calling of his namesakes, while his father would smile knowingly and say, "He will some day make a great hunter, will our little Leloo," and his mother would answer proudly, "Yes, he has no fear of wild things. No wolf in the mountains will be mighty enough to scare him—our little Leloo."
So he grew from babyhood into boyhood with a love for the furry-coated wild creatures that prowled along the timber line, and their voices were to him the voices of friends who had sung him to sleep ever since he could remember anything.
But the night of his famous ride up the Cariboo Trail where it skirts the Bonaparte Hills proved to him how wise a thing it was that he had long ago made friends, instead of foes, of the wolves, for if he had feared them, it would have been a ride of terror instead of triumph, as it was his love for them that helped him to do a great, heroic thing which made the very name "Leloo" beloved by every man, both white and Indian, in all the Lillooet country.
It was one day early in the autumn that Leloo's father sent him down the trail some ten or fifteen miles with a message to the "boss" of the great railway construction camp that the Lillooet Indians would supply fifty men to work on the Company's roadway. So the boy mounted his pet cayuse and started off early, swinging down the mountain trails into the canyons, then climbing again across the summit, with its dense growth of timber. His little legs were almost too short to grip his horse's middle as his father could have done, so he went more slowly and carefully over the dangerous places, marking every one in his mind, in case he was late in returning. When he reached the camp the "boss" was absent, and, Indian-like, he would deliver his message to no one else except the man it was intended for, and when the "boss" returned at supper time from far down the grade, he insisted upon Leloo sharing his pork and beans and drinking great quantities of tea.
"Better stay all night, youngster," said the boss kindly; "It's a long ride back, and it's going to be dark."
"No stay to-night," answered Leloo. "Maybe some time I stay, but no to-night."
"Well, you know best, kid," replied the boss. "There's one thing—no harm will ever come to an Indian boy on a mountain trail. But be careful; the canyons are deep, and the trail is bad in spots."
"Me know, me careful," smiled Leloo, and mounting his cayuse, trotted off gayly, just as the sun was lost behind a grim, rocky peak in the west. But the "boss" was right: night comes quickly in the mountains, and this night was unusually dark. Leloo had to ride very slowly, for the narrow trail was a mere ledge carved out from the perpendicular walls of the cliffs, which arose on the left, a sheer precipice hundreds of feet above him, and fell away to the right in a yawning chasm, black, and deep and unexplored. But the sure-footed cayuse stepped gingerly and knowingly, neither halting nor stumbling, and his wise little rider let the animal pick its own way, knowing well that a horse's senses in the dark are more acute than a human's. Presently from far across the canyon arose a weird, prolonged howl. Then from the heights above came an answering one.
"Ah, my brothers!" called Leloo aloud. "You have come to greet me through the night," and his eyes lighted like twin black fires, for he loved these wolves that made their dens and lairs along the Cariboo Trail, and to-night they were to serve him in the oddest fashion that a wild animal was ever called upon to do. As he rode on, he would—just for company's sake—call back to the wolves, answering their cries with such a perfect imitation of their wild voices that they would reply to him, from far below, then again from far above, and Leloo would smile to himself and say, "That is right, O great and fierce Leloos; answer me, for you are my kin and my cousins."
But the trail was growing steeper, narrower every moment, and after a time Leloo forgot to reply to his forest friends, and just rode on, peering through the shadows to avoid the dangers on all sides. Presently a sound that belonged to neither crag nor canyon fell across his quick, Indian ears. It was a man's voice, hushed, subdued, speaking very low, and speaking in English. It said:
"I hear a horse coming."
"Shut up! Don't talk so loud," replied another voice.
"I tell you I hear horses," answered the first voice irritably. "It must be the stage coming. Get ready!"
"You're clean crazy," said the other voice. "The stage makes more noise than that, and I know for sure there's no horseman up the trail to-night. It's some wild animal you hear."
Leloo pulled his cayuse stock still. He did not understand English readily, he was not versed in the ways of the white man, but his wonderful native wit and instinct told him at once that there was something wrong—the wrong things that white men were sent to jail for sometimes. He asked himself, "Why should they hide and whisper?" Only hunters hid and refused to speak aloud. Then he remembered—the stage.
How often his father had talked of the great lumps of gold the white men were digging up, two hundred miles north, up the Frozen River—"Cariboo gold," his father had called it, and said that it was sent down in numberless bags to "the front," and the stage brought it. And his father would always finish the tale with, "The white men will risk their lives and kill each other for this gold."
Leloo could never understand it, for he would much rather have a soft wolf skin to lie on, a string of blue Hudson's Bay beads around his dark throat, and fine, beaded moccasins, than all the gold in the world. But while he sat stock still, the voices continued:
"There, it's stopped. I knew it was an animal. The stage won't be along for an hour yet."
"They are white men, but the gold does not belong to them," Leloo told himself. "It belongs to the white men on the stage, or up in the Barkerville gold ledges. These white men here are 'bad medicine.' They shall not find that stage."
But even as he thought it out, the voices began afresh.
"There's something wrong with my gun," said one, "it won't work."
"There's nothing wrong withmine," came the sneering reply. "Minewill work all right. I'm going to have that gold."
"How much did Jim Orton say there was a-coming down on the stage?" whispered the other.
"Some twenty thousand dollars' worth of nuggets," was the answer. "And you'll use your gun, too, to get it, if you don't turn coward."
Then there was silence. So his father was right. These white men would kill each other for gold—gold that belonged to another, to the men who were working day and night for it up at the ledges, two hundred miles north. Instantly Leloo's plan was formed. He would save the gold for the men who owned it; save the good stage driver from the bullets of these hiding, whispering sneaks and robbers. But how was he to do it? How could he dare to move a step unless to turn backward? Twenty yards ahead of him the two men crouched. Even by their lowered voices he could locate them as hiding behind a giant boulder, some ten feet above the trail. If he was to advance to meet the stage and warn the driver, he needs must pass under their very feet. Was it quite impossible to daringly gallop under their guns and be lost in the darkness before they could recover from their surprise? Leloo could trust his cayuse, he knew. The honest little creature was at this moment standing still as the silence about them. Then acutely across that silence cut the long wail of a lonely wolf wandering across the heights. A very inspiration seized Leloo. In a second he had flung back his head, and from his thin, Indian boyish lips there issued a weird, prolonged howl. He was answering the wolf in his own language.
"Great guns!" ejaculated one of the highwaymen, "that wolf's right under our feet. There he goes now. I hear him prowling past." For with the howl, Leloo had started his cayuse gently, and the wise creature was slipping beneath the dreaded boulder almost noiselessly. The boy fairly held his breath. Suppose they should peer through the dark, and see that it was a horse and rider, and no wild animal padding up the trail? Then his wolf friend from the heights answered him, and Leloo once more lifted his head, and the strange half-barking, half-sobbing cry again broke the silence. He was well past the boulder now, ten, twenty, thirty yards, when his innocent little cayuse gave that peculiar snort which a horse always gives when some sudden fear or danger threatens. The animal's instinct had evidently detected the presence of enemies.
"It's a horseman, not a wolf," fairly yelled a voice behind him; but Leloo had already struck the cayuse a smart blow on the flank, at which the animal bunched its four hoofs together, shivered, snorted again, then plunged, galloping like mad down the trail, down, blindly down into the darkness ahead. One, two, three sharp revolver shots rang out behind him, the bullets falling wide of their mark in the blackness of the night, rapidly running feet that seemed to gain upon him, the crash of a falling man, then terrible language—all rang in his ears in quick succession, but the boy never drew rein, never halted. On plunged the horse, heedlessly, wildly, but Leloo stuck to his back, scorning the fear of a horrible death in the canyon below, thinking only of the danger of the treasure-laden stage and of the safety of Big Bill, the driver, whom his father loved, and whom every Indian of the Lillooet tribe respected.
The stones were now rattling from the rush of his horse's hoofs, and once or twice the boy held his breath, as they swung round a boulder in the dark, and the sturdy animal almost lost its balance. Sometimes he heard the robbers scrambling down the trail far above him, the trail he had already covered, and twice they fired on him; but the kindly darkness saved him. He was nearing the foot of the mountain now, and the cayuse was beginning to heave badly, but Leloo still struck the sweating flanks, and the creature still plunged on, until, finally, in fear and exhaustion, it stumbled. Instantly it recovered itself, but Leloo knew that this was the first sign of the coming end. Then only did he stop. In his mad ride Leloo had been so intently listening for sounds from behind that he never once thought of sounds ahead, and in this pause of the rattling hoofs and flying stones, his ears caught the rumble of wheels coming towards him, the gentle beat of six horses trotting slowly, and the cheery whistle of the big Canadian who drove the Cariboo stage. As Leloo came slowly upon them, the big driver called, "Who's there—ahead in the trail? Who's shooting around here?"
"Go back, you!" cried the boy. "Two bad men's up trail. They shoot you.They get gold."
"Gee whiz!" yelled Big Bill, bringing his six-in-hand to a standstill. "Holdup, eh? I declare, but that's a narrow escape. I guess Big Bill won't cross the divide to-night."
"No, you go back," reiterated the boy.
"Well, I'll be blowed if it isn't just a kid!" exclaimed the driver, as Leloo rode up close beside him. "And look at the horse of him, clean played out. I say, boy, no wonder you rode hard, with all that gunning behind you. I'm rather handy with a gun myself, and I never drive the 'gold' stage without these two here," tapping the revolvers in his big belt, "but if our friends up there had got the drop on me first, there'd have been a dead driver, and no gold for the boys in the bank, I'm thinking. What is your name, anyway, boy?"
"Me? I'm Leloo," the little Indian replied. "My father, he ChiefBuckskin, Lillooet tribe."
"Whew!" gasped Big Bill. "Old Buckskin's son, eh? Then you're all right, for Buckskin is 'white'—all but his skin. You climb up beside me here, and give that poor, busted horse of yours a rest. This outfit is a-goin' to turn back, and we'll all sleep at Pete's place to-night. But how did you get past those sneaking gunners up there? That's what I want to know."
And later when Leloo, safely seated beside the big driver, related how he had tricked the scoundrels, Big Bill was as proud as if he had been the boy's father. "The whole Cariboo trail from end to end shall know of this," he declared, "know just how you saved me and the miners' gold."
"Me no save," said Leloo, shaking his head with denial. "Not me save, just save by big wolf-brother. He teach me to make his cry, he answer me when I talk his talk to him."
And it must have been this speech that the big driver told far and wide, for at the next great "potlatch" (feast) given by the Lillooets, the entire tribe conferred the great honor of a new name upon Leloo, the name he had won for himself—"Wolf-Brother."
We-hro's Sacrifice
A Story of a Boy and a Dog
We-hro was a small Onondaga Indian boy, a good-looking, black-eyed little chap with as pagan a heart as ever beat under a copper-colored skin. His father and grandfathers were pagans. His ancestors for a thousand years back, and yet a thousand years back of that, had been pagans, and We-hro, with the pride of his religion and his race, would not have turned from the faith of his fathers for all the world. But the world, as he knew it, consisted entirely of the Great Indian Reserve, that lay on the banks of the beautiful Grand River, sixty miles west of he great Canadian city of Toronto.
Now, the boys that read this tale must not confuse a pagan with a heathen. The heathen nations that worship idols are terribly pitied and despised by the pagan Indians, who are worshippers of "The Great Spirit," a kind and loving God, who, they say, will reward them by giving them happy hunting grounds to live in after they die; that is, if they live good, honest, upright lives in this world.
We-hro would have scowled blackly if anyone had dared to name him a heathen. He thoroughly ignored the little Delaware boys, whose fathers worshipped idols fifty years ago, and on all the feast days and dance days he would accompany his parents to the "Longhouse" (which was their church), and take his little part in the religious festivities. He could remember well as a tiny child being carried in his mother's blanket "pick-a-back," while she dropped into the soft swinging movement of the dance, for We-hro's people did not worship their "Great Spirit" with hymns of praise and lowly prayers, the way the Christian Indians did. We-hro's people worshipped their God by dancing beautiful, soft, dignified steps, with no noisy clicking heels to annoy one, but only the velvety shuffle of the moccasined feet, the weird beat of the Indian drums, the mournful chanting of the old chiefs, keeping time with the throb of their devoted hearts.
Then, when he grew too big to be carried, he was allowed to clasp his mother's hand, and himself learn the pretty steps, following his father, who danced ahead, dressed in full costume of scarlet cloth and buckskin, with gay beads and bear claws about his neck, and wonderful carven silver ornaments, massive and sold, decorating his shirt and leggings. We-hro loved the tawny fringes and the hammered silver quite as much as a white lady loves diamonds and pearls; he loved to see his father's face painted in fierce reds, yellows and blacks, but most of all he loved the unvarying chuck-a, chuck-a, chuck-a of the great mud-turtle rattles that the "musicians" skilfully beat upon the benches before them. Oh, he was a thorough little pagan, was We-hro! His loves and his hates were as decided as his comical but stately step in the dance of his ancestors' religion. Those were great days for the small Onondaga boy. His father taught him to shape axe-handles, to curve lacrosse sticks, to weave their deer-sinew netting, to tan skins, to plant corn, to model arrows and—most difficult of all—to "feather" them, to "season" bows, to chop trees, to burn, hollow, fashion and "man" a dugout canoe, to use the paddle, to gauge the wind and current of that treacherous Grand River, to learn wild cries to decoy bird and beast for food. Oh, little pagan We-hro had his life filled to overflowing with much that the civilized white boy would gave all his dimes and dollars to know.
And it was then that the great day came, the marvellous day when We-hro discovered his second self, his playmate, his loyal, unselfish, loving friend—his underbred, unwashed, hungry, vagabond dog, born white and spotless, but begrimed by contact with the world, the mud, and the white man's hovel.
It happened this way:
We-hro was cleaning his father's dugout canoe, after a night of fish spearing. The soot, the scales, the fire ashes, the mud—all had to be "swabbed" out at the river's brink by means of much water and an Indian "slat" broom. We-hro was up to his little ears in work, when suddenly, above him, on the river road, he heard the coarse voice and thundering whipfalls of a man urging and beating his horse—a white man, for no Indian used such language, no Indian beat an animal that served him. We-hro looked up. Stuck in the mud of the river road was a huge wagon, grain-filled. The driver, purple of face, was whaling the poor team, and shouting to a cringing little drab-white dog, of fox-terrier lineage, to "Get out of there or I'll—!"
The horses were dragging and tugging. The little dog, terrified, was sneaking off with tail between its hind legs. Then the brutal driver's whip came down, curling its lash about the dog's thin body, forcing from the little speechless brute a howl of agony. Then We-hro spoke—spoke in all the English he knew.
"Bad! bad! You die some day—you! You hurt that dog. White man's God, he no like you. Indian's Great Spirit, he not let you shoot in happy hunting grounds. You die some day—youbad!"
"Well, if Iambad I'm no pagan Indian Hottentot like you!" yelled the angry driver. "Take the dog, and begone!"
"Me no Hottentot," said We-hro, slowly. "Me Onondaga, all right. Me take dog;" and from that hour the poor little white cur and the copper-colored little boy were friends for all time.
* * * * * * * *
The Superintendent of Indian Affairs was taking his periodical drive about the Reserve when he chanced to meet old "Ten-Canoes," We-hro's father.
The superintendent was a very important person. He was a great white gentleman, who lived in the city of Brantford, fifteen miles away. He was a kindly, handsome man, who loved and honored every Indian on the Grand River Reserve. He had a genial smile, a warm hand-shake, so when he stopped his horse and greeted the old pagan, Ten-Canoes smiled too.
"Ah, Ten-Canoes!" cried the superintendent, "a great man told me he was coming to see your people—a big man, none less than Great Black-Coat, the bishop of the Anglican Church. He thinks you are a bad lot, because you are pagans; he wonders why it is that you have never turned Christian. Some of the missionaries have told him you pagans are no good, so the great man wants to come and see for himself. He wants to see some of your religious dances—the 'Dance of the White Dog,' if you will have him; he wants to see if it is reallybad."
Ten-Canoes laughed. "I welcome him," he said, earnestly, "Welcome the 'Great Black-Coat.' I honor him, though I do not think as he does. He is a good man, a just man; I welcome him, bid him come."
Thus was his lordship, the Bishop, invited to see the great paganOnondaga "Festival of the White Dog."
But what wasthisthat happened?
Never yet had a February moon waned but that the powerful Onondaga tribe had offered the burnt "Sacrifice of the White Dog," that most devout of all native rites. But now, search as they might, not a single spotlessly white dog could be found. No other animal would do. It was the law of this great Indian tribe that no other burnt sacrifice could possibly be offered than the strangled body of a white dog.
We-hro heard all the great chiefs talking of it all. He listened to plans for searching the entire Reserve for a dog, and the following morning he arose at dawn, took his own pet dog down to the river and washed him as he had seen white men wash their sheep. Then out of the water dashed the gay little animal, yelping and barking in play, rolling in the snow, tearing madly about, and finally rushing off towards the log house which was We-hro's home and scratching at the door to get in by the warm fire to dry his shaggy coat. Oh! what an ache that coat caused in We-hro's heart. From a dull drab grey, the dog's hair had washed pure white, not a spot or a blemish on it, and in an agony of grief the little pagan boy realized that through his own action he had endangered the life of his dog friend; that should his father and his father's friends see that small white terrier, they would take it away for the nation's sacrifice.
Stumbling and panting and breathless, We-hro hurried after his pet, and, seizing the dog in his arms, he wrapped his own shabby coat about the trembling, half-dry creature, and carried him to where the cedars grew thick at the back of the house. Crouched in their shadows he hugged his treasured companion, thinking with horror of the hour when the blow would surely fall.
For days the boy kept his dog in the shelter of the cedars, tied up tightly with an old rope, and sleeping in a warm raccoon skin, which We-hro smuggled away from his own simple bed. The dog contented himself with what little food We-hro managed to carry to him, but the hiding could not keep up forever, and one dark, dreaded day We-hro's father came into the house and sat smoking in silence for many minutes. When at last he spoke, he said:
"We-hro, your dog is known to me. I have seen him, white as the snow that fell last night. It is the law that someone must always suffer for the good of the people. We-hro, would you have the great 'Black-Coat,' the great white preacher, come to see our beautiful ceremony, and would you have the great Onondaga tribe fail to show the white man how we worship our ancient Great Spirit? Would you have us fail to burn the sacrifice? Or will you give your white dog for the honor of our people?"
The world is full of heroes, but at that moment it held none greater than the little pagan boy, who crushed down his grief and battled back his tears as he answered:
"Father, you are old and honored and wise. For you and for my people alone would I give the dog."
At last the wonderful Dance Day arrived. His lordship, the Bishop of the Anglican Church, drove down from the city of Brantford; with him the Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and a man who understood both the English and the Onondaga languages. Long before they reached the "Longhouse" they could hear the wild beat of the drum, could count the beats of the dance rattles, could distinguish the half-sad chant of the worshippers. The kind face of the great bishop was very grave. It pained his gentle old heart to know that this great tribe of Indians were pagans—savages, as he thought—but when he entered that plain log building that the Onondagas held as their church, he took off his hat with the beautiful reverence all great men pay to other great men's religion, and he stood bareheaded while old Ten-Canoes chanted forth this speech:
"Oh, brothers of mine! We welcome the white man's friend, the great 'Black-Coat,' to this, our solemn worship. We offer to the red man's God—the Great Spirit—a burnt offering. We do not think that anything save what is pure and faithful and without blemish can go into the sight of the Great Spirit. Therefore do we offer this dog, pure as we hope our spirits are, that the God of the red man may accept it with our devotion, knowing that we, too, would gladly be as spotless as this sacrifice."
Then was a dog carried in dead, and beautifully decorated with wampum, beads and porcupine embroidery. Oh! so mercifully dead and out of pain, gently strangled by reverent fingers, for an Indian is never unkind to an animal. And far over in a corner of the room was a little brown figure, twisted with agony, choking back the sobs and tears—for was he not taught that tears were for babies alone, and not for boys that grew up into warriors?
"Oh, my dog! my dog!" he muttered. "They have taken you away from me, but it was for the honor of my father and of my own people."
The great Anglican bishop turned at that moment, and, catching the sight of suffering on little We-hro's face, said aloud to the man who spoke both languages:
"That little boy over there seems in torture. Can I do anything for him, do you think?"
"That little boy," replied the man who spoke both languages, "is the son of the great Onondaga chief. No white dog could be found for this ceremony but his. This dog was his pet, but for the honor of his father and of his tribe he has given up his pet as a sacrifice."
For a moment the great Anglican bishop was blinded by his own tears. Then he walked slowly across the wide log building and laid his white hand tenderly on the head of the little Onondaga boy. His kindly old eyes closed, and his lips moved—noiselessly, for a space, then he said aloud:
"Oh, that the white boys of my great city church knew and practiced half as much of self-denial as has this little pagan Indian lad, who has given up his heart's dearest because his father and the honor of his people required it."
The Potlatch*
[*"Potlatch" is a Chinook word meaning "a gift." Among the Indian tribes of British Columbia it is used as the accepted name of a great feast, which some Indian, who is exceedingly well off, gives to scores of guests. He entertains them for days, sometimes for weeks, together, presenting them with innumerable blankets and much money, for it is part of the Indian code of honor that, which one has great possessions, he must divide them with his less fortunate tribesmen. The gifts of money usually take the form of ten-dollar bank notes, and are bestowed broadcast upon any man, woman or child who pleases the host by either dancing the tribal dances very beautifully, or else originates an attractive dance of their own.]
Young Ta-la-pus sat on the highest point of rock that lifted itself on the coast at the edge of his father's Reserve. At his feet stretched the Straits of Georgia, and far across the mists of the salt Pacific waters he watched the sun rise seemingly out of the mainland that someone had told him stretched eastward thousands of miles, where another ocean, called the Atlantic, washed its far-off shore, for Ta-la-pus lived on Vancouver Island, and all his little life had been spent in wishing and longing to set his small, moccasined feet on that vast mainland that the old men talked of, and the young men visited year in and year out. But never yet had he been taken across the wide, blue Straits, for he was only eleven years old, and he had two very big brothers who always accompanied their father, old chief Mowitch, on his journeyings, for they were good fishermen, and could help in the salmon catch, and bring good chicamin (money) home to buy supplies for the winter. Sometimes these big brothers would tease him and say, "What can you expect? Your name is Ta-la-pus, which means a prairie wolf. What has a prairie wolf to do with crossing great waters? He cannot swim, as some other animals can. Our parents gave us better names, 'Chet-woot,' the bear, who swims well, and 'Lapool,' the water fowl, whose home is on the waters, whose feet are webbed, and who floats even while he sleeps. No, our young brother, Ta-la-pus, the prairie wolf, was never meant to cross the great salt Straits."
Then little Ta-la-pus would creep away to his lonely rock, trying to still the ache in his heart and forcing back the tears from his eyes. Prairie wolves must not cry like little girl babies—and sometimes when his heart was sorest, a clear, dazzlingly bright day would dawn, and far, far off he could see the blur of the mainland coast, resting on the sea like an enormous island. Then he would tell himself that, no matter what his name was, some day he would cross to that great, far country, whose snow-crowned mountain peaks he could just see merging into the distant clouds.
Then, late in the summer, there came one marvellous night, when his father and brother returned from the sockeye salmon fishing, with news that set the entire Indian village talking far into the early morning. A great Squamish chief on the mainland was going to give a Potlatch. He had been preparing for it for weeks. He had enjoyed a very fortunate fishing season, was a generous-hearted man, and was prepared to spend ten thousand dollars* in gifts and entertainment for his friends and all the poor of the various neighboring tribes.
[*Fact. This amount has frequently been given away.]
Chief Mowitch and all his family were invited, and great rejoicing and anticipation were enjoyed over their salmon suppers that night.
"You and the boys go," said his wife. "Perhaps you will be lucky and bring home chicamin and blankets. The old men say the winter will be cold. Grey geese were going south yesterday, three weeks earlier than last year. Yes, we will need blankets when the ollalies (berries) are ripe in October. I shall stay at home, until the babies are older. Yes, you and the boys go."
"Yes," responded the chief. "It would never do for us to miss a greatSquamish Potlatch. We must go."
Then the elder son, Chet-woot, spoke joyously:
"And, mama,* we may bring back great riches, and even if the cold does come while we are away, our little brother, Ta-la-pus, will care for you and the babies. He'll carry water and bring all the wood for your warmth."
[*The Chinook for father and mother is "papa" and "mama", adopted from the English language.]
The father looked smilingly at Ta-la-pus, but the boy's eyes, great and dark, and hungry for the far mainland, for the great feasts he had heard so much of, were fastened in begging, pleading seriousness on his father's face. Suddenly a whim seized the old chief's fancy.
"Ta-la-pus," he said, "you look as if you would like to go, too. Do you want to take part in the Potlatch?"
Instantly Chet-woot objected. "Papa, he could never go, he's too young. They may ask him to dance for them. He can't dance. Then perhaps they would never ask us."
The chief scowled. He was ruler in his own lodge, and allowed no interference from anyone.
"Besides," continued Chet-woot, "there would be no one to fetch wood for mama and the babies."
"Yes, there would be someone," said the chief, his eyes snapping fiercely. "Youwould be here to help your mama."
"I?" exclaimed the young man. "But how can I, when I shall be at thePotlatch? I go toallthe Potlatches."
"So much more reason that you stay home this once and care for your mama and baby sisters, and youshallstay. Lapool and little Ta-la-pus will go with me. It is time the boy saw something of the other tribes. Yes, I'll take Lapool and Ta-la-pus, and there is no change to my word when it is once spoken."
Chet-woot sat like one stunned, but an Indian son knows better than to argue with his father. But the great, dark eyes of little Ta-la-pus glowed like embers of fire, his young heart leaped joyously. At last, at last, he was to set foot in the country of his dreams—the far, blue, mountain-circled mainland.
All that week his mother worked day and night on a fine new native costume for him to wear on the great occasion. There were trousers of buckskin fringed down each side, a shirt of buckskin, beaded and beautified by shell ornaments, a necklace of the bones of a rare fish, strung together like little beads on deer sinew, earrings of pink and green pearl from the inner part of the shells of a bivalve, neat moccasins, and solid silver, carven bracelets.
She was working on a headdress consisting of a single red fox-tail and eagle feathers, when he came and stood beside her.
"Mama," he said, "there is a prairie wolf skin you cover the babies with while they sleep. Would you let me have it this once, if they would not be cold without it?"
"They will never be cold," she smiled, "for I can use an extra blanket over them. I only use it because I started to when you were the only baby I had, and it was your name, so I covered you with it at night."
"And I want to cover myself with it now," he explained, "its head as my headdress, its front paws about my neck, its thick fur and tail trailing behind me as I dance."
"So you are going to dance, my little Ta-la-pus?" she answered proudly."But how is that, when you do not yet know our great tribal dances?"
"I have made one of my own, and a song, too," he said, shyly.
She caught him to her, smoothing the hair back from his dark forehead. "That is right," she half whispered, for she felt he did not want anyone but herself to know his boyish secret. "Always make things for yourself, don't depend on others, try what you can do alone. Yes, you may take the skin of the prairie wolf. I will give it to you for all time—it is yours."
That night his father also laid in his hands a gift. It was a soft, pliable belt, woven of the white, peeled roots of the cedar, dyed brilliantly, and worked into a magnificent design.
"Your great-grandmother made it," said the chief. "Wear it on your first journey into the larger world than this island, and do nothing in all your life that would make her regret, were she alive, to see it round your waist."
So little Ta-la-pus set forth with his father and brother, well equipped for the great Potlatch, and the meeting of many from half a score of tribes.
They crossed the Straits on a white man's steamer, a wonderful sight to Ta-la-pus, who had never been aboard any larger boat than his father's fishing smack and their own high-bowed, gracefully-curved canoe. In and out among the islands of the great gulf the steamer wound, bringing them nearer, ever nearer to the mainland. Misty and shadowy, Vancouver Island dropped astern, until at last they steamed into harbor, where a crowd of happy-faced Squamish Indians greeted them, stowed them away in canoes, paddled a bit up coast, then sighted the great, glancing fires that were lighting up the grey of oncoming night—fires of celebration and welcome to all the scores of guests who were to partake of the lavish hospitality of the great Squamish chief.
As he stepped from the great canoe, Ta-la-pus thought he felt a strange thrill pass through the soles of his feet. They had touched the mainland of the vast continent of North America for the first time; his feet seemed to become sensitive, soft, furry, cushioned like those of a wild animal. Then, all at once, a strange inspiration seized him. Why not try to make his footsteps "pad" like the noiseless paws of a prairie wolf? "pad" in the little dance he had invented, instead of "shuffling" in his moccasins, as all the grown men did? He made up his mind that when he was alone in his tent he would practise it, but just now the great Squamish chief was coming towards them with outstretched greeting hands, and presently he was patting little Ta-la-pus on the shoulder, and saying, "Oh, ho, my good Tillicum Mowitch, I am glad you have brought this boy. I have a son of the same size. They will play together, and perhaps this Tenas Tyee (Little Chief) will dance for me some night."
"My brother does not dance our tribal dances," began Lapool, butTa-la-pus spoke up bravely.
"Thank you, O Great Tyee (Chief), I shall dance when you ask me."
His father and brother both stared at him in amazement. Then Chief Mowitch laughed, and said, "If he says he will dance, he will do it. He never promises what he cannot do, but I did not know he could do the steps. Ah! he is a little hoolool (mouse) this boy of mine; he keeps very quiet, and does not boast what he can do."
Little Ta-la-pus was wonderfully encouraged by his father's notice of him and his words of praise. Never before had he seemed so close to manhood, for, being the youngest boy of the family, he had but little companionship with any at home except his mother and the little sisters that now seemed so far behind him in their island home. All that evening the old chiefs and the stalwart young braves were gravely shaking hands with his father, his brother Lapool, and himself, welcoming them to the great festival and saying pleasant things about peace and brotherhood prevailing between the various tribes instead of war and bloodshed, as in the olden times. It was late when the great supper of boiled salmon was over, and the immense bonfires began to blaze on the shore where the falling tides of the Pacific left the beaches dry and pebbly. The young men stretched themselves on the cool sands, and the old men lighted their peace pipes, and talked of the days when they hunted the mountain sheep and black bear on these very heights overlooking the sea. Ta-la-pus listened to everything. He could learn so much from the older men, and hour by hour he gained confidence. No more he thought of his dance with fear and shyness, for all these people were kindly and hospitable even to a boy of eleven. At midnight there was another feast, this time of clams, and luscious crabs, with much steaming black tea. Then came the great Squamish chief, saying more welcoming words, and inviting his guests to begin their tribal dances. Ta-la-pus never forgot the brilliant sight that he looked on for the next few hours. Scores of young men and women went through the most graceful figures of beautiful dances, their shell ornaments jingling merrily in perfect time to each twist and turn of their bodies. The wild music from the beat of Indian drums and shell "rattles" arose weirdly, half sadly, drifting up the mountain heights, until it lost itself in the timber line of giant firs that crested the summits. The red blaze from the camp fires flitted and flickered across the supple figures that circled around, in and out between the three hundred canoes beached on the sands, and the smoke-tipped tents and log lodges beyond the reach of tide water. Above it all a million stars shone down from the cloudless heavens of a perfect British Columbian night. After a while little Ta-la-pus fell asleep, and when he awoke, dawn was just breaking. Someone had covered him with a beautiful, white, new blanket, and as his young eyes opened they looked straight into the kindly face of the great Squamish chief.
"We are all aweary, 'Tenas Tyee' (Little Chief)," he said. "The dancers are tired, and we shall all sleep until the sun reaches midday, but my guests cry for one more dance before sunrise. Will you dance for us, oh, little Ta-la-pus?"
The boy sprang up, every muscle and sinew and nerve on the alert. The moment of his triumph or failure had come.
"You have made me, even a boy like me, very welcome, O Great Tyee," he said, standing erect as an arrow, with his slender, dark chin raised manfully. "I have eaten of your kloshe muck-a-muck (very good food), and it has made my heart and my feet very skookum (strong). I shall do my best to dance and please you." The boy was already dressed in the brilliant buckskin costume his mother had spent so many hours in making, and his precious wolfskin was flung over his arm. The great Squamish chief now took him by the hand and led him towards the blazing fires round which the tired dancers, the old men and women, sat in huge circles where the chill of dawn could not penetrate.
"One more dance, then we sleep," said the chief to the great circle of spectators. "This Tenas Tyee will do his best to amuse us."
Then Ta-la-pus felt the chief's hand unclasp, and he realized that he was standing absolutely alone before a great crowd of strangers, and that every eye was upon him.
"Oh, my brother," he whispered, smoothing the prairie wolf skin, "help me to be like you, help me to be worthy of your name." Then he pulled the wolf's head over his own, twisted the fore legs about his throat, and stepped into the great circle of sand between the crouching multitude and the fires.
Stealthily he began to pick his way in the full red flare from the flames. He heard many voices whispering, "Tenas," "Tenas," meaning "He is little, he is young," but his step only grew more stealthy, until he "padded" into a strange, silent trot in exact imitation of a prairie wolf. As he swung the second time round the fires, his young voice arose, in a thin, wild, wonderful barking tone, so weird and wolf-like that half the spectators leaped up to their knees, or feet, the better to watch and listen. Another moment, and he was putting his chant into words.
"They call me Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf,And wild and free am I.I cannot swim like Eh-ko-lie, the whale,Nor like the eagle, Chack-chack, can I fly.
"I cannot talk as does the great Ty-ee,Nor like the o-tel-agh* shine in the sky.I am but Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf,And wild and free am I."
[*Sun.]
With every word, every step, he became more like the wolf he was describing. Across his chanting and his "padding" in the sand came murmurs from the crowd. He could hear "Tenas, tenas," "To-ke-tie Tenas" (pretty boy), "Skookum-tanse," (good strong dance). Then at last, "Ow," "Ow," meaning "Our young brother." On and on went Ta-la-pus. The wolf feeling crept into his legs, his soft young feet, his clutching fingers, his wonderful dark eyes that now gleamed red and lustrous in the firelight. He was as one inspired, giving a beautiful and marvellous portrait of the wild vagabonds of the plains. For fully ten minutes he circled and sang, then suddenly crouched on his haunches, then, lifting his head, he turned to the east, his young throat voiced one long, strange note, wolf-like he howled to the rising sun, which at that moment looked over the crest of the mountains, its first golden shaft falling full upon his face.
His chant and his strange wolf-dance were ended. Then one loud clamor arose from the crowd. "Tenas Tyee," "Tenas Tyee," they shouted, and Ta-la-pus knew that he had not failed. But the great Squamish chief was beside him.
"Tillicums,"* he said, facing the crowd, "this boy has danced no tribal dance learned from his people or his parents. This is his own dance, which he has made to deserve his name. He shall get the first gifts of our great Potlatch. Go," he added, to one of the young men, "bring ten dollars of the white man's chicamin (money), and ten new blankets as white as that snow on the mountain top."
[*Friends, my people.]
The crowd was delighted. They approved the boy and rejoiced to see the real Potlatch was begun. When the blankets were piled up beside him they reached to the top of Ta-la-pus' head. Then the chief put ten dollars in the boy's hand with the simple words, "I am glad to give it. You won it well, my Tenas Tyee."
That was the beginning of a great week of games, feasting and tribal dances, but not a night passed but the participants called for the wild "wolf-dance" of the little boy from the island. When the Potlatch was over, old Chief Mowitch and Lapool and Ta-la-pus returned to Vancouver Island, but no more the boy sat alone on the isolated rock, watching the mainland through a mist of yearning. He had set foot in the wider world, he had won his name, and now honored it, instead of hating it, as in the old days when his brothers taunted him, for the great Squamish chief, in bidding good-bye to him, had said:
"Little Ta-la-pus, remember a name means much to a man. You despised your name, but you have made it great and honorable by your own act, your own courage. Keep that name honorable, little Ta-la-pus; it will be worth far more to you than many blankets or much of the white man's chicamin."
The Scarlet Eye
"I tell you that fellow is an Indian! You can't fool me! Look at the way he walks! He doesn'tstep; hepadslike a panther!"
Billy ceased speaking, but still pointed an excited forefinger along the half-obliterated buffalo trail that swung up the prairie, out of the southern horizon. The two boys craned their necks, watching the coming figure, that advanced at a half-trot, half-stride. Billy was right. The man seemed to be moving on cushioned feet. Nothing could give that slow, springing swing except a moccasin.
"Any man is welcome," almost groaned little Jerry, "but, oh, how much more welcome an Indian man, eh, Billy?"
"You bet!" said Billy. "He'll show us a way out of this. Yes, he's Indian. I can see his long hair now. Look! I can see the fringe up the sleeves of his shirt; it is buckskin!"
"Do you think he sees us?" questioned Jerry.
Billy laughed contemptuously. "Sees us! Why, he saw us long before we saw him, you can bet on that!"
Then Billy raised his arm, and whirled about his head the big bandanna handkerchief which he had snatched from his neck. The man responded to the signal by lifting aloft for a single instant his open palm with fingers outstretched.
"Yes, he's Indian! A white man would have wiggled his wrist at us!" sighed Jerry contentedly. "He'll help us out, Billy. There's nothing he won't know how to do!" And the little boy's eyes grew moist with the relief of knowing help was at last at hand.
Ten minutes more and the man slowed up beside them. He was a tall, splendidly made Cree, with eyes like jewels and hands as slender and small as a woman's.
"You savvy English?" asked Billy.
"Little," answered the Indian, never looking at Billy, but keeping his wonderful eyes on the outstretched figure, the pallid face, of young Jerry, whose forehead was wrinkled with evident pain.
"We have met with an accident," explained Billy. "My little brother's horse loped into a badger hole and broke its leg. I had to shoot it." Here Billy's voice choked, and his fingers touched the big revolver at his belt. "My brother was thrown. He landed badly; something's wrong with his ankle, his leg; he can't walk; can't go on, even on my horse. It happened over there, about two miles." Here Billy pointed across the prairie to where a slight hump showed where the dead horse lay. "I got him over here," he continued, looking about at the scrub poplar and cottonwood trees, "where there was shelter and slough water, but he can't go on. Our father is Mr. MacIntyre, the Hudson's Bay Factor at Fort o' Farewell."
As Billy ceased speaking the Indian kneeled beside Jerry, feeling with tender fingers his hurts. As the dark hand touched his ankle, the boy screamed and cried out, "Oh, don't! Oh, don't!" The Indian arose, shaking his head solemnly, then said softly, "Hudson's Bay boys, eh? Good boys! You good boy to bring him here to trees. We make camp! Your brother's ankle is broken."
"But we must get him home," urged Billy. "We ought to have a doctor. He'll be lame all his life if we don't!" And poor big Billy's voice shook.
"No. No lame. I doctor him," said the Indian. "I good doctor. My nameFive Feathers—me."
"Five Feathers!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, I've often heard father speak of you. Father loves you. He says you are the best Indian in the whole Hudson's Bay country."
Five Feathers smiled. "Your father and me good friends," he said simply.Then added, "How you come here?"
"Why, you see," said Billy, "we were returning from school at Winnipeg; it's holiday now, you know. Father sent the two ponies to 'the front' for us to ride home. Some Indians brought them over for us. It's a hundred and sixty miles. We started yesterday morning, and slept last night at Black Jack Pete's place. We must be a full hundred miles from home now." Billy stopped speaking. His voice simplywouldnot go on.
"More miles than hundred," said the Indian. "You got something eat?"
Billy went over to where his horse was staked to a cottonwood, hauled off his saddlebags, and, returning, emptied them on the brown grass. They made a good showing. Six boxes of matches, a half side of bacon, two pounds of hardtack, a package of tea, four tins of sardines, a big roll of cooked smoked antelope, sugar, three loaves of bread, one can of tongue, one of salmon, a small tin teapot, two tin cups, one big knife, and one tin pie plate, to be used in lieu of a frying-pan. "I wish we had more," said the boy, surveying the outfit ruefully.
"Plenty," said the Indian; "we get prairie chicken and rabbit plenty." But his keen eyes scarcely glanced at the food. He was busy slitting one of the sleeves from his buckskin shirt, cutting it into bandages. His knife was already shaping splints from the scrub poplar. Little Jerry, his eyes full of pain, watched him, knowing of the agony to come, when even those gentle Indian fingers could not save his poor ankle from torture while they set the broken bone. Suddenly the misery of anticipation was arrested by a great and glad cry from the Indian, who had discovered and pounced upon a small scarlet blossom that was growing down near the slough. He caught up the flower, root and all, carrying it triumphantly to where the injured boy lay. Within ten minutes he had made a little fire, placed the scarlet flower, stem and root, in the teapot, half filled it up with water, and set it boiling. Then he turned to Billy.
"Sleeping medicine," he said, pointing to the teapot. "He not have pain. You stay until he awake, then you ride on to Fort o' Farewell. You take some food. You leave some for us. You send wagon, take him home. I stay with him. Maybe four, five days before you get there and send wagon back. You trust me? I give him sleeping medicine. I watch him. You trust me—Five Feathers?"
But Jerry's hand was already clasping the Indian's, and Billy was interrupting.
"Trust you? Trust Five Feathers, the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay country? I should think I will trust you!"
The Indian nodded quietly; and, taking the teapot from the fire, poured the liquid into one of the cups, cooling it by dripping from one cup to the other over and over again. Presently it began to thicken, almost like a jelly, and turned a dull red color, then brighter, clearer, redder. Suddenly the Indian snatched up the prostrate boy to a sitting posture. One hand was around the boy's shoulder, the other held the tin cup, brimming with reddening, glue-like stuff.
"Quick!" he said, looking at Billy. "You trust me?"
"Yes," said the boy, very quietly. "Give it to him."
"Yes," said Jerry; "give it to me."
The Indian held the cup to the little chap's lips. One, two, three minutes passed. The boy had swallowed every drop. Then the Indian laid him flat on the grass. For a moment his suffering eyes looked into those of his brother, then he glanced at the sky, the trees, the far horizon, the half-obliterated buffalo trail. Then his lids drooped, his hands twitched, he lay utterly unconscious.
With a rapidity hardly believable in an Indian, Five Feathers skinned off the boy's sock, ran his lithe fingers about the ankle, clicked the bone into place, splinted and bandaged it like an expert surgeon; but, with all his haste, it was completed none too soon. Jerry's eyes slowly opened, to see Billy smiling down at him, and Five Feathers standing calmly by his side.
"Bully, Jerry! Your ankle is all set and bandaged. How do you feel?" asked his brother, a little shakily.
"Just tired," said the boy. "Tired, but no pain. Oh, I wish I could have stayed!"
"Stayed where?" demanded Billy.
"With the scarlet flowers!" whispered Jerry. "I've been dreaming, I think," he continued. "I thought I was walking among fields and fields of scarlet flowers. They were so pretty."
Five Feathers sprang to his feet. "Good! Good!" he exclaimed. "I scared he would not see them. If he see red flowers, he all right. Sometimes, when they don't see it, they not get well soon." Then, under his breath, "The Scarlet Eye!"
"I saw them all right!" almost laughed the boy. "Miles of them. I could see and smell them. They smelled like smoke—like prairie fires."
"Get well right away!" chuckled the Indian. "Verygood to smell them."Then to Billy: "You eat. You get ready. You ride now to Fort o'Farewell."
So they built up the dying fire, made tea, cooked a little bacon, and all three ate heartily.
"I'll leave you the teapot, of course," said Billy, taking a dozen hardtack and one tin of sardines. "Slough water's good enough for me."
But Five Feathers gripped him by the arm—an iron grip—not at all with the gentle fingers that had so recently dressed the other boy's wounded ankle. "You not go that way!" he glared, his fine eyes dark and scowling. "Yes, we keep teapot, but you take bread, and antelope, and more fat fish," pointing to the sardines. "Fat fish very good for long ride. You take, or I not let you go!"
There was such a strange severity in his dark face that Billy did not argue the matter, but quietly obeyed, taking one loaf of bread, half the antelope, and three tins of the "fat fish."
"Plenty prairie chicken here," explained the Indian. "I make good soup for Little Brave."
"What a nice name to call me, Five Feathers!" smiled Jerry.
"Yes, you Little Brave," replied the Indian. "Little boy, but very big brave."
At the last moment Jerry and his brother clasped hands. "I hate to leave you, old man," said Billy, a little unsteadily.
"Why, I'm not afraid," answered the boy. "You and father and I all know that I am with the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay country—wedoknow it, don't we, Billy?"
"I'll stake my life on that," replied Billy, swinging into his saddle. "Remember, Jerry, it's only a hundred miles. I'll be there in two days, and the wagon will be here in another two."
"Yes, I'll remember," replied the sick boy.
Then Billy struck rather abruptly up the half-obliterated buffalo trail. Several times he turned in his saddle, looking back and waving his bandanna, and each time the Indian stood erect and lifted his open palm. The receding horse and rider grew smaller, less, fainter, then they blurred into the horizon. The sick boy closed his eyes, that ached from watching the fading figure. He was utterly alone, with leagues of untracked prairie about him, alone with Five Feathers, a strange Indian, who sat silently nearby.
When Jerry awoke, the sun was almost setting, and Five Feathers was in precisely the same place and in precisely the same attitude. Once, in his dreams, wherein he still wandered through fields of scarlet flowers, he watched a bud unfolding. It opened with a sound like a revolver shot, or was it really a revolver? The boy turned over on his side, for a savory odor greeted his nostrils, and he looked wonderingly around. Five Feathers had evidently not been sitting there throughout that long June afternoon, for, within an arm's length was the jolliest little tepee made of many branches of poplar and cottonwood, sides and roof all one thick mass of green leaves and branches woven together like basketwork, a bed of short, dry prairie grass, fragrant and brown, his own saddlebags and single blanket for pillow and mattress. And on the fire the teapot, steaming with that delicious savory odor.
"What is it?" asked the boy, indicating the cooking.
"Prairie chicken," smiled the Indian. "I shoot while you sleep."
Sothatwas the bursting of the scarlet bud!
"Very good chicken," continued the Indian. "Very fat—good for eat, good soup, both."
So they made their supper off the tender stew, and soaked some hardtack in the soup. It seemed to Jerry a royal meal, and he made up his mind that, when he arrived home, he would get his mother to stew a prairie hen in the teapot some day; it tasted so much better than anything he had ever eaten before.
The sun had set, and the long, long twilight of the north was gathering. Five Feathers built up the fire, for the prairie night brings a chill, even in June.
"Did you see them again, the red flowers, while you slept?" he asked the boy.
"Yes; fields of them," replied Jerry. Then added, "Why?"
"It is good," said the Indian. "Very good. You will now have what we call 'The Scarlet Eye.'"
"What's that?" asked Jerry, half frightened.
"It's very good. You will yourself be a great medicine man—what you white men call 'doctor.' You like to be that?"
"I never thought of studying medicine until to-day," said the boy, excitedly; "but, just as Billy rode away, something seemed to grip me. I made up my mind then and there to be a doctor."
"That is because you have seen 'The Scarlet Eye,'" said the Indian, quietly.
"Tell me of it, will you, Five Feathers?" asked the boy, gently.
"Yes, but first I lift you on to bed." And, gathering Jerry in his strong, lean arms, he laid him on the grass couch in the green tepee, looked at his foot, loosened all his clothing, spread the one blanket over him, stirred up the fire, and, sitting at the tepee door, began the story.
"Only the great, the good, the kindly people ever see it. One must live well, must be manly and brave, and talk straight without lies, without meanness, or 'The Scarlet Eye' will never come to them. They tell me that, over the great salt water, in your white man's big camping-ground named London, in far-off England, the medicine man hangs before his tepee door a scarlet lamp, so that all who are sick may see it, even in the darkness.* It is the sign that a good man lives within that tepee, a man whose life is given to help and heal sick bodies. We redskins of the North-West have heard this story, so we, too, want a sign of a scarlet lamp, to show where lives a great, good man. The blood of the red flower shows us this. If you drink it and see no red flowers, you are selfish, unkind; your talk is not true; your life is not clear; but, if you see the flowers, as you did to-day, you are good, kind, noble. You will be a great and humane medicine man. You have seen the Scarlet Eye. It is the sign of kindness to your fellowmen."
[*Some of the Indian tribes of the Canadian North-West are familiar with the fact that in London, England, the sign of a physician's office is a scarlet lamp suspended outside the street door.]
The voice of Five Feathers ceased, but his fingers were clasping the small hand of the white boy, clasping it very gently.
"Thank you, Five Feathers," Jerry said, softly. "Yes, I shall study medicine. Father always said it was the noblest of all the professions, and I know to-night that it is."