{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_35502/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_35502","id":"gutenberg_35502","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35502","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Indians of North America -- Juvenile fiction"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\nProduced by Chris Curnow, Joseph Cooper and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n  TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: Diacritic marks over letters are enclosed within\n  square brackets. For example, [)a] represents small letter \"a\" with\n  breve.\n\n\n\n\n  THE BASKET WOMAN\n\n  A BOOK OF INDIAN TALES\n  FOR CHILDREN\n\n  BY\n\n  MARY AUSTIN\n\n  _SCHOOL EDITION_\n\n\n  BOSTON, NEW YORK, AND CHICAGO\n  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\n  The Riverside Press, Cambridge\n\n\n\n  COPYRIGHT, 1904, BY MARY AUSTIN\n  COPYRIGHT, 1910, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n\n  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED\n\n\n\n  [Illustration: From photograph by A. A. Forbes\n  THE BASKET WOMAN]\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE\n\n\nIn preparing this volume of western myths for school use the object has\nbeen not so much to provide authentic Indian Folk-tales, as to present\ncertain aspects of nature as they appear in the myth-making mood, that\nis to say, in the form of strongest appeal to the child mind. Indian\nmyths as they exist among Indians are too frequently sustained by coarse\nand cruel incidents comparable to the belly-ripping joke in _Jack the\nGiant Killer_, or the blinding of Gloucester in _King Lear_, and when\npresented in story form, too often fall under the misapprehension of the\nmyth as something invented and added to the imaginative life. It is, in\nfact, the root and branch of man's normal intimacy with nature.\n\nSo slowly does the mind awaken to the realization of consciousness and\npersonality as by-products of animal life only, that few escape carrying\nover into adult life some obsession of its persistence in inanimate\nthings, say of malevolence in opals or luckiness in a rabbit's foot, or\nthe capacity of moral discrimination against their victims residing in\nhurricanes and earthquakes. The chief preoccupation of the child in his\nearlier years is the business of abstracting the items of his\nenvironment from this pervading sense, and ascribing to them their\nproper degrees of awareness. He arrives in a general way at knowing that\nit hurts the cat's tail to be stepped on because the cat cries, and that\nit does not hurt the stick. But if the stick were provided with a\nsqueaking apparatus he would be much longer in the process, and if the\nstick becomes a steed or a doll it is quite possible for him to weep\nwith sympathetic pain at the abuse of it.\n\nHe sees the tree and it is alive and sentient to him; you cut a stick\nhorse from its boughs, and that is separately alive; cut the stick again\ninto two horses, and they will prance whole and satisfying. Later when\nthe game is played out, the stick may burn and furnish live flame to\ndance, live smoke to ascend, live ash to be treated with contumely; all\nof which arises not so much in the mere trick of invention as in the\nnatural difficulty in thinking of objects freed from consciousness,\nalmost as great as the philosopher's in conceiving empty space. There is\na period in the life of every child when almost the only road to the\nunderstanding is the one blazed out by the myth-making spirit, kept open\nto the larger significance of things long after he is apprised that the\nthunder did not originate in the smithy of the gods nor the Walrus talk\nto the Carpenter. Any attempt, however, to hasten the proper\ndistinctions of causes and powers by the suppression of myth making is\nlikely to prove as disastrous as helping young puppies through their\nnine days' blindness by forcibly opening their eyes. You might get a few\ndays' purchase of vision for some of them, but you would also have a\ngood many cases of total blindness. What can be done by way of turning\nthe myth-making period to advantage, this little book is partly to show.\n\nOf the three sorts of myths included, about a third are direct\ntranscriptions from Indian myths current in the campodies of the West,\nbut it must not be assumed that myths like _The Crooked Fir_ and _The\nWhite Barked Pine_ are in any sense \"made up,\" or to be laid to the\nauthor's credit. Since the myth originates in an attitude of mind, it\nmust be understood that, to the primitive mind, nearly the whole process\nof nature presents itself in mythical terms. It is not that the Indian\nimagines the tree having sentience--he simply isn't able to imagine its\nnot having it. All his songs, his ceremonies, his daily speech, are full\nof the aspect of nature in terms of human endeavor. The story of _The\nCrooked Fir_ was suggested to me in the humorous comment of my Indian\nguide on one of the forks of Kings River, the first time my attention\nwas caught by the uniform curve of the trunks, and he explained it to\nme. The myth of _The Stream That Ran Away_ might arise as simply as in\nthe question of a child who has not lived long enough to understand the\nseasonal recession of waters, wishing to know why a stream that ran\nfull some weeks ago is now dry. And if his mother has had trouble with\nhis straying too far from the camp she might say to him that it had run\naway and the White people had caught it and set it to work in an\nirrigating ditch, \"and that is what will happen to you if you don't\nwatch out\" ... or she might draw a moral on the neglect of duty if the\noccasion demanded it ... or if she were gifted with fancy, tell him that\nthat was it which fell on us as rain in Big Meadow, and it would return\nto its banks when it had watered the high places. But whatever she would\ntell him would have an acute observation of nature behind it and would\nbe stated in personal terms. It is so that the child begins to\nunderstand the continuity of natural forces and their relativity to the\nlife of man.\n\nThere is a third sort of story included with these, which aside from\nbeing of the stuff from which hero myths are made,--_Mahala Joe_ is in\npoint,--has a value which must be gone into more particularly.\n\nWhat is important for the teacher to understand is that the myth,\nitself a living issue, will not bear too much handling; in the process\nof making it a part of the child's experience, the meaning of it must\nnot be pulled up too often to learn if it has taken root. Unless it\nelucidates itself in the course of time,--and one must recall how long a\nperiod elapsed between the first reading of the _Ugly Duckling_, say,\nand its final revelation of itself,--unless its content is broadly human\nand personal, it has practically no educative value. It is not\nabsolutely indispensable that the whole unfolding of it should be within\nthe limited period of school life that affords it; some of the noblest\nhuman myths reveal as it were successive layers of insight and purport,\ntaking change and color from the passing experience; but it remains true\nthat the best time to insinuate the myth in the child's mind is when he\nis normally at the myth-making period.\n\nTo make it, then, part of the child's possession it should be read to or\nby him at convenient intervals, until he can give back a fairly succinct\nversion of it. Along with this must go the business of deepening and\nextending the background; and whether this is to be done at the time of\nthe reading or intermediately, must depend largely on the local\nbackground. Children in schools on the Pacific slope should find\nthemselves already tolerably furnished; any hill region in fact should\nyield suggestive material, without overlaying the content of the myth\nwith trifling exactitudes of natural history.\n\nIt is very difficult to say in a word all that is implied in the\nextension of the background. One has only to consider the amount of time\nspent in teaching the so-called Classic Myths, tremendous in their power\nof vitalizing and coloring their own and related times, and reflect on\ntheir failure to effect anything beyond their mere story interest in\nmodern life, to realize that the value of a myth is directly in\nproportion as its background is common and accessible. What would happen\nin a locality calculated to suggest and with a teacher properly equipped\nto interpret the background of Greek and Roman mythology, is not\nproven, but in practical school work the author has found it best to\ndefer the teaching of it until by general reading a point of contact is\nestablished, which enables the child to read _backward_ into its\nmeaning, and for the actively myth-making period to use forms sprung\nnaturally from the child's own environment. The better he can visualize\nand locate the objects mythically treated, the better they serve their\npurpose of rendering personal the influences of nature and sustaining\nhim in that happy sense of the community of life and interest in the\nWild.\n\nIt is for this purpose of extending the background that the introductory\nsketches and some others are included in this collection. _The Golden\nFortune_ could be read with _The White Barked Pine_, and _The Christmas\nTree_ with _The Crooked Fir_. Any hill country or wooded district should\nfurnish additional color, but let it be cautioned here, that though all\nthe nature references in these tales are entirely dependable, the child\nis not to be made unhappy thereby. Whatever branch of school work it is\nfound necessary to correlate with the myths, it should be in general\nrecreative rather than instructive; for what is comprehended in the term\nNature is after all not a miscellany of objects, but a state of mind set\nup by their happiest coincidences. The least that can be said to achieve\na proper notion of a tree or a glacier is so much better than the most;\na casual application to a known and neighboring circumstance goes\nfurther than any amount of explanation.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n                                              PAGE\n  THE BASKET WOMAN--FIRST STORY                  1\n  THE BASKET WOMAN--SECOND STORY                17\n  THE STREAM THAT RAN AWAY                      31\n  THE COYOTE-SPIRIT AND THE WEAVING WOMAN       43\n  THE CHEERFUL GLACIER                          59\n  THE MERRY-GO-ROUND                            71\n  THE CHRISTMAS TREE                            87\n  THE FIRE BRINGER                             107\n  THE CROOKED FIR                              119\n  THE SUGAR PINE                               129\n  THE GOLDEN FORTUNE                           141\n  THE WHITE-BARKED PINE                        161\n  NA [:Y]ANG-WIT'E, THE FIRST RABBIT DRIVE     171\n  MAHALA JOE                                   183\n  PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY                       221\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n  THE BASKET WOMAN                  _Frontispiece_\n  A \"CAMPOODIE,\" OR INDIAN VILLAGE              30\n  AN OLD MINE                                  142\n  A \"WICKIUP,\" OR INDIAN HUT                   184\n\n\n\n\nTHE BASKET WOMAN\n\nFIRST STORY\n\n\nThe homesteader's cabin stood in a moon-shaped hollow between the hills\nand the high mesa; and the land before it stretched away golden and\ndusky green, and was lost in a blue haze about where the river\nsettlements began. The hills had a flowing outline and melted softly\ninto each other and higher hills behind, until the range broke in a\nragged crest of thin peaks white with snow. A clean, wide sky bent over\nthat country, and the air that moved in it was warm and sweet.\n\nThe homesteader's son had run out on the trail that led toward the\nspring, with half a mind to go to it, but ran back again when he saw the\nBasket Woman coming. He was afraid of her, and ashamed because he was\nafraid, so he did not tell his mother that he had changed his mind.\n\n\"There is the mahala coming for the wash,\" said his mother; \"now you\nwill have company at the spring.\" But Alan only held tighter to a fold\nof her dress. This was the third time the Indian woman had come to wash\nfor the homesteader's wife; and, though she was slow and quiet and had a\npleasant smile, Alan was still afraid of her. All that he had heard of\nIndians before coming to this country was very frightful, and he did not\nunderstand yet that it was not so. Beyond a certain point of hills on\nclear days he could see smoke rising from the campoodie, and though he\nknew nothing but his dreams of what went on there, he would not so much\nas play in that direction.\n\nThe Basket Woman was the only Indian that he had seen. She would come\nwalking across the mesa with a great cone-shaped carrier basket heaped\nwith brushwood on her shoulders, stooping under it and easing the weight\nby a buckskin band about her forehead. Sometimes it would be a smaller\nbasket carried in the same fashion, and she would be filling it with\nbulbs of wild hyacinth or taboose; often she carried a bottle-necked\nwater basket to and from the spring, and always wore a bowl-shaped\nbasket on her head for a hat. Her long hair hung down from under it, and\nher black eyes glittered beadily below the rim. Alan had a fancy that\nany moment she might pick him up with a quick toss as if he had been a\nbit of brushwood, and drop him over her shoulder into the great carrier,\nand walk away across the mesa with him. So when he saw her that morning\ncoming down the trail from the spring, he hung close by his mother's\nskirts.\n\n\"You must not be afraid of her, Alan,\" said his mother; \"she is very\nkind, and no doubt has had a boy of her own.\"\n\nThe Basket Woman showed them her white, even teeth in a smile. \"This one\nvery pretty boy,\" she said; but Alan had made up his mind not to trust\nher. He was thinking of what the teamster had said when he had driven\nthem up from the railroad station with their belongings the day they\ncame to their new home and found the Basket Woman spying curiously in\nat the cabin windows.\n\n\"You wanter watch out how you behaves yourself, sonny,\" said the\nteamster, wagging a solemn jaw, \"she's likely to pack you away in that\nbasket o' her'n one of these days.\" And Alan had watched out very\ncarefully indeed.\n\nIt was not a great while after they came to the foothill claim that the\nhomesteader went over to the campoodie to get an Indian to help at fence\nbuilding, and Alan went with him, holding fast by his father's hand.\nThey found the Indians living in low, foul huts; their clothes were also\ndirty, and they sat about on the ground, fat and good-natured. The dogs\nand children lay sleeping in the sun. It was all very disappointing.\n\n\"Will they not hurt us, father?\" Alan had said at starting.\n\n\"Oh, no, my boy; you must not get any such notion as that,\" said the\nhomesteader; \"Indians are not at all now what they were once.\"\n\nAlan thought of this as he looked at the campoodie, and pulled at his\nfather's hand.\n\n\"I do not like Indians the way they are now,\" he said; and immediately\nsaw that he had made a mistake, for he was standing directly in front of\nthe Basket Woman's hut, and as she suddenly put her head out of the door\nhe thought by the look of her mysterious, bright eyes that she had\nunderstood. He did not venture to say anything more, and all the way\nhome kept looking back toward the campoodie to see if anything came of\nit.\n\n\"Why do you not eat your supper?\" said his mother. \"I am afraid the long\nwalk in the hot sun was too much for you.\" Alan dared not say anything\nto her of what troubled him, though perhaps it would have been better if\nhe had, for that night the Basket Woman came for him.\n\nShe did not pick him up and toss him over her shoulder as he expected;\nbut let down the basket, and he stepped into it of his own accord. Alan\nwas surprised to find that he was not so much afraid of her after all.\n\n\"What will you do with me?\" he said.\n\n\"I will show you Indians as they used to be,\" said she.\n\nAlan could feel the play of her strong shoulders as they went out across\nthe lower mesa and began to climb the hills.\n\n\"Where do you go?\" said the boy.\n\n\"To Pahrump, the valley of Corn Water. It was there my people were\nhappiest in old days.\"\n\nThey went on between the oaks, and smelled the musky sweet smell of the\nwild grapevines along the water borders. The sagebrush began to fail\nfrom the slopes, and buckthorn to grow up tall and thicker; the wind\nbrought them a long sigh from the lowest pines. They came up with the\nsilver firs and passed them, passed the drooping spruces, the wet\nmeadows, and the wood of thimble-cone pines. The air under them had an\nearthy smell. Presently they came out upon a cleared space very high up\nwhere the rocks were sharp and steep.\n\n\"Why are there no trees here?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"I will tell you about that,\" said the Basket Woman. \"In the old flood\ntime, and that is longer ago than is worth counting, the water came up\nand covered the land, all but the high tops of mountains. Here then the\nIndians fled and lived, and with them the animals that escaped from the\nflood. There were trees growing then over all the high places, but\nbecause the waters were long on the earth the Indians were obliged to\ncut them down for firewood. Also they killed all the large animals for\nfood, but the small ones hid in the rocks. After that the waters went\ndown; trees and grass began to grow over all the earth, but never any\nmore on the tops of high mountains. They had all been burned off. You\ncan see that it is so.\"\n\nFrom the top of the mountain Alan could see all the hills on the other\nside shouldering and peering down toward the happy valley of Corn Water.\n\n\"Here,\" said the Basket Woman, \"my people came of old time in the\ngrowing season of the year; they planted corn, and the streams came\ndown from the hills and watered it. Now we, too, will go down.\"\n\nThey went by a winding trail, steep and stony. The pines stood up around\nand locked them closely in.\n\n\"I see smoke arising,\" said Alan, \"blue smoke above the pines.\"\n\n\"It is the smoke of their hearth fires,\" said the Basket Woman, and they\nwent down and down.\n\n\"I hear a sound of singing,\" said the boy.\n\n\"It is the women singing and grinding at the quern,\" she said, and her\nfeet went faster.\n\n\"I hear laughter,\" he said again, \"it mixes with the running of the\nwater.\"\n\n\"It is the maidens washing their knee-long hair. They kneel by the water\nand stoop down, they dip in the running water and shake out bright drops\nin the sun.\"\n\n\"There is a pleasant smell,\" said Alan.\n\n\"It is pine nuts roasting in the cones,\" said the Basket Woman; \"so it\nwas of old time.\"\n\nThey came out of the cleft of the hills in a pleasant place by singing\nwater. \"There you will see the rows of wickiups,\" said the Basket Woman,\n\"with the doors all opening eastward to the sun. Let us sit here and see\nwhat we shall see.\"\n\nThe women sat by the wickiups weaving baskets of willow and stems of\nfern. They made patterns of bright feathers and strung wampum about the\nrims. Some sewed with sinew and needles of cactus thorn on deerskin\nwhite and fine; others winnowed the corn. They stood up tossing it in\nbaskets like grains of gold, and the wind carried away the chaff. All\nthis time the young girls were laughing as they dried their hair in the\nsun. They bound it with flowers and gay strings of beads, and made their\ncheeks bright with red earth. The children romped and shouted about the\ncamp, and ran bare-legged in the stream.\n\n\"Do they do nothing but play?\" said Alan.\n\n\"You shall see,\" said the Basket Woman.\n\nAway up the mountain sounded a faint halloo. In a moment all the camp\nwas bustle and delight. The children clapped their hands; they left off\nplaying and began to drag up brushwood for the fires. The women put away\ntheir weaving and brought out the cooking pots; they heard the men\nreturning from the hunt. The young men brought deer upon their\nshoulders; one had grouse and one held up a great basket of trout. The\nwomen made the meat ready for cooking. Some of them took meal and made\ncakes for baking in the ashes. The men rested in the glow of the fires,\nfeathering arrows and restringing their bows.\n\n\"That is well,\" said the Basket Woman, \"to make ready for to-morrow's\nmeat before to-day's is eaten.\"\n\n\"How happy they are!\" said the boy.\n\n\"They will be happier when they have eaten,\" said she.\n\nAfter supper the Indians gathered together for singing and dancing. The\nold men told tales one after the other, and the children thought each\none was the best. Between the tales the Indians all sang together, or\none sang a new song that he had made. There was one of them who did\nbetter than all. He had streaked his body with colored earth and had a\nband of eagle feathers in his hair. In his hand was a rattle of wild\nsheep's horn and small stones; he kept time with it as he leapt and sang\nin the light of the fire. He sang of old wars, sang of the deer that was\nkilled, sang of the dove and the young grass that grew on the mountain;\nand the people were well pleased, for when the heart is in the singing\nit does not matter much what the song is about. The men beat their hands\ntogether to keep time to his dancing, and the earth under his feet was\nstamped to a fine dust.\n\n\"He is one that has found the wolf's song,\" said the Basket Woman.\n\n\"What is that?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"It is an old tale of my people,\" said she. \"Once there was a man who\ncould not make any songs, so he got no praise from the tribe, and it\ntroubled him much. Then, as he was gathering taboose by the river, a\nwolf went by, and the wolf said to him, 'What will you have me to give\nyou for your taboose?' Then said the man, 'I will have you to give me a\nsong.'\n\n\"'That will I gladly,' said the wolf. So the wolf taught him, and that\nnight he sang the wolf's song in the presence of all the people, and it\nmade their hearts to burn within them. Then the man fell down as if he\nwere dead, for the pure joy of singing, and when deep sleep was upon him\nthe wolf came in the night and stole his song away. Neither the man nor\nany one who had heard it remembered it any more. So we say when a man\nsings as no other sang before him, 'He has the wolf's song.' It is a\ngood saying. Now we must go, for the children are all asleep by their\nmothers, and the day comes soon,\" said the Basket Woman.\n\n\"Shall we come again?\" said Alan. \"And will it all be as it is now?\"\n\n\"My people come often to the valley of Corn Water,\" said she, \"but it\nis never as it is now except in dreams. Now we must go quickly.\" Far up\nthe trail they saw a grayness in the eastern sky where the day was about\nto come in.\n\n\"Hark,\" said the Basket Woman, \"they will sing together the coyote song.\nIt is so that they sing it when the coyote goes home from his hunting,\nand the morning is near.\n\n  \"The coyote cries ...\n  He cries at daybreak ...\n  He cries ...\n  The coyote cries\" ...\n\nsang the Basket Woman, but all the spaces in between the words were\nfilled with long howls,--weird, wicked noises that seemed to hunt and\ndouble in a half-human throat. It made the hair on Alan's neck stand up,\nand cold shivers creep along his back. He began to shake, for the wild\nhowls drew near and louder, and he felt the bed under him tremble with\nhis trembling.\n\n\"Mother, mother,\" he cried, \"what is that?\"\n\n\"It is only the coyotes,\" said she; \"they always howl about this time of\nnight. It is nothing; go to sleep again.\"\n\n\"But I am afraid.\"\n\n\"They cannot hurt you,\" said his mother; \"it is only the little gray\nbeasts that you see trotting about the mesa of afternoons; hear them\nnow.\"\n\n\"I am afraid,\" said Alan.\n\n\"Then you must come in my bed,\" said she; and in a few minutes he was\nfast asleep again.\n\n\n\n\nTHE BASKET WOMAN\n\nSECOND STORY\n\n\nThe next time Alan saw the Basket Woman he was not nearly so much afraid\nof her, though he did not venture to speak of their journey to Pahrump.\nHe said to his mother, \"Do you not wish the Indians could have stayed\nthe way they were?\" and his mother laughed.\n\n\"Why, no, child,\" she said, \"I do not think that I do. I think they are\nmuch better off as they are now.\" Alan, however, was not to be\nconvinced. The next time he saw the Basket Woman he was even troubled\nabout it.\n\nThe homesteader had taken his family to the town for a day, and the\nfirst thing Alan saw when he got down from the wagon was the Basket\nWoman. She was sitting in a corner of the sidewalk with a group of other\nmahalas, with her blanket drawn over her shoulders, looking out upon\nthe town, and her eyes were dull and strange.\n\nA stream of people went by them in the street, and minded them no more\nthan the dogs they stepped over, sprawling at the doors of the stores.\nSome of the Indian women had children with them, but they neither\nshouted nor ran as they had done in the camp of Corn Water; they sat\nquietly by their mothers, and Alan noticed how worn and poor were the\nclothes of all of them, and how wishful all the eyes. He could not get\nhis mind off them because he could not get them out of his sight for\nvery long at a time. It was a very small town, and as he went with his\nmother in and about the stores he would be coming face to face with the\nmahalas every little while, and the Basket Woman's eyes were always sad.\n\nHis mother, when she had finished her shopping, gave him a silver dime\nand told him that he might spend it as he wished. As soon as Alan had\nturned the corner on that errand there was the Basket Woman with her\nchin upon her knees and her blanket drawn over her shoulders. Alan\nstopped a moment in front of her; he would have liked to say something\ncomforting, but found himself still afraid.\n\nHer eyes looked on beyond him, blurred and dim; he supposed she must be\nthinking of the happy valley, and grew so very sorry for her that, as he\ncould not get the courage to speak, he threw his dime into her lap and\nran as fast as he could away. It seemed to him as he ran that she called\nto him, but he could not be sure.\n\nThat night, almost as soon as he had touched the pillow, she came and\nstood beside him without motion or sound, and let down the basket from\nher back.\n\n\"Do we go to Corn Water?\" asked Alan as he stepped into it.\n\n\"To my people of old time,\" said the Basket Woman, \"so that you need not\nbe so much sorry.\"\n\nThen they went out by the mesa trail, where the sage showed duskily\nunder a thin rim of moon. It seemed to Alan that they went slowly,\nalmost heavily. When they came to the parting of the ways, she let down\nthe basket to rest. A rabbit popped, startled, out of the brush, and\nscurried into the dark; its white tail, like a signal, showed the way it\nwent.\n\n\"What was that?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"Only little Tavwots, whom we scared out of his nest. Lean forward,\" she\nsaid, \"and I will tell you a tale about him.\" So the boy leaned his head\nagainst the Basket Woman's long black hair, and heard the story of\nLittle Tavwots and How He Caught the Sun in a Snare.\n\n\"It was long ago,\" said the Basket Woman. \"Tavwots was the largest of\nall four-footed things, and a mighty hunter. He would get up as soon as\nit was day and go to his hunting, but always before him was the track of\na great foot on the trail; and this troubled him, for his pride was as\nbig as his body and greater than his fame.\n\n\"'Who is this?' cried Tavwots, 'that goes with so great a stride before\nme to the hunting? Does he think to put me to shame?'\n\n\"'T'-sst!' said his mother, 'there is none greater than thee.'\n\n\"'Nevertheless,' said Tavwots, 'there are the footprints in the trail.'\nThe next morning he got up earlier, but there were always the great\nfootprints and the long stride before him.\n\n\"'Now I will set me a trap for this impudent fellow,' said Tavwots, for\nhe was very cunning. So he made a snare of his bowstring and set it in\nthe trail overnight, and in the morning when he went to look, behold, he\nhad caught the sun in his snare. All that quarter of the earth was\nbeginning to smoke with the heat of it.\n\n\"'Is it you?' cried Tavwots, 'who made the tracks in my trail?'\n\n\"'It is I,' said the sun. 'Come now and set me free before the whole\nearth is afire.' Then Tavwots saw what he had to do, so he drew his\nknife and ran to cut the bowstring. But the heat was so great that he\nran back before he had done it, and was melted down to one half his\nsize. Then the smoke of the burning earth began to curl up against the\nsky.\n\n\"'Come again, Tavwots,' cried the sun. So he ran again and ran back, and\nthe third time he ran he cut the bowstring, and the sun was set free\nfrom the snare. But by that time Tavwots was melted down to as small as\nhe is now, and so he remains. Still you may see by the print of his feet\nas he leaps in the trail how great his stride was when he caught the sun\nin his snare.\n\n\"So it is always,\" said the Basket Woman, \"that which is large grows\nless, and my people, which were great, have dwindled away.\"\n\nAfter that she became quiet, and they went on over the mountain. Because\nhe was beginning to be acquainted with it, the way seemed shorter to\nAlan than before. They passed over the high barren ridges, and he began\nto look for the camp at Corn Water.\n\n\"I see no smoke,\" said Alan.\n\n\"It would bring down their enemies like buzzards on carrion,\" said the\nBasket Woman.\n\n\"There is no sound of singing nor of laughter,\" said the boy.\n\n\"Who laughs in the time of war?\" said she.\n\n\"Is there war?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"Long and bitter,\" said the Basket Woman. \"Let us go softly and come\nupon them unawares.\"\n\nSo they went, light of foot, among the pines until they saw the wickiups\nopening eastward to the sun, but many of them stood ruined and awry.\nThere were only the very old and the children in the camp, and these did\nnot run and play. They stole about like mice in the meadow sod, and if\nso much as a twig snapped in the forest, they huddled motionless as\nyoung quail. The women worked in the growing corn; they dug roots on the\nhill slope and caught grasshoppers for food. One made a noose of her\nlong black hair plucked out, and snared the bright lizards that ran\namong the rocks. It seemed to Alan that the Indians looked wishful and\nthinner than they should; but such food as they found was all put by.\n\n\"Why do they do this?\" asked the boy.\n\n\"That the men who go to war may not go fasting,\" said the Basket Woman.\n\"Look, now we shall have news of them.\"\n\nA young man came noiselessly out of the wood, and it was he who had sung\nthe new song on the night of feasting and dancing. He had eagle feathers\nin his hair, but they were draggled; there was beadwork on his leggings,\nbut it was torn with thorns; there was paint on his face and his body,\nbut it was smeared over red, and as he came into the camp he broke his\nbow across his knee.\n\n\"It is a token of defeat,\" said the Basket Woman; \"the others will come\nsoon.\" But some came feebly because of wounds, and it seemed the women\nlooked for some who might never come. They cast up their arms and cried\nwith a terrible wailing sound that rose and shuddered among the pines.\n\n\"Be still,\" said the young man; \"would you bring our enemies down upon\nus with your screeching?\" Then the women threw themselves quietly in the\ndust, and rocked to and fro with sobbing; their stillness was more\nbitter than their crying.\n\nSuddenly out of the wood came a storm of arrows, a rush of strange,\npainted braves, and the din of fighting.\n\n\"Shut your eyes,\" said the Basket Woman, \"it is not good for you to\nsee.\" Alan hid his face in the Basket Woman's dress, and heard the noise\nof fighting rage and die away. When he ventured to look again on the\nruined huts and the trampled harvest, there were few left in the camp of\nCorn Water, and they had enough to do to find food for their poor\nbodies. They winnowed the creek with basket-work weirs for every\nfinger-long troutling that came down in it, and tore the bark off the\npine trees to get at the grubs underneath.\n\n\"Why do they not go out and kill deer as before?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"Their enemies lurk in the wood and drive away the game,\" said the\nBasket Woman.\n\n\"Why do they not go to another place?\"\n\n\"Where shall they go, when their foes watch every pass?\" said she.\n\nIt seemed to Alan that many days and nights passed while they watched by\nthe camp; and the days were all sorrowful, and always, as before, the\nbest meat was set aside for the strongest.\n\n\"Why is this so?\" asked the boy.\n\n\"Because,\" said the Basket Woman, \"those who are strong must stay so to\ncare for the rest. It is the way of my people. You see that the others\ndo not complain.\" And it was so that the feeble ones tottered silently\nabout the camp or sat still a long time in one place with their heads\nupon their knees.\n\n\"How will it end?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"They must go away at last,\" said she, \"though the cords of their hearts\nare fastened here. But there is no seed corn, and the winter is close at\nhand.\"\n\nThen there began to be a tang of frost in the air, and the people\ngathered up their household goods, and, though there was not much of\nthem, they staggered and bent under the burden as they went up out of\nthe once happy valley to another home. The women let down their long\nhair and smeared ashes upon it; they threw up their lean arms and\nwailed long and mournfully as they passed among the pines. Alan began to\ntremble with crying, and felt the Basket Woman patting him on the\nshoulder. Her voice sounded to him like the voice of his mother telling\nhim to go to sleep again, for there was nothing for him to be troubled\nabout. After he grew quieter, the Indian woman lifted him up. \"We must\nbe going,\" she said, \"it is not good for us to be here.\"\n\nAlan wished as they went up over the mountain that she would help him\nwith talk toward forgetting what he had seen, but the long hair fell\nover her face and she would not talk. He shivered in the basket, and the\nnight felt colder and full of fearsome noises.\n\n\"What is that?\" he whispered, as a falling star trailed all across the\ndark.\n\n\"It is the coyote people that brought the fire to my people,\" said the\nBasket Woman. Alan hoped she would tell him a tale about it, but she\nwould not. They went on down the mountain until they came to the borders\nof the long-leaved pines. Alan heard the sough of the wind in the\nneedles, and it seemed as if it called.\n\n\"What is that?\" he whispered.\n\n\"It is Hi-no-no, the wind, mourning for his brother, the pine tree,\" but\nshe would not tell him that tale, either. She went faster and faster,\nand Alan felt the stir of her shoulders under him. He listened to the\nwind, and it grew fierce and louder until he heard the house beams\ncreak, for he was awake in his own bed. A strong wind drove gustily\nacross the mesa and laid hold of the corners of the roof.\n\nThe next morning the homesteader said that he must go to the campoodie\nand Alan might go with him. Alan was quite pleased, and said to his\nmother while she was getting him ready, \"Do you know, I think Indians\nare a great deal better off as they are now.\"\n\n\"Why, yes,\" said his mother, smiling, \"I think so, too.\"\n\n\n  [Illustration: From photograph by A. A. Forbes\n  A \"CAMPOODIE,\" OR INDIAN VILLAGE]\n\n\n\n\nTHE STREAM THAT RAN AWAY\n\n\nIn a short and shallow canyon on the front of Oppapago running eastward\ntoward the sun, one may find a clear brown stream called the creek of\nPinon Pines. That is not because it is unusual to find pinon trees on\nOppapago, but because there are so few of them in the canyon of the\nstream. There are all sorts higher up on the slopes,--long-leaved yellow\npines, thimble cones, tamarack, silver fir and Douglas spruce; but here\nthere is only a group of the low-heading, gray nut pines which the\nearliest inhabitants of that country called pinons.\n\nThe canyon of Pinon Pines has a pleasant outlook and lies open to the\nsun, but there is not much other cause for the forest rangers to\nremember it. At the upper end there is no more room by the stream border\nthan will serve for a cattle trail; willows grow in it, choking the path\nof the water; there are brown birches here and ropes of white clematis\ntangled over thickets of brier rose. Low down the ravine broadens out to\ninclose a meadow the width of a lark's flight, blossomy and wet and\ngood. Here the stream ran once in a maze of soddy banks and watered all\nthe ground, and afterward ran out at the canyon's mouth across the mesa\nin a wash of bone-white boulders as far as it could. That was not very\nfar, for it was a slender stream. It had its source really on the high\ncrests and hollows of Oppapago, in the snow banks that melted and seeped\ndownward through the rocks; but the stream did not know any more of that\nthan you know of what happened to you before you were born, and could\ngive no account of itself except that it crept out from under a great\nheap of rubble far up in the canyon of the Pinon Pines. And because it\nhad no pools in it deep enough for trout, and no trees on its borders\nbut gray nut pines; because, try as it might, it could never get across\nthe mesa to the town, the stream had fully made up its mind to run\naway.\n\n\"Pray what good will that do you?\" said the pines. \"If you get to the\ntown, they will turn you into an irrigating ditch and set you to\nwatering crops.\"\n\n\"As to that,\" said the stream, \"if I once get started I will not stop at\nthe town.\" Then it would fret between its banks until the spangled\nfrills of the mimulus were all tattered with its spray. Often at the end\nof the summer it was worn quite thin and small with running, and not\nable to do more than reach the meadow.\n\n\"But some day,\" it whispered to the stones, \"I shall run quite away.\"\n\nIf the stream had been inclined for it, there was no lack of good\ncompany on its own borders. Birds nested in the willows, rabbits came to\ndrink; one summer a bobcat made its lair up the bank opposite the brown\nbirches, and often deer fed in the meadow. Then there was a promise of\nbetter things. In the spring of one year two old men came up into the\ncanyon of Pinon Pines. They had been miners and partners together for\nmany years, they had grown rich and grown poor, and had seen many hard\nplaces and strange times. It was a day when the creek ran clear and the\nsouth wind smelled of the earth. Wild bees began to whine among the\nwillows, and the meadow bloomed over with poppy-breasted larks. Then\nsaid one of the old men, \"Here is good meadow and water enough; let us\nbuild a house and grow trees. We are too old to dig in the mines.\"\n\n\"Let us set about it,\" said the other; for that is the way with two who\nhave been a long time together: what one thinks of, the other is for\ndoing. So they brought their possessions and made a beginning that day,\nfor they felt the spring come on warmly in their blood; they wished to\ndig in the earth and handle it.\n\nThese two men who, in the mining camps where they were known, were\ncalled \"Shorty\" and \"Long Tom,\" and had almost forgotten that they had\nother names, built a house by the water border and planted trees. Shorty\nwas all for an orchard, but Long Tom preferred vegetables. So they did\neach what he liked, and were never so happy as when walking in the\ngarden in the cool of the day, touching the growing things as they\nwalked and praising each other's work.\n\n\"This will make a good home for our old age,\" said Long Tom, \"and when\nwe die we can be buried here.\"\n\n\"Under the pinon pines,\" said Shorty. \"I have marked out a place.\"\n\nSo they were very happy for three years. By this time the stream had\nbecome so interested it had almost forgotten about running away. But\nevery year it noted that a larger bit of the meadow was turned under and\nplanted, and more and more the men made dams and ditches to govern its\nrunning.\n\n\"In fact,\" said the stream, \"I am being made into an irrigating ditch\nbefore I have had my fling in the world. I really must make a start.\"\n\nThat very winter by the help of a great storm it went roaring down the\nmeadow over the mesa, and so clean away, with only a track of muddy\nsand to show the way it had gone. All the winter, however, Shorty and\nLong Tom brought water for drinking from a spring, and looked for the\nstream to come back. In the spring they hoped still, for that was the\nseason they looked for the orchard to bear. But no fruit set on the\ntrees, and the seeds Long Tom planted shriveled in the earth. So by the\nend of summer, when they understood that the water would not come back\nat all, they went sadly away.\n\nNow what happened to the creek of Pinon Pines is not very well known to\nany one, for the stream is not very clear on that point, except that it\ndid not have a happy time. It went out in the world on the wings of the\nstorm and was very much tossed about and mixed up with other waters,\nlost and bewildered. Everywhere it saw water at work, turning mills,\nwatering fields, carrying trade, falling as hail, rain, and snow, and at\nthe last, after many journeys, found itself creeping out from under the\nrocks of Oppapago in the canyon of Pinon Pines. Immediately the little\nstream knew itself and recalled clearly all that had happened to it\nbefore.\n\n\"After all, home is best,\" said the stream, and ran about in its choked\nchannels looking for old friends. The willows were there, but grown\nshabby and dying at the top; the birches were quite dead, but stood\nstill in their places; and there was only rubbish where the white\nclematis had been. Even the rabbits had gone away. The little stream ran\nwhimpering in the meadow, fumbling at the ruined ditches to comfort the\nfruit-trees which were not quite dead. It was very dull in those days\nliving in the canyon of Pinon Pines.\n\n\"But it is really my own fault,\" said the stream. So it went on\nrepairing the borders with the best heart it could contrive.\n\nAbout the time the white clematis had come back to hide the ruin of the\nbrown birches, a young man came and camped with his wife and child in\nthe meadow. They were looking for a place to make a home. They looked\nlong at the meadow, for Shorty and Long Tom had taken away their house\nand it did not appear to belong to any one.\n\n\"What a charming place!\" said the young wife, \"just the right distance\nfrom town, and a stream all to ourselves. And look, there are\nfruit-trees already planted. Do let us decide to stay.\"\n\nThen she took off the child's shoes and stockings to let it play in the\nstream. The water curled all about the bare feet and gurgled\ndelightedly.\n\n\"Ah, do stay,\" begged the happy water, \"I can be such a help to you, for\nI know how a garden should be irrigated in the best manner.\"\n\nThe child laughed and stamped the water up to his bare knees. The young\nwife watched anxiously while her husband walked up and down the stream\nborder and examined the fruit-trees.\n\n\"It is a delightful place,\" he said, \"and the soil is rich, but I am\nafraid the water cannot be depended upon. There are signs of a great\ndrought within the last two or three years. Look, there is a clump of\nbirches in the very path of the stream, but all dead; and the largest\nlimbs of the fruit-trees have died. In this country one must be able to\nmake sure of the water supply. I suppose the people who planted them\nmust have abandoned the place when the stream went dry. We must go on\nfarther.\" So they took their goods and the child and went on farther.\n\n\"Ah, well,\" said the stream, \"that is what is to be expected when one\nhas a reputation for neglecting one's duty. But I wish they had stayed.\nThat baby and I understood each other.\"\n\nHe had quite made up his mind not to run away again, though he could not\nbe expected to be quite cheerful after all that had happened; in fact,\nif you go yourself to the canyon of the Pinon Pines you will notice that\nthe stream, where it goes brokenly about the meadow, has quite a\nmournful sound.\n\n\n\n\nTHE COYOTE-SPIRIT AND THE WEAVING WOMAN\n\n\nThe Weaving Woman lived under the bank of the stony wash that cut\nthrough the country of the mesquite dunes. The Coyote-Spirit, which, you\nunderstand, is an Indian whose form has been changed to fit with his\nevil behavior, ranged from the Black Rock where the wash began to the\nwhite sands beyond Pahranagat; and the Goat-Girl kept her flock among\nthe mesquites, or along the windy stretch of sage below the campoodie;\nbut as the Coyote-Spirit never came near the wickiups by day, and the\nGoat-Girl went home the moment the sun dropped behind Pahranagat, they\nnever met. These three are all that have to do with the story.\n\nThe Weaving Woman, whose work was the making of fine baskets of split\nwillow and roots of yucca and brown grass, lived alone, because there\nwas nobody found who wished to live with her, and because it was\nwhispered among the wickiups that she was different from other people.\nIt was reported that she had an infirmity of the eyes which caused her\nto see everything with rainbow fringes, bigger and brighter and better\nthan it was. All her days were fruitful, a handful of pine nuts as much\nto make merry over as a feast; every lad who went by a-hunting with his\nbow at his back looked to be a painted brave, and every old woman\ndigging roots as fine as a medicine man in all his feathers. All the\nfaces at the campoodie, dark as the mingled sand and lava of the Black\nRock country, deep lined with work and weather, shone for this singular\nold woman with the glory of the late evening light on Pahranagat. The\ndoor of her wickiup opened toward the campoodie with the smoke going up\nfrom cheerful hearths, and from the shadow of the bank where she sat to\nmake baskets she looked down the stony wash where all the trails\nconverged that led every way among the dunes, and saw an enchanted mesa\ncovered with misty bloom and gentle creatures moving on trails that\nseemed to lead to the places where one had always wished to be.\n\nSince all this was so, it was not surprising that her baskets turned out\nto be such wonderful affairs, and the tribesmen, though they winked and\nwagged their heads, were very glad to buy them for a haunch of venison\nor a bagful of mesquite meal. Sometimes, as they stroked the perfect\ncurves of the bowls or traced out the patterns, they were heard to sigh,\nthinking how fine life would be if it were so rich and bright as she\nmade it seem, instead of the dull occasion they had found it. There were\nsome who even said it was a pity, since she was so clever at the craft,\nthat the weaver was not more like other people, and no one thought to\nsuggest that in that case her weaving would be no better than theirs.\nFor all this the basket-maker did not care, sitting always happily at\nher weaving or wandering far into the desert in search of withes and\nbarks and dyes, where the wild things showed her many a wonder hid from\nthose who have not rainbow fringes to their eyes; and because she was\nnot afraid of anything, she went farther and farther into the silent\nplaces until in the course of time she met the Coyote-Spirit.\n\nNow a Coyote-Spirit, from having been a man, is continually thinking\nabout men and wishing to be with them, and, being a coyote and of the\nwolf's breed, no sooner does he have his wish than he thinks of\ndevouring. So as soon as this one had met the Weaving Woman he desired\nto eat her up, or to work her some evil according to the evil of his\nnature. He did not see any opportunity to begin at the first meeting,\nfor on account of the infirmity of her eyes the woman did not see him as\na coyote, but as a man, and let down her wicker water bottle for him to\ndrink, so kindly that he was quite abashed. She did not seem in the\nleast afraid of him, which is disconcerting even to a real coyote;\nthough if he had been, she need not have been afraid of him in any case.\nWhatever pestiferous beast the Indian may think the dog of the\nwilderness, he has no reason to fear him except when by certain signs,\nas having a larger and leaner body, a sharper muzzle, and more evilly\npointed ears, he knows him the soul of a bad-hearted man going about in\nthat guise. There are enough of these coyote-spirits ranging in Mesquite\nValley and over towards Funeral Mountains and about Pahranagat to give\ncertain learned folk surmise as to whether there may not be a strange\nbreed of wolves in that region; but the Indians know better.\n\nWhen the coyote-spirit who had met the basket woman thought about it\nafterward, he said to himself that she deserved all the mischance that\nmight come upon her for that meeting. \"She knows,\" he said, \"that this\nis my range, and whoever walks in a coyote-spirit's range must expect to\ntake the consequences. She is not at all like the Goat-Girl.\"\n\nThe Coyote-Spirit had often watched the Goat-Girl from the top of\nPahranagat, but because she was always in the open where no\nlurking-places were, and never far from the corn lands where the old\nmen might be working, he had made himself believe he would not like that\nkind of a girl. Every morning he saw her come out of her leafy hut,\nloose the goats from the corral, which was all of cactus stems and broad\nleaves of prickly-pear, and lead them out among the wind-blown hillocks\nof sand under which the trunks of the mesquite flourished for a hundred\nyears, and out of the tops of which the green twigs bore leaves and\nfruit; or along the mesa to browse on bitterbrush and the tops of\nscrubby sage. Sometimes she plaited willows for the coarser kinds of\nbasket-work, or, in hot noonings while the flock dozed, worked herself\ncollars and necklaces of white and red and turquoise-colored beads, and\nother times sat dreaming on the sand. But whatever she did, she kept far\nenough from the place of the Coyote-Spirit, who, now that he had met the\nWeaving Woman, could not keep his mind off her. Her hut was far enough\nfrom the campoodie so that every morning he went around by the Black\nRock to see if she was still there, and there she sat weaving patterns\nin her baskets of all that she saw or thought. Now it would be the\nwinding wash and the wattled huts beside it, now the mottled skin of the\nrattlesnake or the curled plumes of the quail.\n\nAt last the Coyote-Spirit grew so bold that when there was no one\npassing on the trail he would go and walk up and down in front of the\nwickiup. Then the Weaving Woman would look up from her work and give him\nthe news of the season and the tribesmen in so friendly a fashion that\nhe grew less and less troubled in his mind about working her mischief.\nHe said in his evil heart that since the ways of such as he were known\nto the Indians,--as indeed they were, with many a charm and spell to\nkeep them safe,--it could be no fault of his if they came to harm\nthrough too much familiarity. As for the Weaving Woman, he said, \"She\nsees me as I am, and ought to know better,\" for he had not heard about\nthe infirmity of her eyes.\n\nFinally he made up his mind to ask her to go with him to dig for roots\naround the foot of Pahranagat, and if she consented,--and of course she\ndid, for she was a friendly soul,--he knew in his heart what he would\ndo. They went out by the mesa trail, and it was a soft and blossomy day\nof spring. Long wands of the creosote with shining fretted foliage were\nhung with creamy bells of bloom, and doves called softly from the\nDripping Spring. They passed rows of owlets sitting by their burrows and\nsaw young rabbits playing in their shallow forms. The Weaving Woman\ntalked gayly as they went, as Indian women talk, with soft mellow voices\nand laughter breaking in between the words like smooth water flowing\nover stones. She talked of how the deer had shifted their feeding\ngrounds and of whether the quail had mated early that year as a sign of\na good season, matters of which the Coyote-Spirit knew more than she,\nonly he was not thinking of those things just then. Whenever her back\nwas turned he licked his cruel jaws and whetted his appetite. They\npassed the level mesa, passed the tumbled fragments of the Black Rock\nand came to the sharp wall-sided canons that showed the stars at noon\nfrom their deep wells of sombre shade, where no wild creature made its\nhome and no birds ever sang. Then the Weaving Woman grew still at last\nbecause of the great stillness, and the Coyote-Spirit said in a hungry,\nwhining voice,--\n\n\"Do you know why I brought you here?\"\n\n\"To show me how still and beautiful the world is here,\" said the Weaving\nWoman, and even then she did not seem afraid.\n\n\"To eat you up,\" said the Coyote. With that he looked to see her fall\nquaking at his feet, and he had it in mind to tell her it was no fault\nbut her own for coming so far astray with one of his kind, but the woman\nonly looked at him and laughed. The sound of her laughter was like water\nin a bubbling spring.\n\n\"Why do you laugh?\" said the Coyote, and he was so astonished that his\njaws remained open when he had done speaking.\n\n\"How could you eat me?\" said she. \"Only wild beasts could do that.\"\n\n\"What am I, then?\"\n\n\"Oh, you are only a man.\"\n\n\"I am a coyote,\" said he.\n\n\"Do you think I have no eyes?\" said the woman. \"Come!\" For she did not\nunderstand that her eyes were different from other people's, what she\nreally thought was that other people's were different from hers, which\nis quite another matter, so she pulled the Coyote-Spirit over to a\nrain-fed pool. In that country the rains collect in basins of the solid\nrock that grow polished with a thousand years of storm and give back\nfrom their shining side a reflection like a mirror. One such lay in the\nbottom of the black canyon, and the Weaving Woman stood beside it.\n\nNow it is true of coyote-spirits that they are so only because of their\nbehavior; not only have they power to turn themselves to men if they\nwish--but they do not wish, or they would not have become coyotes in the\nfirst place--but other people in their company, according as they think\nman-thoughts or beast-thoughts, can throw over them such a change that\nthey have only to choose which they will be. So the basket-weaver\ncontrived to throw the veil of her mind over the Coyote-Spirit, so that\nwhen he looked at himself in the pool he could not tell for the life of\nhim whether he was most coyote or most man, which so frightened him that\nhe ran away and left the Weaving Woman to hunt for roots alone. He ran\nfor three days and nights, being afraid of himself, which is the worst\npossible fear, and then ran back to see if the basket-maker had not\nchanged her mind. He put his head in at the door of her wickiup.\n\n\"Tell me, now, am I a coyote or a man?\"\n\n\"Oh, a man,\" said she, and he went off to Pahranagat to think it over.\nIn a day or two he came back.\n\n\"And what now?\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, a man, and I think you grow handsomer every day.\"\n\nThat was really true, for what with her insisting upon it and his\nthinking about it, the beast began to go out of him and the man to come\nback. That night he went down to the campoodie to try and steal a kid\nfrom the corral, but it occurred to him just in time that a man would\nnot do that, so he went back to Pahranagat and ate roots and berries\ninstead, which was a true sign that he had grown into a man again. Then\nthere came a day when the Weaving Woman asked him to stop at her hearth\nand eat. There was a savory smell going up from the cooking-pots, cakes\nof mesquite meal baking in the ashes, and sugary white buds of the yucca\npalm roasting on the coals. The man who had been a coyote lay on a\nblanket of rabbit skin and heard the cheerful snapping of the fire. It\nwas all so comfortable and bright that somehow it made him think of the\nGoat-Girl.\n\n\"That is the right sort of a girl,\" he said to himself. \"She has always\nstayed in the safe open places and gone home early. She should be able\nto tell me what I am,\" for he was not quite sure, and since he had begun\nto walk with men a little, he had heard about the Weaving Woman's eyes.\n\nNext day he went out where the flock fed, not far from the corn lands,\nand the Goat-Girl did not seem in the least afraid of him. So he went\nagain, and the third day he said,--\n\n\"Tell me what I seem to you.\"\n\n\"A very handsome man,\" said she.\n\n\"Then will you marry me?\" said he; and when the Goat-Girl had taken time\nto think about it she said yes, she thought she would.\n\nNow, when the man who had been a coyote lay on the blanket of the\nWeaving Woman's wickiup, he had taken notice how it was made of willows\ndriven into the ground around a pit dug in the earth, and the poles\ndrawn together at the top, and thatched with brush, and he had tried at\nthe foot of Pahranagat until he had built another like it; so when he\nhad married the Goat-Girl, after the fashion of her tribe, he took her\nthere to live. He was not now afraid of anything except that his wife\nmight get to know that he had once been a coyote. It was during the\nfirst month of their marriage that he said to her, \"Do you know the\nbasket-maker who lives under the bank of the stony wash? They call her\nthe Weaving Woman.\"\n\n\"I have heard something of her and I have bought her baskets. Why do you\nask?\"\n\n\"It is nothing,\" said the man, \"but I hear strange stories of her, that\nshe associates with coyote-spirits and such creatures,\" for he wanted to\nsee what his wife would say to that.\n\n\"If that is the case,\" said she, \"the less we see of her the better. One\ncannot be too careful in such matters.\"\n\nAfter that, when the man who had been a coyote and his wife visited the\ncampoodie, they turned out of the stony wash before they reached the\nwickiup, and came in to the camp by another trail. But I have not heard\nwhether the Weaving Woman noticed it.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHEERFUL GLACIER\n\n\nVery many years ago, at the foot of a nameless peak between Mount Ritter\nand Togobah, after three successive years of deep snow there was a\nglacier born. It crept out fanwise from a furrow on the mountain-side,\nvery high up, above the limit of the white-barked pines, and its upper\nend was lost under the drift of loose snow that trailed down the slope.\nFor three successive winters the gray veil of storms hung month-long\nabout the crest of the Sierras, while the snow came falling, falling,\nand the wind kept heaping, heaping, until the drifts sagged and slipped\nof their own weight down the long groove of the mountain; and since it\nlay on the sunless northern slope, and as it happened the summers that\ncame between fell cool and rainy, there, when the spring thaw had\ncleared the loose snow, spread out on a little stony flat lay the rim of\nthe glacier. Yet it was a very little one, a rod or two of clear\nshining ice that ran into deep blue and gray sludge under a drift of\ncoarse, whitish granules, and very high up, fine dry particles of snow\nlike powdered glass. So it lay at the time of year when the mountain\nsheep began to come back to their summer feeding-grounds.\n\nWhen the thaw had cleared the heather and warmed the lichened rocks,\nthey loosed their hold of the ice, and the great weight of it began to\ncrawl down the mountain. At the first slow thrill of motion the little\nglacier creaked with delight.\n\n\"Ah,\" it said, \"it is evident that I am not a mere snow bank, for in\nthat case I should remain in one place. Now I know myself truly a\nglacier.\" For up to that time it had been in some doubt.\n\nBy the end of the summer it had advanced more than a span in the shadow\nof the peak. Then the snows began, deep and heavy, but the glacier did\nnot complain; it hugged the floor of the rift where it lay, and thought\nof the time when it should start on its travels again. So, because of\nthinking about it so much, or because the snows were deeper and the\nsummers not so warm, the glacier increased and went forward until it had\nquite crossed the stony flat, and began to believe it might make its\nmark in the world. There were any number of reasons for thinking so. To\nbegin with, all that neighborhood was deeply scarred and scoured by the\ntrail of old glaciers, and the high peaks glittered with the keen polish\nof ice floes. All down the slope shone glassy bosses of clear granite\nsucceeding to beds of cassiope and blue heather, polished slips of\ngranite, pentstemon and more heather, smooth granite that the feet could\ntake no hold upon, then saxifrage and meadowsweet, and so down to the\nstream border, where the water quarreled with the stones. And by the\ntime the little glacier had settled that it would leave such a mark on\nthe mountain-side, shining and softened by small blossomy things, it had\ncome quite to the farthest border of the flat, and looked over the edge\nof a sharp descent. It was much too far to bend over, for though the\nglacier was all of brittle ice, it could bend a little.\n\n\"But it is really nothing,\" said the glacier. \"I have only to grind down\nthe cliff until it is the proper height;\" and it took a firmer hold on\nthe sharp fragments of stones it had gathered on its way down the\nravine. The pressure of the sodden snow above kept on, however, and\nbefore the glacier had fairly begun its grinding the ice rim was pushed\nout beyond the bluff, broke off, and lay at the foot in a shining heap.\n\n\"So much the better,\" said the cheerful glacier. \"What with grinding\nabove and filling with broken ice below, the work will be accomplished\nin half the time.\"\n\nBut that never really happened, for this was the last season the ice\nreached to the far edge of the flat. The next year there was less snow\nand more sun. The long slope of bare rocks gathered up the heat and held\nit so that the ice began to melt underneath, and a stream ran from it\nand fell over the cliff in a fine silvery veil.\n\n\"How very fortunate,\" said the glacier, \"to become the head of a river\nso early in my career. Besides, this is a much easier way of getting\nover the falls.\"\n\nThen the water began to purr in sheer content where it went among the\nstones; it increased and went down the canyon toward the white torrent of\nthe creek that flowed from Togobah, and the next summer a water ousel\nfound it. She came whirling up the course of the stream like a thrown\npebble, plump and slaty blue, scattering a spray of sound as clear and\nround as the trickle of ice water that went over the falls. The ousel\nsat on the edge of the ice rim to finish her song, and it timed with the\nrunning of the stream.\n\n\"You should understand,\" said the glacier, \"that I started in life with\nthe intention of cutting my way down the mountain. But now I am become a\nriver I am quite as well pleased.\"\n\n\"Everything is the best,\" said the ousel; \"that has been the motto of my\nfamily for a long time, and I am sure I have proved it.\" And if one\nlistened close as she flew in and out of the falls and sought in the\nwhite torrent for her food, one understood that it was the burden of her\nsong. \"Everything is the best,\" she sang, and kept on singing it when\nthe glacier had grown so small by running that it was quite hollowed out\nunder the roof of granulated snow, and the light came through it softly\nand wonderfully blue. Then the ousel would go far up into this ice cave\nuntil the sound of her singing came out wild and sweet, mixed with the\nwater and the tinkle of the ice. As for the words of her song, the\nglacier never disagreed with her, though by now it had retreated clear\nacross its stony flat. But the wind brought in the seeds of dwarf willow\nthat sprouted and took root, and bright little buttercups began to come\nup and shiver in the flood of ice water.\n\n\"It seems I am to have a meadow of my own,\" said the glacier, by the\ntime there was stone-crop and purple pentstemon blowing in the damp\ncrevices about its border. \"I do not believe there is a prettier ice\ngarden on this side of the mountain. And to think that all I once\nwished was to leave a track of bare and shining stones! The ousel is\nright, everything is for the best.\"\n\nThe ousel always went downstream at the beginning of the winter, when\nthe running waters were shut under snow bridges and the pools were\npuddles of gray sludge, down and down to the foothill borders, and at\nthe turn of the year followed up again in the wake of the thaw. So it\nwas not often that the ousel and the glacier saw each other between\nOctober and June.\n\n\"But of course,\" said the glacier, \"the longer you are away, the more we\nhave to say to each other when you come.\"\n\n\"And anyway it cannot be helped,\" said the ousel. For though she did not\nmind the storms and cold weather, one cannot really exist without\neating.\n\nAfter one of these winter trips, the ousel noticed that the stream that\ncame over the fall had quite failed, ran only a slender trickle that\ndripped among the shivering fern and was lost in the rock crevices, and\nthough she was such a cheerful little body, she did not like to be the\nfirst to speak of it. It seemed as if the glacier could not last much\nlonger at that rate. So she flitted about in the lace-work caverns of\nthe ice, and sang airily and sweet, and the words of her song were what\nthey had always been.\n\n\"That is quite true,\" said the glacier. \"You see how it is with me; once\nI was very proud to run over the fall with a splashing sound, but now I\nfind it better to keep all the water for my meadow.\"\n\nIn fact, there was quite a border of sod all about where the ice had\nbeen, and a great mat of white-belled cassiope in the middle. It grew\ngreener and more blossomy every year. The ousel grew so used to finding\nit there, and so pleased with the society of the glacier, which was\nquite after her own heart, that it was a great grief to her as she came\nwhirling up the stream in the flood tide of the year to find that they\nhad both, the meadow and the ice, wholly disappeared.\n\nThat had been a winter of long, thunderous storms, and a great splinter\nof granite had fallen away from the mountain peaks and slid down in a\nheap of rubble over the place where the glacier had been. There was now\nno trace of it under sharp, broken stones.\n\nBut because they had been friends, the ousel could not keep quite away\nfrom the place, but came again and again and flew chirruping around the\nfoot of the hill. One of those days when the sun was strong and the\nheather white on the wild headlands, she saw a slender rill of water\ncreeping out at the bottom of the rubbish heap, and knew at once by the\ncheerful sound of it that it must be her friend the glacier, or what was\nleft of it.\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" bubbled the spring, \"it is really surprising what good\nluck I have. As a glacier, I suppose I should have quite melted away in\na few summers; but with all this protection of loose stones, I shouldn't\nwonder if I became a perennial spring.\"\n\nAnd in fact that is exactly what occurred, for with the snow that sifted\ndown between the broken boulders, and the snow water that collected in\nthe hollow where the meadow had been, the spring has never gone quite\ndry. Every summer, when the heather and pentstemon and saxifrage on the\nglacier slip are at their best, the cheerful water comes out of the foot\nof the nameless peak and the ousel comes up from the white torrent and\nsits upon the stones. Then they sing together, and their voices blend\nperfectly; but if you listen carefully, you will observe that the words\nof their song are always the same.\n\n\n\n\nTHE MERRY-GO-ROUND\n\n\nThe Basket Woman was washing for the homesteader's wife at the spring,\nand Alan, by this time very good friends with her, was pulling up\nsagebrush for the fire, when the coyote came by. It was a clear, wide\nmorning, warm and sweet, with gusty flaws of cooler air moving down from\nPine Mountain. There was a lake of purple lupins in the swale, and the\nlast faint flush of wild almonds burning on the slope. The grapevines at\nthe spring were full of bloom and tender leaf. Eastward, above the high\ntilted mesa under the open sky, the buzzards were making a\nmerry-go-round. That was the way Alan always thought of their\nperformance when he saw them circling slantwise under the sun. Round and\nround they went, now so low that he could see how the shabby wing\nfeathers frayed out at the edges, now so high that they became mere\nspecks against the sky.\n\n\"What makes them go round and round?\" asked Alan of the mahala.\n\n\"They go about to wait for their dinner, but the table is not yet\nspread,\" said she. The Basket Woman did not use quite such good English;\nbut though Alan understood her broken talk, you probably would not. The\nlittle boy could not imagine, though he tried, what a buzzard's dinner\nmight be like. The high mesa, with the water of mirage rolling over it,\nwas a kind of enchanted land to him where almost anything might happen.\nHe would lie contentedly for hours with his head pillowed on the\nhillocks of blown sand about the roots of the sage, and look up at the\nmerry-go-round. He noticed that, although others joined them from the\ninvisible upper sky, none ever seemed to go away, but hung and circled\nand faded into the thin blue deeps of air. Often he saw them settle\nflockwise below the rim of the mesa and beyond his sight, wondering\ngreatly what they might be about.\n\nThe morning at the spring he watched them in the intervals of tending\nthe sagebrush fire, and then it was that the coyote came by, going in\nthat direction. His head was cocked to one side, and he seemed to watch\nthe merry-go-round out of the corner of his eye as he went.\n\nAlan thought the little gray beast had not seen them at the spring, but\nin that he was mistaken. A quarter of an hour before, as he came up out\nof the gully that hid his lair, the coyote had sighted the boy and the\nBasket Woman and made sure in his own mind that they had no gun. So, as\nit lay in his way, he came quite close to them; opposite the spring he\npaused a moment with one foot lifted, and eyed them with a wise and\nsecret look. He went on toward the mesa, stopped again, looked back and\nthen up at the whirling buzzards, and went on again.\n\n\"Where does that one go?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"Eh,\" said the Basket Woman, \"he goes also to the dinner. It is good\neating they have out there on the mesa together.\"\n\nAlan looked after him, and the coyote paused and looked back over his\nshoulder as one who expects to be followed, and quite suddenly it came\ninto the boy's mind to go up on the mesa and see what it was all about.\nThe Basket Woman was bent above her tubs and did not see him go; when\nshe missed him she supposed he had gone back to the house. Alan trotted\non after the coyote until he lost him in a sunken place full of boulders\nand black sage; but he had been headed still toward that spot above\nwhich the black wings beat dizzily, and that way Alan went, climbing by\nthe help of stout shrubs to the mesa, which here fell off steeply to the\nvalley, and then on until he saw his coyote or another one, going\nsteadily toward the merry-go-round.\n\nThe mesa was very warm, and swam in misty blueness although the day was\nclear. Dim shapes of mountains stood up on the far edge, and near by a\nprocession of lonely, low hills rounded like the backs of dolphins\nappearing out of the sea. Stubby shrubs as tall as Alan's shoulder\ncovered the mesa sparingly, and in wide spaces there were beds of\nyellow-flowered prickly-pear; singly and far stood up tall stems of\nwhite-belled yucca, called in that country Candles of Our Lord. Alan\ncould not follow the coyote close among the scrub, but dropped presently\ninto a cattle trail that ran toward the place where he supposed the\ncoyote's dinner must be, and so trudged on in it while the sun wheeled\nhigh in the heavens and the whole air of the mesa quivered with the\nheat.\n\nIt is certain that in his wanderings Alan must have traveled that day\nand the next as much as twenty miles from the spring, though he might\neasily have been lost in less time, for his head hardly came above the\ntops of the scrub, and there were no landmarks to guide by, other than\nthe low hills which seemed to alter nothing whichever way one looked at\nthem. As for the buzzards, they rose higher and higher into the dim,\nquivering air. Alan began to be thirsty, next tired, and then hungry. He\ntried to turn toward home, but got no nearer, and finally understood\nthat he might be lost, so he ran about wildly for a time, which made\nmatters no better. He began to cry and to run eagerly at the same time\nuntil, blind and breathless, he would fall and lie sobbing, and wish\nthat he might see his mother or the Basket Woman come walking across the\nmesa with her basket on her back. By this time it was hot and close and\nhe had come where the scant-leaved shrubs were far between, and with\nheat and running the tears were dried out of him. He sobbed in his\nbreath and his lips were cracked and dry. It fell cooler as night drew\non, but he grew sick with hunger, and shuddered with the fear of\ndarkness. Far off across the mesa the coyotes began to howl.\n\nDown in the homesteader's cabin nobody slept that night. When they first\nmissed Alan, which was at noon, no one had the least idea where he was.\nHis mother had supposed him at the spring, and the Basket Woman thought\nhe had gone to his mother. It was all open ground about the cabin from\nthe mesa and the foot of the hills, and below it toward the valley bare\nstretches of moon-white sands.\n\nThe homesteader thought that the boy might have gone to the campoodie;\nbut there they found he had not been, and none of the Indians had seen\nhim; but by three of the clock they were all out beating about the\nspring to pick up the light trail of his feet, and there they were when\nthe quick dark came on and stopped them.\n\nBy the earliest light of the next morning the Basket Woman, who was\nreally very fond of him, had come out of her hut to ask for news, but\nwhen she had looked up to the sky for a token of what the day was to be,\nshe saw the buzzards come slantwise out of space and begin the\nmerry-go-round. All at once she remembered Alan's question of the day\nbefore, and though she could not reasonably expect any one to take any\nnotice of it, an idea came into her head and a gleam into her beady\neyes. She caught her pony from the corral, riding him astride as Indian\nwomen ride, with the wicker water bottle slung across her shoulder and a\nparcel of food hid in her bosom. She went up the mesa rim toward the\nspot where the buzzards swung circling in the sky.\n\nWhen Alan awoke that morning under the creosote bush, he thought he\nmust have come nearly to the place he had meant to find the day before.\nThere was the coyote skulking out in the cactus scrub, and the buzzards\nwheeling low and large. It was a hot, smoky morning, the soil was all of\ncoarse gravel, loose and white. Over to the right of him lay a still\nblue pool, and a broad river flowed into it in soft billows without\nsound. The coyote went toward it, looking back over his shoulder, and\nAllan followed, for his tongue was swollen in his mouth with thirst. The\nlittle boy was quite clear in his mind; he knew that he was lost, that\nhe was very hungry, and that it was necessary to find his father and\nmother very soon. As he had come toward the mountains the day before, he\nthought that he should start directly away from them. He thought he\ncould not be far from the campoodie, for it came to him dimly that he\nhad heard the Indians singing the coyote song in the night, but he meant\nto have a drink in the soft still billows of the stream. A little ahead\nof him the coyote seemed to have gone into it, his head just cleared\nthe surface, and the water heaved to the movements of his shoulders. But\nsomehow Alan got no nearer to it. The stream seemed to loop and curve\naway from him, and presently he saw the lake behind him and could not\nthink how that could be, for he did not understand that it was a lake\nand river of mirage. He saw the trees stand up on its borders, and\nfancied that the air which came from it was moist and cool. Always the\ncoyote went before and showed him the way, and at last he lifted up his\nlong thin muzzle and made a doleful cry. Mostly it seemed to Alan that\nthe coyotes howled like dogs, but a little crazily; now it appeared that\nthis one spoke in words that he could understand. When he told his\nmother of it afterwards, she said it was only the fever of his thirst\nand fatigue, but the Basket Woman believed him.\n\n\"Ho, ho!\" cried the coyote, \"come, come, my brothers, to the hunting!\nCome!\"\n\nA great black shadow of wings fell over them and a voice cried huskily,\n\"What of the quarry?\"\n\n\"The quarry is close at hand,\" said the coyote, and Alan wondered\ndizzily what they might be talking about. He could not look up, for his\neyes were nearly blinded by the light that beat up from the sand, but he\nsaw wing shadows thickening on the ground.\n\n\"Where do you go now?\" cried the voice in the upper air.\n\n\"Round and about to the false water until he is very weary,\" said the\ncoyote; and it seemed to Alan that he must follow where the gray dog\nwent in a maze of moving shadows. He trembled and fell from weakness a\ngreat many times and lay with his face in the shelter of the prickle\nbushes, but always he got up and went on again.\n\n\"Have a care,\" cried the voice in the air, \"here comes one of his own\nkind.\"\n\n\"What and where?\" said the coyote.\n\n\"It is a brown one riding on a horse; she comes up from the gully of big\nrocks.\"\n\n\"Does she follow a trail?\" panted the coyote.\n\n\"She follows no trail, but rides fast in this direction,\" croaked the\nvoice, but Alan took no interest in it. He did not know that it was the\nBasket Woman coming to rescue him. He thought of the merry-go-round, for\nhe saw that he had come back to the creosote bush where he had spent the\nnight, and he thought the earth had come round with him, for it rocked\nand reeled as he went. His tongue hung out of his mouth and his lips\ncracked and bled, his feet were blistered and aching from the sharp\nrocks, the hot sands, and cactus thorns. Round and round with him went\nscrub and sand, on one side the shadow of black wings, and on the other\nthe smooth flow of mirage water which he might never reach. Through it\nall he could hear the soft _biff, biff_ of the broad wings and the long,\nhungry, whining howl that seemed to detach itself from any throat and\ncome upon him from all quarters of the quivering air. Dizzily went the\nmerry-go-round, and now it seemed that the false water swung nearer,\nthat it went around with him, that it bore him up, for he no longer felt\nthe earth under him, that it buoyed and floated him far out from the\nplace where he had been, that it grew deliciously cool at last, that it\nlaved his face and flowed in his parched throat; and at last he opened\nhis eyes and found the Basket Woman trickling water in his mouth from\nher wicker water bottle. It was noon of his second day from home when\nshe found him on Cactus Flat, by going straight to the point where she\nsaw the black wings hanging in the air. She laid him on the horse before\nher and dripped water in his mouth and coaxed and called to him, but\nnever left off riding nor halted until she came up with others of the\nsearch party who had followed up by the place where Alan had climbed to\nthe mesa, and followed slowly by a faint trail. But to Alan it was all\nas if he had dreamed that the Basket Woman had brought him as before\nfrom the valley of Corn Water. The first that he realized was that his\nfather had him, and that his mother was crying and kissing the Basket\nWoman. It was several days before he was able to be about again, and\nthen only under promise that he would go no farther than the spring.\nThe first thing he saw when he looked up was the buzzards high up over\nthe mesa making a merry-go-round in the clear blue, and it was then he\nremembered that he had not yet found out what it was all about.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CHRISTMAS TREE\n\n\nEastward from the Sierras rises a strong red hill known as Pine\nMountain, though the Indians call it The Hill of Summer Snow. At its\nfoot stands a town of a hundred board houses, given over wholly to the\nbusiness of mining. The noise of it goes on by day and night,--the creak\nof the windlasses, the growl of the stamps in the mill, the clank of the\ncars running down to the dump, and from the open doors of the drinking\nsaloons, great gusts of laughter and the sound of singing. Billows of\nsmoke roll up from the tall stacks and by night are lit ruddily by the\nsmelter fires all going at a roaring blast.\n\nWhenever the charcoal-burner's son looked down on the red smoke, the\nglare, and the hot breath of the furnaces, it seemed to him like an\nexhalation from the wickedness that went on continually in the town;\nthough all he knew of wickedness was the word, a rumor from passers-by,\nand a kind of childish fear. The charcoal-burner's cabin stood on a spur\nof Pine Mountain two thousand feet above the town, and sometimes the boy\nwent down to it on the back of the laden burros when his father carried\ncharcoal to the furnaces. All else that he knew were the wild creatures\nof the mountain, the trees, the storms, the small flowering things, and\naway at the back of his heart a pale memory of his mother like the faint\nforest odor that clung to the black embers of the pine. They had lived\nin the town when the mother was alive and the father worked in the\nmines. There were not many women or children in the town at that time,\nbut mining men jostling with rude quick ways; and the young mother was\nnot happy.\n\n\"Never let my boy grow up in such a place,\" she said as she lay dying;\nand when they had buried her in the coarse shallow soil, her husband\nlooked for comfort up toward The Hill of Summer Snow shining purely,\nclear white and quiet in the sun. It swam in the upper air above the\nsooty reek of the town and seemed as if it called. Then he took the\nyoung child up to the mountain, built a cabin under the tamarack pines,\nand a pit for burning charcoal for the furnace fires.\n\nNo one could wish for a better place for a boy to grow up in than the\nslope of Pine Mountain. There was the drip of pine balm and a wind like\nwine, white water in the springs, and as much room for roaming as one\ndesired. The charcoal-burner's son chose to go far, coming back with\nsheaves of strange bloom from the edge of snow banks on the high ridges,\nbright spar or peacock-painted ores, hatfuls of berries, or strings of\nshining trout. He played away whole mornings in glacier meadows where he\nheard the eagle scream; walking sometimes in a mist of cloud he came\nupon deer feeding, or waked them from their lair in the deep fern. On\nsnow-shoes in winter he went over the deep drifts and spied among the\npine tops on the sparrows, the grouse, and the chilly robins wintering\nunder the green tents. The deep snow lifted him up and held him among\nthe second stories of the trees. But that was not until he was a great\nlad, straight and springy as a young fir. As a little fellow he spent\nhis days at the end of a long rope staked to a pine just out of reach of\nthe choppers and the charcoal-pits. When he was able to go about alone,\nhis father made him give three promises: never to follow a bear's trail\nnor meddle with the cubs, never to try to climb the eagle rocks after\nthe young eagles, never to lie down nor to sleep on the sunny, south\nslope where the rattlesnakes frequented. After that he was free of the\nwhole wood.\n\nWhen Mathew, for so the boy was called, was ten years old, he began to\nbe of use about the charcoal-pits, to mark the trees for cutting, to\nsack the coals, to keep the house, and cook his father's meals. He had\nno companions of his own age nor wanted any, for at this time he loved\nthe silver firs. A group of them grew in a swale below the cabin, tall\nand fine; the earth under them was slippery and brown with needles.\nWhere they stood close together with overlapping boughs the light among\nthe tops was golden green, but between the naked boles it was a vapor\nthin and blue. These were the old trees that had wagged their tops\ntogether for three hundred years. Around them stood a ring of saplings\nand seedlings scattered there by the parent firs, and a little apart\nfrom these was the one that Mathew loved. It was slender of trunk and\nsilvery white, the branches spread out fanwise to the outline of a\nperfect spire. In the spring, when the young growth covered it as with a\ngossamer web, it gave out a pleasant odor, and it was to him like the\nmemory of what his mother had been. Then he garlanded it with flowers\nand hung streamers of white clematis all heavy with bloom upon its\nboughs. He brought it berries in cups of bark and sweet water from the\nspring; always as long as he knew it, it seemed to him that the fir tree\nhad a soul.\n\nThe first trip he had ever made on snow-shoes was to see how it fared\namong the drifts. That was always a great day when he could find the\nslender cross of its topmost bough above the snow. The fir was not very\ntall in those days, but the snows as far down on the slope as the\ncharcoal-burner's cabin lay shallowly. There was a time when Mathew\nexpected to be as tall as the fir, but after a while the boy did not\ngrow so fast and the fir kept on adding its whorl of young branches\nevery year.\n\nMathew told it all his thoughts. When at times there was a heaviness in\nhis breast which was really a longing for his mother, though he did not\nunderstand it, he would part the low spreading branches and creep up to\nthe slender trunk of the fir. Then he would put his arms around it and\nbe quiet for a long beautiful time. The tree had its own way of\ncomforting him; the branches swept the ground and shut him in dark and\nclose. He made a little cairn of stones under it and kept his treasures\nthere.\n\nOften as he sat snuggled up to the heart of the tree, the boy would slip\nhis hand over the smooth intervals between the whorls of boughs, and\nwonder how they knew the way to grow. All the fir trees are alike in\nthis, that they throw out their branches from the main stem like the\nrays of a star, one added to another with the season's growth. They\nstand out stiffly from the trunk, and the shape of each new bough in the\nbeginning and the shape of the last growing twig when they have spread\nout broadly with many branchlets, bending with the weight of their own\nneedles, is the shape of a cross; and the topmost sprig that rises above\nall the star-built whorls is a long and slender cross, until by the\nspringing of new branches it becomes a star. So the two forms go on\nrunning into and repeating each other, and each star is like all the\nstars, and every bough is another's twin. It is this trim and certain\ngrowth that sets out the fir from all the mountain trees, and gives to\nthe young saplings a secret look as they stand straight and stiffly\namong the wild brambles on the hill. For the wood delights to grow\nabroad at all points, and one might search a summer long without finding\ntwo leaves of the oak alike, or any two trumpets of the spangled\nmimulus. So, as at that time he had nothing better worth studying\nabout, Mathew noticed and pondered the secret of the silver fir, and\ngrew up with it until he was twelve years old and tall and strong for\nhis age. By this time the charcoal-burner began to be troubled about the\nboy's schooling.\n\nMeantime there was rioting and noise and coming and going of strangers\nin the town at the foot of Pine Mountain, and the furnace blast went on\nruddily and smokily. Because of the things he heard Mathew was afraid,\nand on rare occasions when he went down to it he sat quietly among the\ncharcoal sacks, and would not go far away from them except when he held\nhis father by the hand. After a time it seemed life went more quietly\nthere, flowers began to grow in the yards of the houses, and they met\nchildren walking in the streets with books upon their arms.\n\n\"Where are they going, father?\" said the boy.\n\n\"To school,\" said the charcoal-burner.\n\n\"And may I go?\" asked Mathew.\n\n\"Not yet, my son.\"\n\nBut one day his father pointed out the foundations of a new building\ngoing up in the town.\n\n\"It is a church,\" he said, \"and when that is finished it will be a sign\nthat there will be women here like your mother, and then you may go to\nschool.\"\n\nMathew ran and told the fir tree all about it.\n\n\"But I will never forget you, never,\" he cried, and he kissed the trunk.\nDay by day, from the spur of the mountain, he watched the church\nbuilding, and it was wonderful how much he could see in that clear, thin\natmosphere; no other building in town interested him so much. He saw the\nwalls go up and the roof, and the spire rise skyward with something that\nglittered twinkling on its top. Then they painted the church white and\nhung a bell in the tower. Mathew fancied he could hear it of Sundays as\nhe saw the people moving along like specks in the streets.\n\n\"Next week,\" said the father, \"the school begins, and it is time for you\nto go as I promised. I will come to see you once a month, and when the\nterm is over you shall come back to the mountain.\" Mathew said good-by\nto the fir tree, and there were tears in his eyes though he was happy.\n\"I shall think of you very often,\" he said, \"and wonder how you are\ngetting along. When I come back I will tell you everything that happens.\nI will go to church, and I am sure I shall like that. It has a cross on\ntop like yours, only it is yellow and shines. Perhaps when I am gone I\nshall learn why you carry a cross, also.\" Then he went a little timidly,\nholding fast by his father's hand.\n\nThere were so many people in the town that it was quite as strange and\nfearful to him as it would be to you who have grown up in town to be\nleft alone in the wood. At night, when he saw the charcoal-burner's\nfires glowing up in the air where the bulk of the mountain melted into\nthe dark, he would cry a little under the blankets, but after he began\nto learn, there was no more occasion for crying. It was to the child as\nthough there had been a candle lighted in a dark room. On Sunday he\nwent to the church and then it was both light and music, for he heard\nthe minister read about God in the great book and believed it all, for\neverything that happens in the woods is true, and people who grow up in\nit are best at believing. Mathew thought it was all as the minister\nsaid, that there is nothing better than pleasing God. Then when he lay\nawake at night he would try to think how it would have been with him if\nhe had never come to this place. In his heart he began to be afraid of\nthe time when he would have to go back to the mountain, where there was\nno one to tell him about this most important thing in the world, for his\nfather never talked to him of these things. It preyed upon his mind, but\nif any one noticed it, they thought that he pined for his father and\nwished himself at home.\n\nIt drew toward midwinter, and the white cap on The Hill of Summer Snow,\nwhich never quite melted even in the warmest weather, began to spread\ndownward until it reached the charcoal-burner's home. There was a great\nstir and excitement among the children, for it had been decided to have\na Christmas tree in the church. Every Sunday now the Christ-child story\nwas told over and grew near and brighter like the Christmas star. Mathew\nhad not known about it before, except that on a certain day in the year\nhis father had bought him toys. He had supposed that it was because it\nwas stormy and he had to be indoors. Now he was wrapped up in the story\nof love and sacrifice, and felt his heart grow larger as he breathed it\nin, looking upon clear windless nights to see if he might discern the\nStar of Bethlehem rising over Pine Mountain and the Christ-child come\nwalking on the snow. It was not that he really expected it, but that the\nstory was so alive in him. It is easy for those who have lived long in\nthe high mountains to believe in beautiful things. Mathew wished in his\nheart that he might never go away from this place. He sat in his seat in\nchurch, and all that the minister said sank deeply into his mind.\n\nWhen it came time to decide about the tree, because Mathew's father was\na charcoal-burner and knew where the best trees grew, it was quite\nnatural to ask him to furnish the tree for his part. Mathew fairly\nglowed with delight, and his father was pleased, too, for he liked to\nhave his son noticed. The Saturday before Christmas, which fell on\nTuesday that year, was the time set for going for the tree, and by that\ntime Mathew had quite settled in his mind that it should be his silver\nfir. He did not know how otherwise he could bring the tree to share in\nhis new delight, nor what else he had worth giving, for he quite\nbelieved what he had been told, that it is only through giving the best\nbeloved that one comes to the heart's desire. With all his heart Mathew\nwished never to live in any place where he might not hear about God. So\nwhen his father was ready with the ropes and the sharpened axe, the boy\nled the way to the silver firs.\n\n\"Why, that is a little beauty,\" said the charcoal-burner, \"and just the\nright size.\"\n\nThey were obliged to shovel away the snow to get at it for cutting, and\nMathew turned away his face when the chips began to fly. The tree fell\nupon its side with a shuddering sigh; little beads of clear resin stood\nout about the scar of the axe. It seemed as if the tree wept. But how\ngraceful and trim it looked when it stood in the church waiting for\ngifts! Mathew hoped that it would understand.\n\nThe charcoal-burner came to church on Christmas eve, the first time in\nmany years. It makes a difference about these things when you have a son\nto take part in them. The church and the tree were alight with candles;\nto the boy it seemed like what he supposed the place of dreams might be.\nOne large candle burned on the top of the tree and threw out pointed\nrays like a star; it made the charcoal-burner's son think of Bethlehem.\nThen he heard the minister talking, and it was all of a cross and a\nstar; but Mathew could only look at the tree, for he saw that it\ntrembled, and he felt that he had betrayed it. Then the choir began to\nsing, and the candle on top of the tree burned down quite low, and\nMathew saw the slender cross of the topmost bough stand up dark before\nit. Suddenly he remembered his old puzzle about it, how the smallest\ntwigs were divided off in each in the shape of a cross, how the boughs\nrepeated the star form every year, and what was true of his fir was true\nof them all. Then it must have been that there were tears in his eyes,\nfor he could not see plainly: the pillars of the church spread upward\nlike the shafts of the trees, and the organ playing was like the sound\nof the wind in their branches, and the stately star-built firs rose up\nlike spires, taller than the church tower, each with a cross on top. The\nsapling which was still before him trembled more, moving its boughs as\nif it spoke; and the boy heard it in his heart and believed, for it\nspoke to him of God. Then all the fear went out of his heart and he had\nno more dread of going back to the mountain to spend his days, for now\nhe knew that he need never be away from the green reminder of hope and\nsacrifice in the star and the cross of the silver fir; and the thought\nbroadened in his mind that he might find more in the forest than he had\never thought to find, now that he knew what to look for, since\neverything speaks of God in its own way and it is only a matter of\nunderstanding how.\n\nIt was very gay in the little church that Christmas night, with laughter\nand bonbons flying about, and every child had a package of candy and an\narmful of gifts. The charcoal-burner had his pockets bulging full of\ntoys, and Mathew's eyes glowed like the banked fires of the\ncharcoal-pits as they walked home in the keen, windless night.\n\n\"Well, my boy,\" said the charcoal-burner, \"I am afraid you will not be\nwanting to go back to the mountain with me after this.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I will,\" said Mathew happily, \"for I think the mountains know\nquite as much of the important things as they know here in the town.\"\n\n\"Right you are,\" said the charcoal-burner, as he clapped his boy's hand\nbetween both his own, \"and I am pleased to think you have turned out\nsuch a sensible little fellow.\" But he really did not know all that was\nin his son's heart.\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRE BRINGER\n\n\nThis is one of the stories that Alan had from the Basket Woman after she\ncame to understand that the boy really loved her tales and believed\nthem. She would sit by the spring with her hands clasped across her\nknees while the clothes boiled and Alan fed the fire with broken brush,\nand tell him wonder stories as long as the time allowed, which was never\nso long as the boy liked to hear them. The story of the Fire Bringer\ngave him the greatest delight, and he made a game of it to play with\nlittle Indian boys from the campoodie who sometimes strayed in the\ndirection of the homesteader's cabin. It was the story that came\noftenest to his mind when he lay in his bed at night, and saw the stars\nin the windy sky shine through the cabin window.\n\nHe heard of it so often and thought of it so much that at last it seemed\nto him that he had been part of the story himself, but his mother said\nhe must have dreamed it. The experience came to him in this way: He had\ngone with his father to the mountains for a load of wood, a two days'\njourney from home, and they had taken their blankets to sleep upon the\nground, which was the first time of Alan's doing so. It was the time of\nyear when white gilias, which the children call \"evening snow,\" were in\nbloom, and their musky scent was mingled with the warm air in the soft\ndark all about him.\n\nHe heard the camp-fire snap and whisper, and saw the flicker of it\nbrighten and die on the lower branches of the pines. He looked up and\nsaw the stars in the deep velvet void, and now and then one fell from\nit, trailing all across the sky. Small winds moved in the tops of the\nsage and trod lightly in the dark, blossomy grass. Near by them ran a\nflooding creek, the sound of it among the stones like low-toned,\ncheerful talk. Familiar voices seemed to rise through it and approach\ndistinctness. The boy lay in his blanket harking to one recurring note,\nuntil quite suddenly it separated itself from the babble and called to\nhim in the Basket Woman's voice. He was sure it was she who spoke his\nname, though he could not see her; and got up on his feet at once. He\nknew, too, that he was Alan, and yet it seemed, without seeming strange,\nthat he was the boy of the story who was afterward to be called the Fire\nBringer. The skin of his body was dark and shining, with straight, black\nlocks cropped at his shoulders, and he wore no clothing but a scrap of\ndeerskin belted with a wisp of bark. He ran free on the mesa and\nmountain where he would, and carried in his hand a cleft stick that had\na longish rounded stone caught in the cleft and held by strips of skin.\nBy this he knew he had waked up into the time of which the Basket Woman\nhad told him, before fire was brought to the tribes, when men and beasts\ntalked together with understanding, and the Coyote was the Friend and\nCounselor of man. They ranged together by wood and open swale, the boy\nwho was to be called Fire Bringer and the keen, gray dog of the\nwilderness, and saw the tribesmen catching fish in the creeks with their\nhands and the women digging roots with sharp stones. This they did in\nsummer and fared well, but when winter came they ran nakedly in the snow\nor huddled in caves of the rocks and were very miserable. When the boy\nsaw this he was very unhappy, and brooded over it until the Coyote\nnoticed it.\n\n\"It is because my people suffer and have no way to escape the cold,\"\nsaid the boy.\n\n\"I do not feel it,\" said the Coyote.\n\n\"That is because of your coat of good fur, which my people have not,\nexcept they take it in the chase, and it is hard to come by.\"\n\n\"Let them run about, then,\" said the Counselor, \"and keep warm.\"\n\n\"They run till they are weary,\" said the boy, \"and there are the young\nchildren and the very old. Is there no way for them?\"\n\n\"Come,\" said the Coyote, \"let us go to the hunt.\"\n\n\"I will hunt no more,\" the boy answered him, \"until I have found a way\nto save my people from the cold. Help me, O Counselor!\"\n\nBut the Coyote had run away. After a time he came back and found the boy\nstill troubled in his mind.\n\n\"There is a way, O Man Friend,\" said the Coyote, \"and you and I must\ntake it together, but it is very hard.\"\n\n\"I will not fail of my part,\" said the boy.\n\n\"We will need a hundred men and women, strong and swift runners.\"\n\n\"I will find them,\" the boy insisted, \"only tell me.\"\n\n\"We must go,\" said the Coyote, \"to the Burning Mountain by the Big Water\nand bring fire to your people.\"\n\nSaid the boy, \"What is fire?\"\n\nThen the Coyote considered a long time how he should tell the boy what\nfire is. \"It is,\" said he, \"red like a flower, yet it is no flower;\nneither is it a beast, though it runs in the grass and rages in the wood\nand devours all. It is very fierce and hurtful and stays not for asking,\nyet if it is kept among stones and fed with small sticks, it will serve\nthe people well and keep them warm.\"\n\n\"How is it to be come at?\"\n\n\"It has its lair in the Burning Mountain, and the Fire Spirits guard it\nnight and day. It is a hundred days' journey from this place, and\nbecause of the jealousy of the Fire Spirits no man dare go near it. But\nI, because all beasts are known to fear it much, may approach it without\nhurt and, it may be, bring you a brand from the burning. Then you must\nhave strong runners for every one of the hundred days to bring it safely\nhome.\"\n\n\"I will go and get them,\" said the boy; but it was not so easily done as\nsaid. Many there were who were slothful and many were afraid, but the\nmost disbelieved it wholly, for, they said, \"How should this boy tell us\nof a thing of which we have never heard!\" But at the last the boy and\ntheir own misery persuaded them.\n\nThe Coyote advised them how the march should begin. The boy and the\nCounselor went foremost, next to them the swiftest runners, with the\nothers following in the order of their strength and speed. They left the\nplace of their home and went over the high mountains where great jagged\npeaks stand up above the snow, and down the way the streams led through\na long stretch of giant wood where the sombre shade and the sound of the\nwind in the branches made them afraid. At nightfall where they rested\none stayed in that place, and the next night another dropped behind, and\nso it was at the end of each day's journey. They crossed a great plain\nwhere waters of mirage rolled over a cracked and parching earth and the\nrim of the world was hidden in a bluish mist; so they came at last to\nanother range of hills, not so high but tumbled thickly together, and\nbeyond these, at the end of the hundred days, to the Big Water quaking\nalong the sand at the foot of the Burning Mountain.\n\nIt stood up in a high and peaked cone, and the smoke of its burning\nrolled out and broke along the sky. By night the glare of it reddened\nthe waves far out on the Big Water when the Fire Spirits began their\ndance.\n\nThen said the Counselor to the boy who was soon to be called the Fire\nBringer, \"Do you stay here until I bring you a brand from the burning;\nbe ready and right for running, and lose no time, for I shall be far\nspent when I come again, and the Fire Spirits will pursue me.\" Then he\nwent up the mountain, and the Fire Spirits when they saw him come were\nlaughing and very merry, for his appearance was much against him. Lean\nhe was, and his coat much the worse for the long way he had come.\nSlinking he looked, inconsiderable, scurvy, and mean, as he has always\nlooked, and it served him as well then as it serves him now. So the Fire\nSpirits only laughed, and paid him no farther heed. Along in the night,\nwhen they came out to begin their dance about the mountain, the Coyote\nstole the fire and began to run away with it down the slope of the\nBurning Mountain. When the Fire Spirits saw what he had done, they\nstreamed out after him red and angry in pursuit, with a sound like a\nswarm of bees.\n\nThe boy saw them come, and stood up in his place clean limbed and taut\nfor running. He saw the sparks of the brand stream back along the\nCoyote's flanks as he carried it in his mouth and stretched forward on\nthe trail, bright against the dark bulk of the mountain like a falling\nstar. He heard the singing sound of the Fire Spirits behind and the\nlabored breath of the Counselor nearing through the dark. Then the good\nbeast panted down beside him, and the brand dropped from his jaws. The\nboy caught it up, standing bent for the running as a bow to speeding the\narrow; out he shot on the homeward path, and the Fire Spirits snapped\nand sung behind him. Fast as they pursued he fled faster, until he saw\nthe next runner stand up in his place to receive the brand. So it passed\nfrom hand to hand, and the Fire Spirits tore after it through the scrub\nuntil they came to the mountains of the snows. These they could not\npass, and the dark, sleek runners with the backward-streaming brand bore\nit forward, shining star-like in the night, glowing red through sultry\nnoons, violet pale in twilight glooms, until they came in safety to\ntheir own land. Here they kept it among stones, and fed it with small\nsticks, as the Coyote had advised, until it warmed them and cooked their\nfood. As for the boy by whom fire came to the tribes, he was called the\nFire Bringer while he lived, and after that, since there was no other\nwith so good a right to the name, it fell to the Coyote; and this is the\nsign that the tale is true, for all along his lean flanks the fur is\nsinged and yellow as it was by the flames that blew backward from the\nbrand when he brought it down from the Burning Mountain. As for the\nfire, that went on broadening and brightening and giving out a cheery\nsound until it broadened into the light of day, and Alan sat up to hear\nit crackling under the coffee-pot, where his father was cooking their\nbreakfast.\n\n\n\n\nTHE CROOKED FIR\n\n\nThe pipsissawa, which is sometimes called prince's pine, is half as tall\nas the woodchuck that lives under the brown boulder; and the seedling\nfir in his first season was as tall as the prince's pine, so for the\ntime they made the most of each other's company. The woodchuck and the\npipsissawa were never to be any taller, but the silver fir was to keep\non growing as long as he stood in the earth and drew sap. In his second\nseason, which happened to be a good growing year, the fir was as tall as\nthe woodchuck and began to look about him.\n\nThe forest of silver firs grew on a hill-slope up from a water-course as\nfar as the borders of the long-leaved pines. Where the trees stood close\ntogether the earth was brown with the litter of a thousand years, and\nlittle gray hawks hunted in their green, windy glooms. In the open\nspaces there were thickets of meadowsweet, fireweed, monkshood, and\ncolumbine, with saplings and seedlings in between. When the fir which\nwas as tall as the woodchuck had grown a year or two longer, he made a\ndiscovery. All the firs on the hill-slope were crooked! Their trunks\nbulged out at the base toward the downward pitch of the hill; and it is\nthe proper destiny of fir trees to be straight.\n\n\"They should be straight,\" said the seedling fir. \"I feel it in my\nfibres that a fir tree should be straight.\" He looked up at the fir\nmother very far above him on her way to the sky, with the sun and the\nwind in her star-built boughs.\n\n\"I shall be straight,\" said the seedling fir.\n\n\"Ah, do not be too sure of it,\" said the fir mother. But for all that\nthe seedling fir was very sure, and when the snow tucked him in for the\nwinter he took a long time to think about it. The snows are wonderfully\ndeep in the canyon of the silver firs. From where they gather in the\nupper air the fir mother shakes them lightly down, packing so softly\nand so warm that the seedlings and the pipsissawas do not mind.\n\nAbout the time the fir had grown tall enough to be called a sapling he\nmade another discovery. The fir mother had also a crooked trunk. The\nsapling was greatly shocked; he hardly liked to speak of it to the fir\nmother. He remembered his old friend the pipsissawa, but he had so\noutgrown her that there was really no comfort in trying to make himself\nunderstood, so he spoke to the woodchuck. The woodchuck was no taller\nthan he used to be, but when he climbed up on the brown boulder above\nhis house he was on a level with the sapling fir, and though he was not\nmuch of a talker he was a great thinker and had opinions.\n\n\"Really,\" said the fir, \"I hardly like to speak of it, but you are such\nan old friend; do you see what a crook the fir mother has in her trunk?\nWe firs you know were intended to be straight.\"\n\n\"That,\" said the woodchuck, \"is on account of the snow.\"\n\n\"But, oh, my friend,\" said the sapling, \"you must be mistaken. The snow\nis soft and comfortable and braces one up. I ought to know, for I spend\nwhole winters in it.\"\n\n\"_Gru-r-ru-_,\" said the woodchuck crossly; \"well for you that you do, or\nI should have eaten you off by now.\"\n\nAfter this the little fir kept his thoughts to himself; he was very much\nafraid of the woodchuck, and there is nothing a young fir fears so much\nas being eaten off before it has a chance to bear cones. But in fact the\nwoodchuck spent the winter under the snow himself. He went into his\nhouse and shut the door when the first feel of snow was in the air, and\ndid not come out until green things began to grow in the cleared spaces.\n\nNot many winters after that the fir was sufficiently tall to hold the\ngreen cross, that all firs bear on their topmost bough, above the snow\nmost of the winter through. Now he began to learn a great many things.\nThe first of these was about the woodchuck.\n\n\"Really that fellow is a great braggart,\" said the fir; \"I cannot think\nhow I came to be afraid of him.\"\n\nIn those days the sapling saw the deer getting down in the flurry of the\nfirst snows to the feeding grounds on the lower hills, saw the mountain\nsheep nodding their great horns serenely in the lee of a tall cliff\nthrough the wildest storms. In the spring he saw the brown bears\nshambling up the trails, ripping the bark off of dead trees to get at\nthe worms and grubs that harbored there; lastly he saw the woodchuck\ncome out of his hole as if nothing had ever happened.\n\nAnd now as the winters came on, the fir began to feel the weight of the\nsnow. When it was wet and heavy and clung to its branches, the little\nfir shivered and moaned.\n\n\"Droop your boughs,\" creaked the fir mother; \"droop them as I do, and\nthe snow will fall.\"\n\nSo the sapling drooped his fan-spread branches until they lay close to\nthe trunk; and the snow wreaths slipped away and piled thickly about his\ntrunk. But when the snow lay deep over all the slope, it packed and\nslid down toward the ravine and pressed strongly against the sapling\nfir.\n\n\"Oh, I shall be torn from my roots,\" he cried; \"I shall be broken off.\"\n\n\"Bend,\" said the fir mother, \"bend, and you will not break.\" So the\nyoung fir bent before the snow until he was curved like a bow, but when\nthe spring came and the sap ran in his veins, he straightened his trunk\nanew and spread his branches in a star-shaped whorl.\n\n\"After all,\" said the sapling, \"it is not such a great matter to keep\nstraight; it only requires an effort.\"\n\nSo he went on drooping and bending to the winter snows, growing strong\nand straight with the spring, and rejoicing. About this time the fir\nbegan to feel a tingling in his upper branches.\n\n\"Something is going to happen,\" he said; something agreeable in fact,\nfor the tree was fifty years old, and it was time to grow cones. For\nfifty years a silver fir has nothing to do but to grow branches, thrown\nout in annual circles, every one in the shape of a cross. Then it grows\ncones on the topmost whorl, royal purple and burnished gold, erect on\nthe ends of the branches like Christmas candles. The sapling fir had\nonly three in his first season of bearing, but he was very proud of\nthem, for now he was no longer a sapling, but a tree.\n\nWhen one has to devote the whole of a long season to growing cones, one\nhas not much occasion to think of other things. By the time there were\nfive rows of cone-bearing branches spread out broadly from the silver\nfir, the woodchuck made a remark to the pipsissawa which is sometimes\ncalled prince's pine. It was not the same pipsissawa, nor the same\nwoodchuck, but one of his descendants, and his parents had told him the\nwhole story.\n\n\"It seems to me,\" said he, \"that the fir tree is not going to be\nstraight after all. He never seems quite to recover from the winter\nsnow.\"\n\n\"Ah,\" said the pipsissawa, \"I have always thought it better to have\nyour seeds ripe and put away under ground before the snow comes. Then\nyou do not mind it at all.\"\n\nThe woodchuck was right about the fir; his trunk was beginning to curve\ntoward the downward slope of the hill with the weight of the drifts. And\nthat went on until the curve was quite fixed in the ripened wood, and\nthe fir tree could not have straightened up if he had wished. But to\ntell the truth, the fir tree did not wish. By the end of another fifty\nyears, when he wagged his high top above the forest gloom, he grew to be\nquite proud of it.\n\n\"There is nothing,\" he said to the sapling firs, \"like being able to\nendure hard times with a good countenance. I have seen a great deal of\nlife. There are no such snows now as there used to be. You can see by\nthe curve of my trunk what a weight I have borne.\"\n\nBut the young firs did not pay any attention to him. They had made up\ntheir minds to grow up straight.\n\n\n\n\nTHE SUGAR PINE\n\n\nBefore the sugar pine came up in the meadow of Bright Water it had swung\na summer long in the burnished cone of the parent tree, until the wind\nlifted it softly to the earth where it swelled with the snow water and\nthe sun, and began to grow into a tree. But it knew nothing whatever of\nitself except that it was alive and growing; and in its first season was\nhardly so tall as the Little Grass of Parnassus that crowded the sod at\nthe Bright Water. In fact, it was a number of years before it began to\novertop the meadowsweet, the fireweed, the tall lilies, the monkshood,\nand columbine, and under these circumstances it could not be expected to\nhave much of an opinion of itself.\n\nDuring those years the young pine suffered a secret mortification\nbecause it had no flowers. It stood stiff and trimly in its plain dark\ngreen, every needle like every other one, and no honey-gatherer visited\nit. When all the meadow ran over with rosy and purple bloom, the pine\ntree trembled and beads of clear resin oozed out upon its bark like\ntears; and the trouble really seemed worse than it was because everybody\nmade so much of it. Even the hummingbirds as they came hurtling through\nthe air would draw back conspicuously when they came to the pine, and\nthough they said politely, \"I beg your pardon, I took you for a flower,\"\nthe seedling felt it would have been better had they said nothing at\nall.\n\n\"Well, why don't you grow flowers?\" said the meadowsweet; \"it is easy\nenough. Just do as I do,\" and she spread her drift of blossoms like a\nfragrant snow. But the sugar pine found it impossible to be anything but\nstiff and plainly green, though every year in the stir and tingle of new\nsap he felt a promise of better things.\n\n\"I suppose,\" he said one day, \"I must be in some way different from the\nrest of you.\"\n\n\"Ah, that is the way with you solemn people,\" said the fireweed, \"always\nimagining yourself better than those about you to excuse your\ndisagreeableness. Any one can see by the way you hold yourself that you\nhave too much of an opinion of yourself.\"\n\nThe little pine tree sighed; he had not said \"better,\" only \"different,\"\nand he began to realize year by year that this was so.\n\n\"You should try to be natural,\" said the meadowsweet; \"do not be so\nstiff, and then every one will love you though you are so plain.\"\n\nThen the sugar pine reached out and tried to mingle with the flowers,\nbut the sharp needles tore their frills and the stiff branches did not\nsuit with their graceful swaying, so he was obliged to give it up. It\nseemed, in fact, the more he tried to be like the others the worse he\ngrew.\n\n\"If only you were not so odd,\" said all the flowers. None of the young\ngrowing things in the meadow understood that it is natural for a pine\ntree to be stiff.\n\nThe sugar pine was not always unhappy. There were days when he caught\ngolden glints of the stream that ran smoothly about the meadow, in a bed\nof leopard-colored stones, and, reflecting all the light that fell into\nthe hollow of the hills, gave the place its name; days when the air was\nwarm and the sky was purely blue, and the resinous smell of the pines on\nthe meadow border came to the seedling like a sweet savor in a dream,\nfor as yet he did not understand what he was to be. He was pleased just\nto be looking at the summer riot of the flowering things, and loved the\ncool softness of the snow when he was tucked into comfortable darkness\nto dream of the spring odor of the pines. Then, when it seemed that the\nmeadow had forgotten him, the little tree would fall to thinking the\nthoughts proper to his kind, and found the time pass pleasantly.\n\n\"I suppose,\" he thought, \"it is not good for me to flower as the other\nplants. If I began like them I should probably end like them, and I feel\nthat I could not be satisfied with that. After all, one should not try\nto be so much like others, but to be the very best of one's own sort.\"\n\nVery early the young tree had noticed that he was the only one of all\nthat company that kept green and growing the winter through. He would\nhave been secretly very proud of it, but the flowers took good care to\nlet him know their opinion of such airs.\n\n\"It is simply that you wish to be considered peculiar,\" said the\ncolumbine; \"one sees that you like nothing so much as to be in other\npeople's mouths, but let me tell you, you will not get yourself any\nbetter liked by such behavior.\" After that the little tree wished\nnothing so much as that he might be the commonest summer-flowering weed.\n\n\"But I am not,\" he said; \"no, I am not, and I would do very well as I am\nif they would let me be happy in my own way.\"\n\nThat summer the seedling grew as tall as the meadowsweet, and could look\nacross the open space to the parent pine poised on her noble shaft, her\nspreading crown gathering sunshine from the draughts of upper air. She\nseemed to rock a little as if she dozed upon her feet, and the great\nsweep of limbs with pendulous golden cones made a gentle sighing. Then\nthe despised little seedling felt a thrill go through him, and felt a\nshaking in all his slender twigs. He bowed himself among the lilies, and\nwas both glad and ashamed, for though he could not well believe it, he\nknew himself akin to the great sugar pines. After that he gave up trying\nto be one of the flowers. Once he even ventured to speak of it to the\nmeadowsweet.\n\n\"Well, if it is any satisfaction to you to think so; but do not let any\none else hear you say that. You are likely to get yourself\nmisunderstood. I tell you this because I am your friend,\" said the\nmeadowsweet, but really she had misunderstood him herself.\n\nThen a rumor arose in the neighborhood that the sombre, stubborn shrub\nconceited himself to be a pine, and the rumor ran with laughter and\nnodding the length of the meadow until it reached the old alder on the\nedge of Bright Water. The alder had stood with his feet in the stream\nfor longer than the meadowsweet could remember, and saw everything that\nwent on by reflection.\n\n\"Do not laugh too soon,\" said the alder tree, \"I have seen stranger\nthings than that happen in this meadow,\" for he was indeed very old.\n\n\"We have known him a good many seasons,\" said the fireweed, \"and he has\nnot done anything worth mentioning yet.\"\n\nAll this was very hard for the young pine to bear, but there was better\ncoming. That summer the forest ranger came riding in Bright Water and a\nlearned man rode with him, praising the flowers and counting the numbers\nand varieties of bloom. How they prinked and flaunted in their pride!\n\n\"That is all very pretty, as you say,\" answered the ranger as they came\nby the place of the pine, \"and I suppose they perform a sort of service\nin keeping the soil covered, but the trees are the real strength of the\nmountain. Ah, here is a seedling of the right sort! I must give that\nfellow a chance,\" and he began pulling up great handfuls of the\nblossoming things around the tree.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked his companion.\n\n\"A sugar pine,\" he said; \"probably a seedling of that splendid specimen\nyonder,\" and he went on clearing the ground to let in sun and air.\n\n\"But you must admit,\" said his friend, \"that a seedling pine cuts rather\na poor figure among all this flare of bloom.\"\n\n\"Oh, you wait fifty or sixty years,\" said the ranger, \"and then you will\nsee what sort of a figure it makes. It really takes a pine of this sort\na couple of hundred years to reach its prime,\" and they rode talking up\nthe trail.\n\nWord of what had happened was carried all about the meadow and made a\ngreat stir. When it came to the alder tree he wagged his old head. \"Ah,\nwell,\" he said, \"I told you so.\"\n\n\"I will not believe it until I see it,\" said the fireweed.\n\n\"They might have known it before,\" sighed the young pine, \"and they\nought to be proud to think I grew up in the same meadow with them.\"\n\nBut they were not; they went on flaunting their blossoms as if nothing\nhad occurred, and the young tree grew up as he was meant to be, and the\npines on the meadow border sent him greeting on the wind. He still kept\nhis trim spire-shaped habit, but he could very well put up with that for\nthe time being. He felt within himself the promise of what he was to be.\nAfter fifty or sixty years, as the ranger had said, he began to put out\nstrong cone-bearing boughs that shaped themselves by the storms and the\nwind in sweeping, graceful lines, and spread out to shelter the horde of\nflowering things below. Squirrels ran up the trunk and whistled cheerily\nin his windy top.\n\n\"He grew here in our neighborhood,\" said the tall lilies; \"we knew him\nwhen he was a seedling sprig, and now he is the tallest of the pines.\"\n\n\"Suppose he is,\" said the fireweed. \"What is the good of a pine tree\nanyway?\"\n\nBut the sugar pine did not hear. He had grown far above the small folk\nof the meadow, and went on growing for a hundred years. He gathered the\nsun in his high branches and rocked upon his shaft. He talked gently in\nhis own fashion with his own kind.\n\n\n  [Illustration: AN OLD MINE\n  From photograph by A. A. Forbes]\n\n\n\n\nTHE GOLDEN FORTUNE\n\n\nA little way up from the trail that goes toward Rex Monte, not far from\nthe limit of deep snows, there is what looks to be a round dark hole in\nthe side of the mountain. It is really the ruined tunnel of an old mine.\nFormerly a house stood on the ore dump at one side of the tunnel, a\nlittle unpainted cabin of pine; but a great avalanche of snow and stones\ncarried them, both the house and the dump, away. The cabin was built and\nowned by a solitary miner called Jerry, and whether he ever had any\nother name no one in the town below Kearsarge now remembers.\n\nJerry was old and lean, and his hair, which had been dark when he was\nyoung, was now bleached to the color of the iron-rusted rocks about his\nmine. For thirty years he had prospected and mined through that country\nfrom Kearsarge to the Coso Hills, but always in the pay of other men,\nand at last he had hit upon this ledge on Rex Monte. To all who looked,\nit showed a very slender vein between the walls of country rock, and the\nore of so poor a quality that with all his labor he could do no more\nthan keep alive; but to all who listened, Jerry could tell a remarkable\nstory of what it had been, and what he expected it to be. Very many\nyears ago he had discovered it at the end of a long prospect, when he\nwas tired and quite discouraged for that time. There was not much\npassing then on the Rex Monte, and Jerry drew out of the trail here in\nthe middle of the afternoon to rest in the shadow of a great rock. So\nwhile he lay there very weary, between sleeping and waking, he gazed out\nalong the ground, which was all strewn with rubble between the stiff,\nscant grass. As he looked it seemed that certain bits of broken stone\npicked themselves out of the heap, and grew larger, in some way more\nconspicuous, until, Jerry averred, they winked at him. Then he reached\nout to draw them in with his hand, and saw that they were all\nbesprinkled with threads and specks of gold. You may guess that Jerry\nwas glad, then that he sprang up and began to search for more stones,\nand so found a trail of them, and followed it through the grass stems\nand the heather until he came to the ledge cropping out by a dike of\nweathered rocks. And in those days the ledge was ah, so rich! Now it\nseemed that Jerry was to have a mine of his own. So he named it the\nGolden Fortune, and told no man what he had found, but went down to the\ntown which lies in a swale at the foot of Kearsarge, and brought back as\nmuch as was needful for working the mine in a simple way.\n\nIt was nearing the end of the summer, when the hills expect the long\nthunder and drumming rain, and, not many weeks after that, the quiet\nstorms that bring the snow. Jerry had enough to do to make all safe and\ncomfortable at the Golden Fortune before winter set in. It was too steep\nhere on the hill-slope for the deep snows to trouble him much, so he\nbuilt his cabin against the rock, with a covered way from it to the\ntunnel of the mine, that he might work on all winter at no unease\nbecause of storms.\n\nIt was perhaps a month later, with Jerry as busy as any of the wild folk\nthereabout, and the nights turning off bitter cold with frost. Of\nmornings he could hear the thin tinkle of the streams along fringes of\ndelicate ice. It was the afternoon of a day that fell warm and dry with\na promise of snow in the air. Jerry was roofing in his cabin, so intent\nthat a voice hailed him before he was aware that there was a man on the\ntrail. Jerry knew at once by his dress and his speech that he was a\nstranger in those parts, and he saw that he was not very well prepared\nfor the mountain passes and the night. He knew this, I say, with the\nback of his mind, but took no note of it, for he was so occupied with\nhis house and his mine. He suffered a fear to have any man know of his\ngood fortune lest it should somehow slip away from him. So when the\nstranger asked him some questions of the trail, it seemed that what\nJerry most wished was to get rid of him as quickly as possible. He was\na young man, ruddy and blue-eyed, and a foreigner, what was called in\ncareless miners' talk, \"some kind of a Dutchman,\" and could not make\nhimself well understood. Jerry gathered that he desired to know if he\nwere headed right for the trail that went over to the Bighorn Mine,\nwhere he had the promise of work. So they nodded and shrugged, and Jerry\nmade assurance with his hands, as much as to say, it is no great way;\nand when the young man had looked wistfully at the cabin and the boding\nsky, he moved slowly up the trail. When he came to the turn where it\ngoes toward Rex Monte, he lingered on the ridge to wave good-by, so\nJerry waved again, and the man dropped out of sight. At that moment the\nsun failed behind a long gray film that deepened and spread over all\nthat quarter of the sky.\n\nJerry had cause to remember the stranger in the night and fret for him,\nfor the wind came up and began to seek in the canyon, and the snow fell\nslanting down. It fell three days and nights. All that while the gray\nveil hung about Jerry's house; now and then the wind would scoop a great\nlane in it to show how the drifts lay on the heather, then shut in tight\nand dim with a soft, weary sound, and Jerry, though he worked on the\nGolden Fortune, could not get the young stranger out of his mind.\n\nWhen the sun and the frost had made a crust over the snow able to bear\nup a man, he went over the Pass to Bighorn to inquire if the stranger\nhad come in, though he did not tell at that time, nor until long after,\nhow late it was when the man passed his cabin, how wistfully he turned\naway, nor what promise was in the air. The snow lay all about the Pass,\nlightly on the pines, deeply in the hollows, so deeply that a man might\nlie under it and no one be the wiser. And there it seemed the stranger\nmust be, for at the Bighorn they had not heard of him, but if he were\nunder the snow, there he must lie until the spring thaw. Of whatever\nhappened to him, Jerry saw that he must bear the blame, for, by his own\naccount, from that day the luck vanished from the Golden Fortune; not\nthat the ore dwindled or grew less, but there were no more of the golden\nspecks. With all he could do after that, Jerry could not maintain\nhimself in the cabin on the slope of Rex Monte. So it came about that\nthe door was often shut, and the picks rusted in the tunnel of the\nGolden Fortune for months together, while Jerry was off earning wages in\nmore prosperous mines.\n\nAll his days Jerry could not quite get his mind away from the earlier\npromise of the mine, and as often as he thought of that he thought of\nthe stranger whom he had sent over the trail on the evening of the\nstorm. Gradually it came into his mind in a confused way that the two\nthings were mysteriously connected, that he had sent away his luck with\nthe stranger into the deep snow. For certainly Jerry held himself\naccountable, and in that country between Kearsarge and the Coso Hills to\nbe inhospitable is the worst offense.\n\nEvery year or so he came back to the mine to work a little, and\nsometimes it seemed to promise better and sometimes not. Finally, Jerry\nargued that the luck would not come back to it until he had made good to\nsome other man the damage he had done to one. This set him looking for\nan opportunity. Jerry mentioned his belief so often that he came at\nlast, as is the way of miners, to accept it as a thing prophesied of old\ntime. Afterward, when he grew old himself, and came to live out his life\nat the Golden Fortune, he would be always looking along the trail at\nevening time for passers-by, and never one was allowed to go on who\ncould by any possibility be persuaded to stay the night in Jerry's\ncabin. Often when there was a wind, and the snow came slanting down,\nJerry fancied he heard one shouting in the drift; then he would light a\nlantern and sally forth into the storm, peering and crying.\n\nAbout that time, when he went down into the town below Kearsarge once in\na month or so for supplies, the people smiled and wagged their heads,\nbut Jerry conceived that they whispered together about the unkindness\nhe had done to the stranger so many years gone, and he grew shyer and\nwent less often among men. So he companioned more with the wild things,\nand burrowed deeper into the hill. His cabin weathered to a semblance of\nthe stones, rabbits ran in and out at the door, and deer drank at his\nspring.\n\nFrom the slope where the cabin stood, the trail, which led up from the\ntown, winding with the winding of the canyon, went over the Pass, and so\ninto a region of high meadows and high, keen peaks, the feeding-ground\nof deer and mountain sheep. The ravine of Rex Monte was the easiest\ngoing from the high valleys to the foothills, where all winter the feed\nkept green. Every year Jerry marked the trooping of the wild kindred to\nthe foothill pastures when the snow lay heavily on all the higher land,\nand saw their returning when the spring pressed hard upon the borders of\nthe melting drifts. So, as he grew older and stayed closer by his mine,\nJerry learned to look to the furred and feathered folk for news of how\nthe seasons fared, and what was doing on the high ridges. When the\ngrouse and quail went down, it was a sign that the snow had covered the\ngrass and small seed-bearing herbs; the passing of deer--shapely bulks\nin a mist of cloud--was a portent of deep drifts over the buckthorn and\nthe heather. Lastly, if he saw the light fleeting of the mountain sheep,\nhe looked for wild and bitter work on the crest of Kearsarge and Rex\nMonte. It was mostly at such times that Jerry heard voices in the storm,\nand he would go stumbling about with his lantern into the swirl of\nfalling snow, until the wind that played up and down the great canyon,\nlike the draughts in a chimney, made his very bones a-cold. Then he\nwould creep back to drowse by the warmth of his fire and dream that the\nblue-eyed stranger had come back and brought the luck of the Golden\nFortune. So he passed the years until the winter of the Big Snow. It was\nso called many winters after, for no other like it ever fell on the east\nslope of Kearsarge.\n\nIt came early in the season, following a week of warm weather, when the\nsky was full of a dry mist that showed ghostly gray against the sun and\nthe moon; great bodies of temperate air moved about the pines with a\nsound of moaning and distress. The deer, warned by their wild sense,\nwent down before ever a flake fell, and Jerry, watching, shivered in\nsympathy, recalling that so they had run together, and such a spell of\nwarm weather had gone before a certain snow, years ago before the luck\ndeparted from the Golden Fortune. As the fume of the storm closed in\nabout the cabin, and flakes began to form lightly in the middle air, the\nold man's wits began to fumble among remembrances of the stranger on the\ntrail, and he would hearken for voices. The snow began, then increased,\nand fell steadily, wet and blinding.\n\nThe third night of its falling Jerry waked out of a doze to hear his\nname shouted, muffled and feebly, through the drift. So it seemed to\nhim, and he made haste to answer it. There was no wind; on the very\nsteep slope where the cabin stood was a knee-deep level, soft and\nclogging; in the hollows it piled halfway up the pines. Jerry's lantern\nthrew a faint and stifled gleam. There was no further cry, but something\nstruggled on the trail below him; dim, unhuman shapes wrestled in the\nsmother of the snow. Jerry sent them a hail of assurance cut off short\nby the white wall of the storm.\n\nThere was a little sag in the hill-front where the trail turned off to\nthe cabin, and here the moist snow fell in a lake, into which the trail\nran like a spit, and was lost. Down this trail at the last fierce end of\nthe storm came the great wild sheep, the bighorn, the heaviest-headed,\nlightest-footed, winter-proof sheep of the mountains that God shepherds\non the high battlements of the hills. Down they came when there was no\nmeadow, nor thicket, nor any smallest twig of heather left uncovered on\nthe highlands, and took the lake of soggy snow by Jerry's cabin in the\ndark. They had come far under the weight of the great curved horns\nthrough the clogging drifts. Here where the trail failed in the white\nsmudge they found no footing, floundered at large, sinking belly-deep\nwhere they stood, and not daring to stand lest they sink deeper. If any\ncry of theirs, hoarse and broken, had reached old Jerry's dreaming, they\nspent no further breath on it. By something the same sense that made him\naware of their need, Jerry understood rather than saw them strain\nthrough the falling veil of snow. It was a sharp struggle without sound\nas they won out of the wet drift to the firmer ground. They went on like\nshadows pursued by the ghost of a light that wavered with the old man's\nwavering feet. It was no night for a man to be abroad in, but Jerry\nplowed on in the drift till he found the work that was cut out for him.\nThere where the snow was deepest, yielding like wool, he found the\noldest wether of the flock, sunk to the shoulders, too feeble for the\nstruggle, and still too noble for complaining. How many years had Jerry\nwaited to do a good turn on the trail where he had done his worst: and\nin all these years he had lost the sense of distinction which should be\nbetween man and beast. He put his shoulder under the fore shoulder of\nthe sheep, where he could feel the heart pound with certain fear.\n\nJerry knew the trail, as he knew the floor of his mine, by the feel of\nthe ground under him, so as he heaved and guided with his shoulder, the\ngreat ram grew quieter and lent himself to the effort till they came\nclear of the swale, and the sweat ran down from Jerry's forehead. But\nthe bighorn could do no more. In the soft fleece of the snow he stood\ncowed and trembling. The snow came on faster, and wiped out the trail of\nthe flock; he made no motion to go after. Such a death comes to the wild\nsheep of the mountains often enough: to fail from old age in some sudden\nstorm, to sink in the loose snow and await the quest of the wolf, or the\ncolder mercy of the drift. He turned his back to the storm which began\nto slant a little with the rising wind, and looked not once at Jerry nor\nat the hills where he had been bred. But Jerry cast his eye upon the\nsheep, which was full heavier then than he, and then up at the steep\nwhere his cabin stood, remembering that he had nothing there that might\nserve a sheep for food. Then he bent down again, and by dint of pulling\nand pushing, and by a dim sense that began to filter through the man's\nbrain to the beast, they made some progress on the trail. They went over\nbroken boulders and floundered in the drifts, where Jerry half carried\nthe sheep and was half borne up and supported by the spread of the great\nhorns. They crossed Pine Creek, which ran dumbly under the snow, housed\nover by the stream tangle. The flakes hissed softly on Jerry's lantern\nand struck blindingly on his eyes, but ever as they went the sheep was\neased of his labor, grew assured, and carried himself courageously.\nFinally they came where the storm thinned out, and whole hill-slopes\ncovered with buckthorn and cherry warded off the snow by springy arches,\nand Jerry drew up to rest under a long-leaved pine while the sheep went\non alone, nodding his great horns under the branches of the scrub. He\nneither lingered nor looked back, and met the new chance of life with as\nmuch quietness as the chance of death. Jerry was worn and weary, and\nthere was a singing in his brain. The pine trees broke the wind and shed\noff the snow in curling wreaths. It seemed to the old man most good to\nrest, and he drowsed upon his feet.\n\n\"If I sleep I shall freeze,\" he said; and it seemed on the whole a\npleasant thing to do. So it went on for a little space; then there came\na shape out of the dark, a hand shook him by the shoulder, and a voice\ncalled him by name. Then he started out of dreaming as he had started at\nthat other call an hour ago, and it seemed not strange to him, the\nnight, nor the storm, nor the face of the blue-eyed man that shone out\nof the dark, but whether by the light of his lantern he could not tell.\nHe shook the snow from his shoulders.\n\n\"I have expected you long,\" he said.\n\n\"And now I have come,\" said the stranger and smiled.\n\n\"Have you brought the luck again?\"\n\n\"Come and see,\" said the man.\n\nThen Jerry took his hand and leaned upon him, and together they went up\nthe trail between the drifts.\n\n\"You bear me no ill-will for what I did?\" said Jerry.\n\nAnd the stranger answered, \"None.\"\n\n\"I have wished it undone many times,\" said the old man. \"I have tried\nthis night to repay it.\"\n\n\"By what you have done this night I am repaid,\" said the stranger.\n\n\"It was only a sheep.\"\n\n\"It was one of God's creatures,\" said the man.\n\nSo they went on up the trail, and it seemed sometimes to Jerry that he\nwandered alone in the dark, that he was cold, and his lantern had gone\nout; and again he would hear the stranger comfort and encourage him. At\nlast they came toward the cabin, and saw the light stream out of the\nwindow and the fire leap in the stove. Then Jerry thought of the mine,\nand that the stranger had brought back the luck again. It seemed that\nthe young man had promised him this, though he could not be sure of\nthat, nor very clear in his mind on any point except that he had come\nhome again. But as he drew near, it seemed a brightness came out of the\ntunnel of the mine, a warmth and a great light. As he came into it\ntremblingly, he saw that the light came from the walls, and from the\nlode at the far end of it, and it was the brightness of pure gold. And\nJerry smiled and stretched out his arms to it, making sure that the luck\nhad come again.\n\nAfter the week of the Big Snow there were people in the town who\nremembered Jerry, and wondered how he fared. So when the snow had a\ncrust over it, they came up by the windy canyon and sought him in his\nhouse, where the door stood open and a charred wick flared feebly in the\nlamp, and in his mine, where they found him at the far end of the\ntunnel, and it seemed as if he slept and smiled.\n\n\"It is a worthless lode,\" they said, \"but he loved it.\"\n\nSo they took powder and made a blast, and with it a great heap of\nstones, shutting off the end of the tunnel from the outer air, and so\nleft him with his luck and the Golden Fortune.\n\n\n\n\nTHE WHITE-BARKED PINE\n\n\nThe white-barked pine grew on the slope of Kearsarge highest up of all\nthe pines, so high that nothing grew above it but brown tufts of grass\nand the rosy Sierra primroses that shelter under the edges of broken\nboulders. The white-barked pines are squat and short, trunks creeping\nalong the rocks, and foliage all matted in a close green thatch by the\nwinter's weight. Snow lies on the slope of Kearsarge eight months in the\nyear, deep and smooth over the pines and the jagged rocks; other months\nthere are great storms of rain, and always a strong wind roaring through\nthe Pass, so that, try as it might, no tree could stand erect on those\nheights. The white-barked pine stretched its body along the ground, and\nthough it was four hundred years old, it was no thicker than a man's\nleg, and its young branches of seventy-five or a hundred years were\nstill so supple that one could tie knots in them. It grew near the\ntrail, which here crossed through a gap in the crest of the range and\nstraggled on down the other side of the mountain.\n\nAlong this trail went many strange things in their season. Early in the\nyear, before the snow had melted at all on the high places, went a great\nlumbering bear that had a lair above Big Meadows, going down to the\ncalf-pens and pig-sties of the town at the foot of Kearsarge. He ranged\nback and forth on these little excursions of fifteen or twenty miles in\nthe hungry season of the year, and sometimes there were hunters on his\ntrail with dogs and guns, but nothing ever came of it. When the trail\nbegan to run a rivulet from the drip of melting snow banks, the forest\nranger went up the Pass, singing as he went and beating his arms to keep\nhimself warm. Afterwards when the snow water was all drained off, he\ncame back and mended the trail. All through the summer there would be\nparties of miners and hunters with long strings of pack mules, going\nover Kearsarge to camp in Big Meadows or on the fork of King's River.\nSometimes there were parties of Indians with women and children, making\nvery merry with berries, fish, and deer meat. Nearly always, whatever\nwent over the mountain came back again, and the white pine noticed that\nthe same people came again another season. In four hundred years one has\nspace for observation and reflection. Gradually the pine tree grew into\nthe conviction that the other side of the mountain must be much finer\nthan this.\n\n\"Else why,\" said he, \"should so many people go there every year?\"\n\nIt was very fine, you may be sure, on the white pine's side, but the\ntree had known it all for so many years, it no longer pleased him. From\nwhere he grew he looked down between the ridges on a great winding canyon\nfull of singing trees, with blue lakes like eyes winking between them.\nHe could watch in the open places the white feet of the water on its way\nto the valley, and from the falls long rainbows of spray blown out as if\nthey were blowing kisses to the white-barked pine. Below all this lay\nthe valley, hollow like a cup, full of fawn-colored and violet mist,\nand the farms and orchards lay like dregs at the bottom of the cup.\nBeyond the valley rose other noble ranges with cloud shadows playing all\nalong their slopes.\n\n\"It is very tiresome to look at the same things for four hundred years,\"\nsaid the white-barked pine. \"If I could only get to the top, now. Do\ntell me, what is it like on the other side?\" he said to the wind.\n\n\"Oh!\" said the wind, \"it rains and snows. There are trees and bushes and\nblue lakes. It is not at all different from this side.\"\n\nA deer said the same thing when it slept one night under the thatch of\nthe highest pine. \"It is all meadows and hills, only sometimes the grass\nis not so good there, and again sometimes it is better. It is very much\nlike this.\"\n\n\"I do not believe them,\" said the pine to himself. \"They are simply\ntrying to console me for not realizing my ambition. But I am not a\nsapling any longer, let me tell you that.\"\n\n\"At least,\" said a young tree that grew a little farther down, \"you are\nhigher up than any of us.\"\n\n\"Of what use is that if I do not get to the top?\" said the unhappy pine.\n\"There is a bunch of blue flowers there, I can see it quite plainly just\nwhere the trail dips over the ridge. Surely I am as capable of climbing\nas any blue weed.\"\n\n\"But,\" said the young pine, \"weeds do not have to grow cones.\"\n\n\"Oh, as for cones,\" cried the tree quite crossly, \"the seasons are so\nshort I hardly ever ripen any, and if I do the squirrels get them. I do\nbelieve I have not started a seedling these two hundred years. It is no\nuse to talk to me, I shall be happy only when I have seen the other side\nof the mountain.\"\n\nIt seems what one desires with all one's heart for a long time finally\ncomes to pass in some fashion or other. That very season the\nwhite-barked pine went up over Kearsarge to the other side. Early in the\nsummer, when the rosy primroses had just begun to blow beside the drifts\nthat hugged the shade of the boulders, a party of miners went up the\ntrail with a long string of pack mules burdened with picks and shovels,\nflour and potatoes, and other things that miners use. The last pull up\nthe Kearsarge trail is the hardest, over a steep waste of loose stones\nthat want very little encouragement to go roaring down as an avalanche\ninto the ravine below. The miners shouted, the mules scrambled and\npanted on the steep, but just as they came by the last of the\nwhite-barked pines, one slipped and went rolling over and over on the\njagged stones. As happens very frequently when a pack animal falls, the\nmule was not very much hurt, but the pack saddle was quite ruined.\n\n\"We must do the best we can,\" said one of the men, and he cut down the\nwhite-barked pine. He chopped off the boughs, and split the trunk in\nfour pieces to mend the pack. It was a very small tree though it was so\nold.\n\n\"Ah! Ah!\" said the tree, \"it hurts, but one does not mind that when one\nis realizing an ambition. Now I shall go to the top.\" So he went over\nKearsarge on mule-back quite like an old traveler.\n\n\"Well, we are rid of his complaining,\" said the pine who stood next to\nhim, \"and now _I_ am the highest up of all the pines. I wonder if it is\nreally so much finer on the other side.\"\n\nHis old companion, in four pieces, was swinging down the other side of\nthe mountain, and as he went, he saw high peaks and soddy meadows, long\nwinding canons with white glancing waters; and heard the chorus of the\nfalls. When it was night the miners lit a fire and loosened up the\npacks, and after dark, when the wind began to move among the trees and\nthe fire burned low, one of the men threw a piece of the white-barked\npine on it.\n\n\"Oh! Oh!\" cried the pine as the flames caught hold of it, \"and is this\nreally the end of all my travels?\"\n\n\"How that green wood sputters!\" said the man; \"it is not fit even for\nfirewood.\"\n\nThe next day the wind took up the ash and carried it back over the pass,\nand dropped it where the chopped boughs lay fainting on the ground.\n\n\"Ah, is that you?\" they said; \"now you can tell us what it is like on\nthe other side.\"\n\n\"How ignorant you are,\" said the ash of the white-barked pine, \"one\nwould know you have never traveled. It is exactly like this side.\" But\nhe could not hear what they had to say to that, for the wind whirled him\naway.\n\n\n\n\nNA'[:Y]ANG-WIT'E, THE FIRST RABBIT DRIVE\n\n\nThe Basket Woman was walking over the mesa with the great carrier at her\nback. Behind her straggled the children and the other women of the\ncampoodie, each with a cone-shaped basket slung between her shoulders.\nAlan clapped his hands when he saw them coming, and ran out along the\npath.\n\n\"You come see rabbit drive,\" she said, twinkling her shrewd black eyes\nunder the border of her basket cap. Alan took hold of a fold of her\ndress as he walked beside her, for he was still a little afraid of the\nother Indians, but since the time of his going out to see the buzzards\nmaking a merry-go-round, he knew he should never be afraid of the Basket\nWoman again. The other women laughed a great deal as they looked at him,\nshowing their white teeth and putting back the black coarse hair out of\ntheir eyes, and Alan felt that the things they said to each other were\nabout him, though they could hardly have been unpleasant with so much\nsmiling. Now he could see the men swarm out of the huts under the hill,\nall afoot but a dozen of the old men, who rode small kicking ponies at a\ntremendous pace, digging their heels into the horses' ribs. They passed\nup the mesa in a blur of golden dust; westward they dwindled to a speck,\nsomething ran between them from man to man, now thick like a cord, then\nshaken out and vanishing in air. Then the riders dropped from their\nhorses and fumbled on the ground. Alan plucked at the Basket Woman's\ndress.\n\n\"Tell me what it is they do,\" he said.\n\n\"It is the net which they set with forked stakes of willow,\" answered\nthe Basket Woman. Now the young men and the middle-aged began to form a\nline across the mesa, standing three man's lengths apart in the sage.\nSome of them were armed with guns and others had only clubs; all were\nmerry, laughing and calling to one another. They began to move forward\nevenly with a marching movement, beating the brush as they went.\nPresently up popped a rabbit from the sage and ran before them in long\nflying leaps; far down the line another bounded from a stony wash, his\nlean flanks turned broadside to the sun.\n\nThen the hunters broke into shouts of laughter and clapping, then one\nbegan to sing and the song passed from man to man along the line; then\nthe men crouched a little as Indians do in singing, then their bodies\nswayed and they stamped with each staccato note as they moved forward.\nRabbits sprang up in the scrub and went before them like the wind, and\nas each one leaped into view and laid back his ears in flight, the cries\nand laughter grew and the singing rose louder. The wind blew it back to\nthe women and children straggling far behind, who took it up, and the\nburden of it was this,--\n\n  [Illustration: E - ya - ha hi, E - ya, E - ya - hi!]\n\nBut every man sang it for himself, beginning when he liked and leaving\noff, and when a rabbit started up under foot or one over-leaped himself\nand went sprawling to the sand the refrain broke out again, but the\nwords, when there were any, seemed not to have anything to do with the\nhunt, and sounded to Alan like a game.\n\n\"_He-yah-hi, hi!_ he has it; he has it, he has the white, he has it!\"\n\n\"_Na'yang-wit'e!_\" chuckled the Basket Woman. \"_Na'yang-wit'e,\nna'yang-wit'e!_ It is as it was of old time, look now and you shall\nsee.\"\n\nAlan looked at the hunters again, and whether it was because of the\nblown dust of the mesa, or the quiver of heat that rose up from the\nsand, or because the Basket Woman had laid her hand upon him, he saw\nthat they were not as they had been a moment since. Now they wore no\nhats and were naked from the waist up, clothed below with deerskin\ngarments. Quivers of the skin of cougars with the tails hanging down\nwere slung between their shoulders, and the arrows in them were pointed\nwith tips of obsidian and winged with eagle feathers. Every man carried\nhis bow or his spear in his hand. Bright beads and bits of many-colored\nshell hung and glittered in their hair. Rabbits went before them like\ngrasshoppers for number, and the song and the shouting were fierce and\nwild. \"But what is it all about?\" asked Alan.\n\n\"_Na'yang-wit'e, na'yang-wit'e_,\" laughed the Basket Woman. \"Wait and I\nwill tell you the story of that song, for it is so that every song has\nits story, without which no one may understand it. It is not well to go\ntoo near the guns; sit you here and I will tell.\"\n\nSo Alan bent down the sagebrush to make him a springy seat and the\nBasket Woman sat upon the ground with her hands clasped about her knees.\n\n\"Long and long ago,\" said the Basket Woman, \"when men and beasts talked\ntogether, there were none so friendly and none so much about the\nwickiups as the rabbit people, and some of our fathers have told that\nit was they who taught my people the game of _na'yang-wit'e_. I know\nnot if that be true, but there were none so cunning as they to play it.\nAnd this is the manner of the game: there should be two sticks, or\nbetter, two bits of bone of the fore leg of a deer, made smooth and\nsmall to fit the palm. One of them is all white and the other has sinew\nof deer stained black and wound about it. These the players pass from\nhand to hand, and another will guess where is the place of the white,\nand he who guesses best shall win all the other's goods. It is good\nsport playing, and between man and man it comes even in the end, for\nsometimes one has the goods and sometimes another, but when my people\nplayed with the rabbit people it was not good, for the rabbits won every\ntime. Then my people drew together, all the Indians of every sort, and\nmade a great game against the rabbit people. There were two long rows\nacross the mesa, and between them were all the goods piled high, all the\nbeads and ornaments of shell, all the feather work and fine dressed\ndeerskin, all the worked moccasins, the quivers, the bows, all the\nblankets, the baskets, and the woven mats. So they played at sunrise, so\nat noon, so when it was night and the fires were lit. So on into the\nnight, and when it was morning the game was done, for the Indians had no\nmore goods. _Ay-aiy!_\" said the Basket Woman, \"long will the rabbit\npeople sorrow for that day, for it was then that the Indians first\ncontrived together how they might be rid of them. Then they gathered up\nthe milkweed,\" and she reached out and plucked a tall stem of it growing\nbeside her, white flowered and slender, with fine leaves like grass.\n\"Then they broke it so,\" and she laid it across a stone and beat it\nlightly with a stick, \"then they drew out the threads soft and white,\nand so they rolled it into string.\"\n\nShe stretched the fibre with one hand and rolled it on her knee with the\nother, twisting and twining it. \"Thus was the string made and afterward\nwoven into nets. The mesh of the net was just enough to let a rabbit's\nhead through, but not his body, and the net was a little wider than a\nrabbit's jump when he goes fast and fleeing, and long enough to stretch\nhalf across the world. So on a day the net was set and the drive was\nbegun as you have seen it, and as the Indians went they remembered their\nanger and taunted the rabbit people. So the song of _Na'yang-wit'e_ was\nmade. Now let us go and see how it fares with the rabbit people, for as\nit was of old so will it be to-day.\"\n\nAll this time the line of men moved steadily across the mesa toward the\nnet. Now and then a rabbit turned, made bold by fright, and passed\nbetween the men as they marched. Then the nearest turned to shoot him as\nhe ran, but it was left to the women to pick up the game. Already the\nforemost rabbits were at the net, turned back by it, leaping toward the\nhunters and fleeing again to the net. The old men closed in the ends of\nthe lane where the rabbits ran about distractedly with shrill squeals of\nanguished fear. Some got their heads through the mesh but never their\nbodies, and as it is not the nature of rabbits to go backward they\nstruggled and cried, getting themselves the more entangled; some blind\nwith their haste came against it in mid-leap, and were thrown back\nstunned upon the sand. The men sang no more, for they had work to do,\nserious work, for on the dried flesh of the rabbits and the blankets\nmade of their skins the campoodie must largely count for food and warmth\nin the winter season. They closed in to the killing and made short work\nof it with clubs and the butt ends of their guns. Then the women came up\nwith the children and heaped up the great carriers with the game while\nthe men wrung the sweat from their foreheads and counted up the kill.\nMost of the rabbits were the kind Alan had learned to call jack rabbits,\nbut the Basket Woman picked up a fat little cotton-tail.\n\n\"This is little Tavwots,\" said she, \"and you shall have him for your\nsupper.\" Alan's mind still ran on the story of the first drive. \"But is\nit true?\" he asked her, before he had given thanks for the gift.\n\n\"Now this is the sign I shall give you that the tale is true,\" said the\nBasket Woman. \"Ever since that day if one of the rabbit people meets an\nIndian in the trail he flees before him as you saw them flee to-day, and\nthat is because of _na'yang-wit'e_ and the first rabbit drive.\" Then she\nlaughed, but Alan took his share of the kill on his shoulder and went\nback across the mesa slowly, wondering.\n\n\n  [Illustration: From photograph by A. A. Forbes\n  A \"WICKIUP,\" OR INDIAN HUT]\n\n\n\n\nMAHALA JOE\n\n\nI\n\nIn the campoodie of Three Pines, which you probably know better by its\nSpanish name of Tres Pinos, there is an Indian, well thought of among\nhis own people, who goes about wearing a woman's dress, and is known as\nMahala Joe. He should be about fifty years old by this time, and has a\nquiet, kindly face. Sometimes he tucks up the skirt of his woman's dress\nover a pair of blue overalls when he has a man's work to do, but at\nfeasts and dances he wears a ribbon around his waist and a handkerchief\non his head as the other mahalas do. He is much looked to because of his\nknowledge of white people and their ways, and if it were not for the\nlines of deep sadness that fall in his face when at rest, one might\nforget that the woman's gear is the badge of an all but intolerable\nshame. At least it was so used by the Paiutes, but when you have read\nthis full and true account of how it was first put on, you may not think\nit so.\n\nFifty years ago the valley about Tres Pinos was all one sea of moving\ngrass and dusky, greenish sage, cropped over by deer and antelope, north\nas far as Togobah, and south to the Bitter Lake. Beside every\nconsiderable stream which flowed into It from the Sierras was a Paiute\ncampoodie, and all they knew of white people was by hearsay from the\ntribes across the mountains. But soon enough cattlemen began to push\ntheir herds through the Sierra passes to the Paiutes' feeding-ground.\nThe Indians saw them come, and though they were not very well pleased,\nthey held still by the counsel of their old men; night and day they made\nmedicine and prayed that the white men might go away.\n\nAmong the first of the cattlemen in the valley about Tres Pinos was Joe\nBaker, who brought a young wife, and built his house not far from the\ncampoodie. The Indian women watched her curiously from afar because of\na whisper that ran among the wattled huts. When the year was far gone,\nand the sun-cured grasses curled whitish brown, a doctor came riding\nhard from the fort at Edswick, forty miles to the south, and though they\nwatched, they did not see him ride away. It was the third day at evening\nwhen Joe Baker came walking towards the campoodie, and his face was set\nand sad. He carried something rolled in a blanket, and looked anxiously\nat the women as he went between the huts. It was about the hour of the\nevening meal, and the mahalas sat about the fires watching the\ncooking-pots. He came at last opposite a young woman who sat nursing her\nchild. She had a bright, pleasant face, and her little one seemed about\nsix months old. Her husband stood near and watched them with great\npride. Joe Baker knelt down in front of the mahala, and opened the roll\nof blankets. He showed her a day-old baby that wrinkled up its small\nface and cried.\n\n\"Its mother is dead,\" said the cattleman. The young Indian mother did\nnot know English, but she did not need speech to know what had happened.\nShe looked pitifully at the child, and at her husband timidly. Joe Baker\nwent and laid his rifle and cartridge belt at the Paiute's feet. The\nIndian picked up the gun and fingered it; his wife smiled. She put down\nher own child, and lifted the little white stranger to her breast. It\nnozzled against her and hushed its crying; the young mother laughed.\n\n\"See how greedy it is,\" she said; \"it is truly white.\" She drew up the\nblanket around the child and comforted it.\n\nThe cattleman called to him one of the Indians who could speak a little\nEnglish.\n\n\"Tell her,\" he said, \"that I wish her to care for the child. His name is\nWalter. Tell her that she is to come to my house for everything he\nneeds, and for every month that he keeps fat and well she shall have a\nfat steer from my herd.\" So it was agreed.\n\nAs soon as Walter was old enough he came to sleep at his father's house,\nbut the Indian woman, whom he called _Ebia_, came every day to tend\nhim. Her son was his brother, and Walter learned to speak Paiute before\nhe learned English. The two boys were always together, but as yet the\nlittle Indian had no name. It is not the custom among Paiutes to give\nnames to those who have not done anything worth naming.\n\n\"But I have a name,\" said Walter, \"and so shall he. I will call him Joe.\nThat is my father's name, and it is a good name, too.\"\n\nWhen Mr. Baker was away with the cattle Walter slept at the campoodie,\nand Joe's mother made him a buckskin shirt. At that time he was so brown\nwith the sun and the wind that only by his eyes could you tell that he\nwas white; he was also very happy. But as this is to be the story of how\nJoe came to the wearing of a woman's dress, I cannot tell you all the\nplays they had, how they went on their first hunting, nor what they\nfound in the creek of Tres Pinos.\n\nThe beginning of the whole affair of Mahala Joe must be laid to the\narrow-maker. The arrow-maker had a stiff knee from a wound in a\nlong-gone battle, and for that reason he sat in the shade of his\nwickiup, and chipped arrow points from flakes of obsidian that the young\nmen brought him from Togobah, fitting them to shafts of reeds from the\nriver marsh. He used to coax the boys to wade in the brown water and cut\nthe reeds, for the dampness made his knee ache. They drove bargains with\nhim for arrows for their own hunting, or for the sake of the stories he\ncould tell. For an armful of reeds he would make three arrows, and for a\ndouble armful he would tell tales. These were mostly of great huntings\nand old wars, but when it was winter, and no snakes in the long grass to\noverhear, he would tell Wonder-stories. The boys would lie with their\ntoes in the warm ashes, and the arrow-maker would begin.\n\n\"You can see,\" said the arrow-maker, \"on the top of Waban the tall\nboulder looking on the valleys east and west. That is the very boundary\nbetween the Paiute country and Shoshone land. The boulder is a hundred\ntimes taller than the tallest man, and thicker through than six horses\nstanding nose to tail; the shadow of it falls all down the slope. At\nmornings it falls toward the Paiute peoples, and evenings it falls on\nShoshone land. Now on this side of the valley, beginning at the\ncampoodie, you will see a row of pine trees standing all upstream one\nbehind another. See, the long branches grow on the side toward the hill;\nand some may tell you it is because of the way the wind blows, but I say\nit is because they reach out in a hurry to get up the mountain. Now I\nwill tell you how these things came about.\n\n\"Very long ago all the Paiutes of this valley were ruled by two\nbrothers, a chief and a medicine man, Winnedumah and Tinnemaha. They\nwere both very wise, and one of them never did anything without the\nother. They taught the tribes not to war upon each other, but to stand\nfast as brothers, and so they brought peace into the land. At that time\nthere were no white people heard of, and game was plenty. The young\nhonored the old, and nothing was as it is now.\"\n\nWhen the arrow-maker came to this point, the boys fidgeted with their\ntoes, and made believe to steal the old man's arrows to distract his\nattention. They did not care to hear about the falling off of the\nPaiutes; they wished to have the tale. Then the arrow-maker would hurry\non to the time when there arose a war between the Paiutes and the\nShoshones. Then Winnedumah put on his war bonnet, and Tinnemaha made\nmedicine. Word went around among the braves that if they stood together\nman to man as brothers, then they should have this war.\n\n\"And so they might,\" said the arrow-maker, \"but at last their hearts\nturned to water. The tribes came together on the top of Waban. Yes;\nwhere the boulder now stands, for that is the boundary of our lands, for\nno brave would fight off his own ground for fear of the other's\nmedicine. So they fought. The eagles heard the twang of the bowstring,\nand swung down from White Mountain. The vul-tures smelled the smell of\nbattle, and came in from Shoshone land. Their wings were dark like a\ncloud, and underneath the arrows flew like hail. The Paiutes were the\nbetter bowmen, and they caught the Shoshone arrows where they struck in\nthe earth and shot them back again. Then the Shoshones were ashamed, and\nabout the time of the sun going down they called upon their medicine\nmen, and one let fly a magic arrow,--for none other would touch\nhim,--and it struck in the throat of Tinnemaha.\n\n\"Now when that befell,\" went on the arrow-maker, \"the braves forgot the\nword that had gone before the battle, for they turned their backs to the\nmedicine man, all but Winnedumah, his brother, and fled this way from\nWaban. Then stood Winnedumah by Tinnemaha, for that was the way of those\ntwo; whatever happened, one would not leave the other. There was none\nleft to carry on the fight, and yet since he was so great a chief the\nShoshones were afraid to take him, and the sun went down. In the dusk\nthey saw a bulk, and they said, 'He is still standing;' but when it was\nmorning light they saw only a great rock, so you see it to this day. As\nfor the braves who ran away, they were changed to pine trees, but in\ntheir hearts they are cowards yet, therefore they stretch out their arms\nand strive toward the mountain. And that,\" said the arrow-maker, \"is how\nthe tall stones came to be on the top of Waban. But it was not in my day\nnor my father's.\" Then the boys would look up at Winnedumah, and were\nhalf afraid, and as for the tale, they quite believed it.\n\nThe arrow-maker was growing old. His knee hurt him in cold weather, and\nhe could not make arrow points fast enough to satisfy the boys, who lost\na great many in the winter season shooting at ducks in the tulares.\nWalter's father promised him a rifle when he was fifteen, but that was\nyears away. There was a rock in the canyon behind Tres Pinos with a great\ncrack in the top. When the young men rode to the hunting, they shot each\nan arrow at it, and if it stuck it was a promise of good luck. The boys\nscaled the rock by means of a grapevine ladder, and pried out the old\npoints. This gave them an idea.\n\n\"Upon Waban where the fighting was, there must be a great many arrow\npoints,\" said Walter.\n\n\"So there must be,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Let us go after them,\" said the white boy; but the other dared not, for\nno Paiute would go within a bowshot of Winnedumah; nevertheless, they\ntalked the matter over.\n\n\"How near would you go?\" asked Walter.\n\n\"As near as a strong man might shoot an arrow,\" said Joe.\n\n\"If you will go so far,\" said Walter, \"I will go the rest of the way.\"\n\n\"It is a two days' journey,\" said the Paiute, but he did not make any\nother objection.\n\nIt was a warm day of spring when they set out. The cattleman was off to\nthe river meadow, and Joe's mother was out with the other mahalas\ngathering taboose.\n\n\"If I were fifteen, and had my rifle, I would not be afraid of\nanything,\" said Walter.\n\n\"But in that case we would not need to go after arrow points,\" said the\nIndian boy.\n\nThey climbed all day in a bewildering waste of boulders and scrubby\ntrees. They could see Winnedumah shining whitely on the ridge ahead, but\nwhen they had gone down into the gully with great labor, and up the\nother side, there it stood whitely just another ridge away.\n\n\"It is like the false water in the desert,\" said Walter. \"It goes\nfarther from you, and when you get to it there is no water there.\"\n\n\"It is magic medicine,\" said Indian Joe. \"No good comes of going against\nmedicine.\"\n\n\"If you are afraid,\" said Walter, \"why do you not say so? You may go\nback if you like, and I will go on by myself.\"\n\nJoe would not make any answer to that. They were hot and tired, and awed\nby the stillness of the hills. They kept on after that, angry and apart;\nsometimes they lost sight of each other among the boulders and\nunderbrush. But it seemed that it must really have been as one or the\nother of them had said, for when they came out on a high mesa presently,\nthere was no Winnedumah anywhere in sight. They would have stopped then\nand taken counsel, but they were too angry for that, so they walked on\nin silence, and the day failed rapidly, as it will do in high places.\nThey began to draw near together and to be afraid. At last the Indian\nboy stopped and gathered the tops of bushes together, and began to weave\na shelter for the night, and when Walter saw that he made it large\nenough for two, he spoke to him.\n\n\"Are we lost?\" he said.\n\n\"We are lost for to-night,\" said Joe, \"but in the morning we will find\nourselves.\"\n\nThey ate dried venison and drank from the wicker bottle, and huddled\ntogether because of the dark and the chill.\n\n\"Why do we not see the stone any more?\" asked Walter in a whisper.\n\n\"I do not know,\" said Joe. \"I think it has gone away.\"\n\n\"Will he come after us?\"\n\n\"I do not know. I have on my elk's tooth,\" said Joe, and he clasped the\ncharm that hung about his neck. They started and shivered, hearing a\nstone crash far away as it rolled down the mountain-side, and the wind\nbegan to move among the pines.\n\n\"Joe,\" said Walter, \"I am sorry I said that you were afraid.\"\n\n\"It is nothing,\" said the Paiute. \"Besides, I am afraid.\"\n\n\"So am I,\" whispered the other. \"Joe,\" he said again after a long\nsilence, \"if he comes after us, what shall we do?\"\n\n\"We will stay by each other.\"\n\n\"Like the two brothers, whatever happens,\" said the white boy, \"forever\nand ever.\"\n\n\"We are two brothers,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Will you swear it?\"\n\n\"On my elk's tooth.\"\n\nThen they each took the elk's tooth in his hand and made a vow that\nwhether Winnedumah came down from his rock, or whether the Shoshones\nfound them, come what would, they would stand together. Then they were\ncomforted, and lay down, holding each other's hands.\n\n\"I hear some one walking,\" said Walter.\n\n\"It is the wind among the pines,\" said Joe.\n\nA twig snapped. \"What is that?\" said the one boy.\n\n\"It is a fox or a coyote passing,\" said the other, but he knew better.\nThey lay still, scarcely breathing, and throbbed with fear. They felt a\nsense of a presence approaching in the night, the whisper of a moccasin\non the gravelly soil, the swish of displaced bushes springing back to\nplace. They saw a bulk shape itself out of the dark; it came and stood\nover them, and they saw that it was an Indian looking larger in the\ngloom. He spoke to them, and whether he spoke in a strange tongue, or\nthey were too frightened to understand, they could not tell.\n\n\"Do not kill us!\" cried Walter, but the Indian boy made no sound. The\nman took Walter by the shoulders and lifted him up.\n\n\"White,\" said he.\n\n\"We are brothers,\" said Joe; \"we have sworn it.\"\n\n\"So,\" said the man, and it seemed as if he smiled.\n\n\"Until we die,\" said both the boys. The Indian gave a grunt.\n\n\"A white man,\" he said, \"is--white.\" It did not seem as if that was what\nhe meant to say.\n\n\"Come, I will take you to your people. They search for you about the\nfoot of Waban. These three hours I have watched you and them.\" The boys\nclutched at each other in the dark. They were sure now who spoke to\nthem, and between fear and fatigue and the cramp of cold they staggered\nand stumbled as they walked. The Indian stopped and considered them.\n\n\"I cannot carry both,\" he said.\n\n\"I am the older,\" said Joe; \"I can walk.\" Without any more words the man\npicked up Walter, who trembled, and walked off down the slope. They went\na long way through the scrub and under the tamarack pines. The man was\nnaked to the waist, and had a quiver full of arrows on his shoulder.\nThe buckthorn branches whipped and scraped against his skin, but he did\nnot seem to mind. At last they came to a place where they could see a\ndull red spark across an open flat.\n\n\"That,\" said the Indian, \"is the fire of your people. They missed you at\nafternoon, and have been looking for you. From my station on the hill I\nsaw.\" Then he took the boy by the shoulders.\n\n\"Look you,\" he said, \"no good comes of mixing white and brown, but now\nthat the vow is made, see to the keeping of it.\" Then he stepped back\nfrom them and seemed to melt into the dark. Ahead of them the boys saw\nthe light of the fire flare up with new fuel, and shadows, which they\nknew for the figures of their friends, moved between them and the flame.\nSwiftly as two scared rabbits they ran on toward the glow.\n\nWhen Walter and Joe had told them the story at the campoodie, the\nPaiutes made a great deal of it, especially the arrow-maker.\n\n\"Without a doubt,\" he said, \"it was Winnedumah who came to you, and\nnot, as some think, a Shoshone who was spying on our land. It is a great\nmystery. But since you have made a vow of brothers, you should keep it\nafter the ancient use.\" Then he took a knife of obsidian and cut their\narms, and rubbed a little of the blood of each upon the other.\n\n\"Now,\" he said, \"you are one fellowship and one blood, and that is as it\nshould be, for you were both nursed at one breast. See that you keep the\nvow.\"\n\n\"We will,\" said the boys solemnly, and they went out into the sunlight\nvery proud of the blood upon their bared arms, holding by each other's\nhands.\n\n\nII\n\nWhen Walter was fifteen his father gave him a rifle, as he had promised,\nand a word of advice with it.\n\n\"Learn to shoot quickly and well,\" he said, \"and never ride out from\nhome without it. No one can tell what this trouble with the Indians may\ncome to in the end.\"\n\nWalter rode straight to the campoodie. He was never happy in any of his\ngifts until he had showed them to Joe. There was a group of older men at\nthe camp, quartering a deer which they had brought in. One of them,\ncalled Scar-Face, looked at Walter with a leering frown.\n\n\"See,\" he said, \"they are arming the very children with guns.\"\n\n\"My father promised it to me many years ago,\" said Walter. \"It is my\nbirthday gift.\"\n\nHe could not explain why, and he grew angry at the man's accusing tone,\nbut after it he did not like showing his present to the Indians.\n\nHe called Joe, and they went over to a cave in the black rock where they\nhad kept their boyish treasures and planned their plays since they were\nchildren. Joe thought the rifle a beauty, and turned it over admiringly\nin the shadow of the cave. They tried shooting at a mark, and then\ndecided to go up Oak Creek for a shot at the gray squirrels. There they\nsighted a band of antelope that led them over a tongue of hills into\nLittle Round Valley, where they found themselves at noon twelve miles\nfrom home and very hungry. They had no antelope, but four squirrels and\na grouse. The two boys made a fire for cooking in a quiet place by a\nspring of sweet water.\n\n\"You may have my rifle to use as often as you like,\" said Walter, \"but\nyou must not lend it to any one in the campoodie, especially to\nScar-Face. My father says he is the one who is stirring up all this\ntrouble with the whites.\"\n\n\"The white men do not need any one to help them get into trouble,\" said\nJoe. \"They can do that for themselves.\"\n\n\"It is the fault of the Indians,\" said Walter. \"If they did not shoot\nthe cattle, the white men would leave them alone.\"\n\n\"But if the white men come first to our lands with noise and trampling\nand scare away the game, what then will they shoot?\" asked the Paiute.\n\nWalter did not make any answer to that. He had often gone hunting with\nJoe and his father, and he knew what it meant to walk far, and fasting,\nafter game made shy by the rifles of cattlemen, and at last to return\nempty to the campoodie where there were women and children with hungry\neyes.\n\n\"Is it true,\" he said after a while, \"that Scar-Face is stirring up all\nthe Indians in the valley?\"\n\n\"How should I know?\" said Joe; \"I am only a boy, and have not killed big\ngame. I am not admitted to the counsels of the old men. What does it\nmatter to us whether of old feuds or new? Are we not brothers sworn?\"\n\nThen, as the dinner was done, they ate each of the other's kill, for it\nwas the custom of the Paiutes at that time that no youth should eat game\nof his own killing until he was fully grown. As they walked homeward the\nboys planned to get permission to go up on Waban for a week, after\nmountain sheep, before the snows began.\n\nMr. Baker looked grave when Walter spoke to him.\n\n\"My boy,\" he said, \"I wish you would not plan long trips like this\nwithout first speaking to me. It is hardly safe in the present state of\nfeeling among the Indians to let you go with them in this fashion. A\nwhole week, too. But as you have already spoken of it, and it has\nprobably been talked over in the campoodie, for me to refuse now would\nlook as if I suspected something, and might bring about the thing I most\nfear.\"\n\n\"You should not be afraid for me with Joe, father, for we are brothers\nsworn,\" said Walter, and he told his father how they had mixed the blood\nof their arms in the arrow-maker's hut after they had come back from\ntheir first journey on Waban.\n\n\"Well,\" said Mr. Baker, who had not heard of this before, \"I know that\nthey set great store by these superstitious customs, but I have not much\nfaith in the word of a Paiute when he is dealing with a white man.\nHowever, you had better go on with this hunting trip. Take Hank with\nyou, and Joe's father, and do not be gone more than five days at the\noutside.\"\n\nHank was one of Mr. Baker's vaqueros, and very glad to get off for a\nfew days' hunting on the blunt top of Waban. On the Monday following\nthey left the Baker ranch for the mountain. As the two boys rode up the\nboulder-strewn slope it set them talking of the first time they had gone\nthat way on their fruitless hunt for arrow points about the foot of\nWinnedumah, and of all that happened to them at that time. The valley\nlay below them full of purple mist, and away by the creek of Tres Pinos\nthe brown, wattled huts of the campoodie like great wasps' nests stuck\nin the sage. Hank and Joe's father, with the pack horses, were ahead of\nthem far up the trail; Joe and Walter let their own ponies lag, and the\nnose of one touched the flank of the other as they climbed slowly up the\nsteep, and the boys turned their faces to each other, as if they had\nsome vague warning that they would not ride so and talk familiarly\nagain, as if the boiling anger of the tribes in the valley had brewed a\nsort of mist that rose up and gloomed the pleasant air on the slope of\nWaban.\n\n\"Joe,\" said Walter, \"my father says if it came to a fight between the\nwhite settlers and the Paiutes, that you would not hold by the word we\nhave passed.\"\n\n\"That is the speech of a white man,\" said Joe.\n\n\"But would you?\" the other insisted.\n\n\"I am a Paiute,\" said Joe; \"I will hold by my people, also by my word; I\nwill not fight against you.\"\n\n\"Nor I against you, but I would not like to have my father think you had\nbroken your word.\"\n\n\"Have no care,\" said the Indian, \"I will not break it.\"\n\nMr. Baker looked anxiously after his son as he rode to the hunting on\nWaban; he looked anxiously up that trail every hour until the boy came\nagain, and that, as it turned out, was at the end of three days. For the\ntrouble among the Indians had come to something at last,--the wasps were\nall out of nest by the brown creeks, and with them a flight of stinging\narrows. The trouble began at Cottonwood, and the hunting party on Waban\nthe second day out saw a tall, pale column of smoke that rose up from\nthe notch of the hill behind the settlement, and fanned out slowly into\nthe pale blueness of the sky.\n\nIt went on evenly, neither more nor less, thick smoke from a fire of\ngreen wood steadily tended. Before noon another rose from the mouth of\nOak Creek, and a third from Tunawai. They waved and beckoned to one\nanother, calling to counsel.\n\n\"Signal fires,\" said Hank; \"that means mischief.\"\n\nAnd from that on he went with his rifle half cocked, and walked always\nso that he might keep Joe's father in full view. By night that same day\nthere were seven smoke trees growing up in the long valley, and\nspreading thin, pale branches to the sky. There was no zest left in the\nhunt, and in the morning they owned it. Walter was worried by what he\nknew his father's anxiety must be. Then the party began to ride down\nagain, and always Hank made the Indian go before. Away by the foot of\nOppapago rose a black volume of smoke, thick, and lighted underneath by\nflames. It might be the reek of a burning ranch house. The boys were\nexcited and afraid. They talked softly and crowded their ponies together\non the trail.\n\n\"Joe,\" said Walter whisperingly, \"if there is battle, you will have to\ngo to it.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Joe.\n\n\"And you will fight; otherwise they will call you a coward, and if you\nrun away, they will kill you.\"\n\n\"So I suppose,\" said Joe.\n\n\"Or they will make you wear a woman's dress like To-go-na-tee, the man\nwho got up too late.\" This was a reminder from one of the arrow-maker's\ntales. \"But you have promised not to fight.\"\n\n\"Look you,\" said the Indian boy; \"if a white man came to kill me, I\nwould kill him. That is right. But I will not fight you nor your\nfather's house. That is my vow.\"\n\nThe white boy put out his hand, and laid it on the flank of the foremost\npony. The Indian boy's fingers came behind him, and crept along the\npony's back until they reached the other hand. They rode forward without\ntalking.\n\nToward noon they made out horsemen riding on the trail below them. As it\nwound in and out around the blind gullies they saw and lost sight of\nthem a dozen times. At last, where the fringe of the tall trees began,\nthey came face to face. It was Mr. Baker and a party of five men; they\ncarried rifles and had set and anxious looks.\n\n\"What will you have?\" said Indian Joe's father as they drew up before\nhim under a tamarack pine.\n\n\"My son,\" said the cattleman.\n\n\"Is there war?\" said the Indian.\n\n\"There is war. Come, Walter.\"\n\nThe boys were still and scared. Slowly Hank and Walter drew their horses\nout of the path and joined the men. Indian Joe and his father passed\nforward on the trail.\n\n\"Do them no harm,\" said Joe Baker to those that were with him.\n\n\"Good-by, Joe,\" said Walter half aloud.\n\nThe other did not turn his head, but as he went they noticed that he had\nbared his right arm from the hunting shirt, and an inch above the elbow\nshowed a thin, white scar. Walter had the twin of that mark under his\nflannels.\n\nMr. Baker did not mind fighting Indians; he thought it a good thing to\nhave their troubles settled all at once in this way, but he did not want\nhis son mixed up in it. The first thing he did when he got home was to\nsend him off secretly by night to the fort, and from there he passed\nover the mountains with other of the settlers' families under strong\nescort, and finally went to his mother's people in the East, and was put\nto school. As it turned out he never came back to Tres Pinos, he does\nnot come into this story any more.\n\nWhen the first smoke rose up that showed where the fierce hate of the\nPaiutes had broken into flame, the Indians took their women and children\naway from the pleasant open slopes, and hid them in deep canons in\nsecret places of the rocks. There they feathered arrows, and twisted\nbowstrings of the sinew of deer. And because there were so many grave\nthings done, and it was not the custom for boys to question their\nelders, Joe never heard how Walter had been sent away. He thought him\nstill at the ranch with his father, and it is because of this mistake\nthat there is any more story at all.\n\nYou may be sure that, of those two boys, Joe's was the deeper loving,\nfor, besides having grown up together, Walter was white, therefore\nthinking himself, and making the other believe it, the better of the\ntwo. But for this Walter made no difference in his behavior; had Joe to\neat at his table, and would have him sleep in his bed, but Joe laughed,\nand lay on the floor. All this was counted a kindness and a great honor\nin the campoodie. Walter could find out things by looking in a book,\nwhich was sheer magic, and had taught Joe to write a little, so that he\ncould send word by means of a piece of paper, which was cleverer than\nthe tricks Joe had taught him, of reading the signs of antelope and elk\nand deer. The white boy was to the Indian a little of all the heroes\nand bright ones of the arrow-maker's tales come alive again. Therefore\nhe quaked in his heart when he heard the rumors that ran about the camp.\n\nThe war began about Cottonwood, and ran like wildfire that licked up all\nthe ranches in its course. Then the whites came strongly against the\nPaiutes at the Stone Corral, and made an end of the best of their\nfighting men. Then the Indians broke out in the north, and at last it\ncame to such a pass that the very boys must do fighting, and the women\nmake bowstrings. The cattlemen turned in to Baker's ranch as a centre,\nand all the northern campoodies gathered together to attack them. They\nhad not much to hope for, only to do as much killing as possible before\nthe winter set in with the hunger and the deep snows.\n\nBy this time Joe's father was dead, and his mother had brought the boy a\nquiver full of arrows and a new bowstring, and sent him down to the\nbattle.\n\nAnd Joe went hotly enough to join the men of the other village, nursing\nhis bow with great care, remembering his father, but when he came to\ncounsel and found where the fight must be, his heart turned again, for\nhe remembered his friend. The braves camped by Little Round Valley, and\nhe thought of the talk he and Walter had there; the war party went over\nthe tongue of hills, and Joe saw Winnedumah shining whitely on Waban,\nand remembered his boyish errand, the mystery of the tall, strange\nwarrior that came upon them in the night, their talk in the hut of the\narrow-maker, and the vow that came afterward.\n\nThe Indians came down a ravine toward Tres Pinos, and there met a band\nof horses which some of their party had run in from the ranches; among\nthem was a pinto pony which Walter had used to ride, and it came to\nJoe's hand when he called. Then the boy wondered if Walter might be\ndead, and leaned his head against the pony's mane; it turned its head\nand nickered softly at his ear.\n\nThe war party stayed in the ravine until it grew dark, and Joe watched\nhow Winnedumah swam in a mist above the hills long after the sun had\ngone quite down, as if in his faithfulness he would outwatch the dark;\nand then the boy's heart was lifted up to the great chief standing still\nby Tinnemaha. \"I will not forget,\" he said. \"I, too, will be faithful.\"\nPerhaps at this moment he expected a miracle to help him in his vow as\nit had helped Winnedumah.\n\nIn the dusk the mounted Indians rode down by the Creek of Tres Pinos.\nWhen they came by the ruined hut where his father had lived, Joe's heart\ngrew hot again, and when he passed the arrow-maker's, he remembered his\nvow. Suddenly he wheeled his pony in the trail, hardly knowing what he\nwould do. The man next to him laid an arrow across his bow and pointed\nit at the boy's breast.\n\n\"Coward,\" he whispered, but an older Indian laid his hand on the man's\narm.\n\n\"Save your arrows,\" he said. Then the ponies swept forward in the\ncharge, but Joe knew in an instant how it would be with him. He would\nbe called false and a coward, killed for it, driven from the tribe, but\nhe would not fight against his sworn brother. He would keep his vow.\n\nA sudden rain of arrows flew from the advancing Paiutes; Joe fumbled his\nand dropped it on the ground. He was wondering if one of the many aimed\nwould find his brother. Bullets answered the arrow flight. He saw the\nbraves pitch forward, and heard the scream of wounded ponies.\n\nHe hoped he would be shot; he would not have minded that; it would be\nbetter than being called a coward. And then it occurred to him, if\nWalter and his father came out and found him when the fight was done,\nthey would think that he had broken his word. The Paiutes began to seek\ncover, but Joe drove out wildly from them, and rode back in the friendly\ndark, and past the ruined campoodie, to the black rocks. There he crept\ninto the cave which only he and Walter knew, and lay on his face and\ncried, for though he was an Indian he was only a boy, and he had seen\nhis first fight. He was sick with the thought of his vow. He lay in the\nblack rocks all the night and the day, and watched the cattlemen and the\nsoldiers ranging all that county for the stragglers of his people, and\nguessed that the Paiutes had made the last stand. Then in the second\nnight he began to work back by secret paths to the mountain camp. It\nnever occurred to him not to go. He had the courage to meet what waited\nfor him there, but he had not the heart to go to it in the full light of\nday. He came in by his mother's place, and she spat upon him, for she\nhad heard how he had carried himself in the fight.\n\n\"No son of mine,\" said she.\n\nHe went by the women and children and heard their jeers. His heart was\nvery sick. He went apart and sat down and waited what the men would say.\nThere were few of them left about the dying fire. They had washed off\ntheir war paint, and their bows were broken. When they spoke at last, it\nwas with mocking and sad scorn.\n\n\"We have enough of killing,\" said the one called Scar-Face. \"Let him\nhave a woman's dress and stay to mend the fire.\"\n\nSo it was done in the presence of all the camp; and because he was a\nboy, and because he was an Indian, he said nothing of his vow, nor\nopened his mouth in his defense, though his heart quaked and his knees\nshook. He had the courage to wear the badge of being afraid all his\nlife. They brought him a woman's dress, though they were all too sad for\nmuch laughter, and in the morning he set to bringing the wood for the\nfire.\n\nAfterward there was a treaty made between the Paiutes and the settlers,\nand the remnant went back to the campoodie of Tres Pinos, and Joe\nlearned how Walter had been sent out of the valley in the beginning of\nthe war, but that did not make any difference about the woman's dress.\nHe and Walter never met again. He continued to go about in dresses,\nthough in time he was allowed to do a man's work, and his knowledge of\nEnglish helped to restore a friendly footing with the cattlemen. The\nvalley filled very rapidly with settlers after that, and under the\nslack usage of the tribe, Mahala Joe, as he came to be known, might have\nthrown aside his woman's gear without offense, but he had the courage to\nwear it to his life's end. He kept his sentence as he kept his vow, and\nyet it is certain that Walter never knew.\n\n\n\n\n  PRONOUNCING VOCABULARY Of\n  INDIAN NAMES AND WORDS\n\n\n  CAMPOODIE (k[)a]mp'[=o]-dy). A group of Indian huts, from the\n    Spanish campo, a field or prairie. In some localities written\n    \"_campody_.\"\n\n  HINONO (h[)i]-n[)o]-n[)o]). A legendary Indian hero.\n\n  MAHALA (m[.a]-h[:a]'l[)a]). An Indian woman, perhaps a corruption\n    from the Spanish _mujer_, woman.\n\n  MESA (m[=a]'sae). A table-land, or plateau with a steeply sloping\n    side or sides.\n\n  MESQUITE (m[)e]s-k[=e]t'). A thorny desert shrub, bearing edible\n    pods, like the locust tree, which are ground into meal for food.\n\n  NA'[:Y]ANG-WIT'E. An Indian gambling game.\n\n  OPPAPAGO (op-p[)a]-p[=a]'g[=o]). A mountain peak near Mt. Whitney.\n    The name signifies \"The Weeper,\" in reference to the streams that\n    run down from it continually like tears.\n\n  PAHRUMP (p[.a]h-r[)u]mp'). From the Indian words _pah_, water, and\n    rump, corn, \"corn-water,\" i. e. a place where there is water\n    enough to grow corn.\n\n  PAIUTES (p[=i]'[=u]t). The name of a large tribe of Indians\n    inhabiting middle California and Nevada. The name is derived from\n    the Indian word _pah_, water, and is used to distinguish this\n    tribe from the related tribe of Utes, who lived in the desert away\n    from running water.\n\n  PENSTEMON (p[)e]ni-st[=e]'m[)o]n). A wild flower common to the\n    lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.\n\n  PHARANAGAT (ph[)a]-r[)a]n-[)a]-g[)a]t'). An Indian name of a\n    place. The meaning is uncertain.\n\n  PINON (p[.=e]-ny[=o]n'). The Spanish name for the one-leaved, nut\n    pine.\n\n  PIPSISEWA (p[)i]p-s[)u]s'[=e]-w[.a]). A wild flower common to\n    the lower slopes of the Sierra Nevada Mountains.\n\n  QUERN (kw[^u]rn). A primitive mill for grinding corn. It consists\n    of two circular stones, the upper being turned by hand.\n\n  SHOSHONE (sh[.=o]-sh[=o]'n[.=e]). An Indian tribe split in two by\n    the Pintes, and living north and south of them. In this book the\n    southern division only is referred to.\n\n  TABOOSE (t[.a]-b[)oo]s'). Small tubercles of the joint grass;\n    they appear on the joints of the roots early in spring, and are an\n    important item of food to the Indians.\n\n  TAVWOTS (t[)a]v-w[)o]ts'). The rabbit.\n\n  TINNEMAHA (tin-ny-m[.a]-hae'). A legendary Indian hero.\n\n  TOGOBAH (t[=o]-g[=o]-bae').             } Indian names of places. The\n  TOGONATEE (t[=o]-g[=o]-n[)a]-t[=e]').  } meaning is uncertain.\n\n  TULARE (t[=oo]-lae're). A marshy place overgrown with the bulrushes\n    known as _tule_.\n\n  VAQUERO (vae-k[=a]'r[=o]). The Spanish word for cowboy (from\n    _vaca_, a cow).\n\n  WABAN (w[)a]-b[)a]n'). An Indian name of a place. The meaning is\n    uncertain.\n\n  WICKIUP (w[)i]k'[)i]-[)u]p). An Indian hut of brush, or reeds. It\n    is often pieced out with blankets and tin cans.\n\n  WINNEDUMAH (win-ny-d[=u]'m[)a]h). A legendary Indian hero.\n\n\n\n\n  Books by Mary Austin\n\n\n  THE FLOCK. Fully illustrated by E. Boyd Smith.\n    Square crown 8vo. $2.00, _net_. Postage, 18 cents.\n\n  ISIDRO. Illustrated by Eric Pape. 12mo, $1.50.\n\n  THE LAND OF LITTLE RAIN. California Sketches.\n    With Illustrations by E. Boyd Smith. 8vo, $2.00, _net_.\n    Postage, 24 cents.\n\n  THE BASKET WOMAN. Square 12mo, $1.50.\n\n\n  HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY\n  BOSTON AND NEW YORK\n\n\n\n\n  The Riverside Press\n  CAMBRIDGE. MASSACHUSETTS\n  U. S. A.\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"The Basket Woman: A Book of Indian Tales for Children","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":36870}