{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_9913/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_9913","id":"gutenberg_9913","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/9913","summary":null,"tags":["American Museum of Natural History -- Fiction","Category: Adventure","Category: Children & Young Adult Reading","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Indians of North America -- Fiction","Nature stories, American","Western stories"],"text":"Produced by Eric Eldred, Debra Storr, and Project Gutenberg\nDistributed Proofreaders\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE TRAIL BOOK\n\nBY\n\nMARY AUSTIN\n\nWITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY MILO WINTER\n\n1918\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n[Illustration: \"'Arr-rr-ump!' I said\"]\n\n\n\nTO MARY, MY NIECE\n\nIN THE HOPE THAT SHE MAY FIND THROUGH THE TRAILS OF HER OWN COUNTRY THE\nROAD TO WONDERLAND CONTENTS\n\n\n\n\n   I  HOW OLIVER AND DORCAS JANE FOUND THE TRAIL\n\n  II  WHAT THE BUFFALO CHIEF TOLD\n\n III  HOW THE MASTODON HAPPENED FIRST TO BELONG TO A MAN, AS TOLD BY\n      ARRUMPA\n\n  IV  THE SECOND PART OF THE MASTODON STORY, CONCERNING THE TRAIL TO THE\n      SEA AND THE TALKING STICK OF TAKU-WAKIN\n\n   V  HOW HOWKAWANDA AND FRIEND-AT-THE-BACK FOUND THE TRAIL TO THE BUFFALO\n      COUNTRY; TOLD BY THE COYOTE\n\n  VI  DORCAS JANE HEARS HOW THE CORN CAME TO THE VALLEY OF THE MISSI-SIPPU;\n      TOLD BY THE CORN WOMAN\n\n VII  A TELLING OF THE SALT TRAIL, OF TSE-TSE-YOTE AND THE DELIGHT-MAKERS;\n      TOLD BY MOKE-ICHA\n\nVIII  YOUNG-MAN-WHO-NEVER-TURNS-BACK: A TELLING OF THE TALLEGEWI, BY ONE\n      OF THEM\n\n  IX  HOW THE LENNI-LENAPE CAME FROM SHINAKI AND THE TALLEGEWI FOUGHT THEM:\n      THE SECOND PART OF THE MOUND-BUILDER'S STORY\n\n   X  THE MAKING OF A SHAMAN: A TELLING OF THE IROQUOIS TRAIL, BY THE\n      ONONDAGA\n\n  XI  THE PEARLS OF COFACHIQUE: HOW LUCAS DE AYLLON CAME TO LOOK FOR THEM\n      AND WHAT THE CACICA FAR-LOOKING DID TO HIM; TOLD BY THE PELICAN.\n\n XII  HOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME TO TUSCALOOSA: A TELLING OF THE TRIBUTE\n      ROAD BY THE LADY OF COFACHIQUE.\n\nXIII  HOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME LOOKING FOR THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA;\n      TOLD BY THE ROAD-RUNNER.\n\n XIV  HOW THE MAN OF TWO HEARTS KEPT THE SECRET OF THE HOLY PLACES; TOLD\n      BY THE CONDOR.\n\n  XV  HOW THE MEDICINE OF THE ARROWS WAS BROKEN AT REPUBLICAN RIVER; TOLD\n      BY THE CHIEF OFFICER OF THE DOG SOLDIERS\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nGLOSSARY\n\n\n\n\nILLUSTRATIONS\n\n\n\"'ARR-RR-UMP!' I SAID\"\n\nTHE BUFFALO CHIEF\n\nTHE MASTODON\n\nTAKU AND ARRUMPA\n\nTHE TRAIL TO THE SEA\n\nTHE TRAIL TO THE BUFFALO COUNTRY\n\nSHOT DOWNWARD TO THE LEDGE WHERE HOWKAWANDA AND YOUNGER BROTHER HUGGED\nTHEMSELVES (in color)\n\nTHE CORN WOMEN\n\nSIGN OF THE SUN AND THE FOUR QUARTERS\n\nMOKE-ICHA\n\nTSE-TSE-YOTE AND MOKE-ICHA (in Color)\n\nTSE-TSE-YOTE AND MOKE-ICHA\n\nTHE MOUND-BUILDERS\n\nTHE IROQUOIS TRAIL\n\nTHE GOLD-SEEKERS\n\nSHE COULD SEE THE THOUGHTS OF A MAN WHILE THEY WERE STILL IN HIS HEART\n(in Color)\n\nTHE CACICA FAR-LOOKING MEETS THE IRON SHIRTS\n\nTHE DESERT\n\nTHE CONDOR THAT HAS HIS NEST ON EL MORRO\n\nTHE DOG SOLDIERS\n\nLINE ART OF BUFFALO\n\nTHE TRAIL BOOK\n\n\n\n\nI\n\nHOW OLIVER AND DORCAS JANE FOUND THE TRAIL\n\n\nFrom the time that he had first found, himself alone with them, Oliver\nhad felt sure that the animals could come alive again if they wished.\nThat was one blowy afternoon about a week after his father had been made\nnight engineer and nobody had come into the Museum for several hours.\n\nOliver had been sitting for some time in front of the Buffalo case,\nwondering what might be at the other end of the trail. The cows that\nstood midway in it had such a _going_ look. He was sure it must lead,\npast the hummock where the old bull flourished his tail, to one of those\nplaces where he had always wished to be. All at once, as the boy sat\nthere thinking about it, the glass case disappeared and the trail shot\nout like a dark snake over a great stretch of rolling, grass-covered\nprairie.\n\nHe could see the tops of the grasses stirring like the hair on the old\nBuffalo's coat, and the ripple of water on the beaver pool which was\njust opposite and yet somehow only to be reached after long travel\nthrough the Buffalo Country. The wind moved on the grass, on the surface\nof the water and the young leaves of the alders, and over all the\nanimals came the start and stir of life.\n\nAnd then the slow, shuffling steps of the Museum attendant startled it\nall into stillness again.\n\nThe attendant spoke to Oliver as he passed, for even a small boy is\nworth talking to when you have been all day in a Museum where nothing is\nnew to you and nobody comes.\n\n\"You want to look out, son,\" said the attendant, who really liked the\nboy and hadn't a notion what sort of ideas he was putting into Oliver's\nhead. \"If you ain't careful, some of them things will come downstairs\nsome night and go off with ye.\"\n\nAnd why should MacShea have said that if he hadn't known for certain\nthat the animals _did_ come alive at night? That was the way Oliver put\nit when he was trying to describe this extraordinary experience to\nhis sister.\n\nDorcas Jane, who was eleven and a half and not at all imaginative, eyed\nhim suspiciously. Oliver had such a way of stating things that were not\nat all believable, in a way that made them seem the likeliest things in\nthe world. He was even capable of acting for days as if things were so,\nwhich you knew from the beginning were only the most delightful of\nmake-believes. Life on this basis was immensely more exciting, but then\nyou never knew whether or not he might be what some of his boy friends\ncalled \"stringing you,\" so when Oliver began to hint darkly at his\nbelief that the stuffed animals in the Mammal room of the Museum came\nalive at night and had larks of their own, Dorcas Jane offered the most\nnoncommittal objection that occurred to her.\n\n\"They couldn't,\" she said; \"the night watchman wouldn't let them.\" There\nwere watchmen, she knew, who went the rounds of every floor.\n\nBut, insisted Oliver, why should they have watchmen at all, if not to\nprevent people from breaking in and disturbing the animals when they\nwere busy with affairs of their own? He meant to stay up there himself\nsome night and see what it was all about; and as he went on to explain\nhow it would be possible to slip up the great stair while the watchmen\nwere at the far end of the long hall, and of the places one could hide\nif the watchman came along when he wasn't wanted, he said \"we\" and \"us.\"\nFor, of course, he meant to take Dorcas Jane with him. Where would be\nthe fun of such an adventure if you had it alone? And besides, Oliver\nhad discovered that it was not at all difficult to scare himself with the\nthings he had merely imagined. There were times when Dorcas Jane's frank\ndisbelief was a great comfort to him. Still, he wasn't the sort of boy\nto be scared before anything has really happened, so when Dorcas Jane\nsuggested that they didn't know what the animals might do to any one who\nwent among them uninvited, he threw it off stoutly.\n\n\"Pshaw! They can't do anything to us! They're stuffed, Silly!\"\n\nAnd to Dorcas Jane, who was by this time completely under the spell of\nthe adventure, it seemed quite likely that the animals should be stuffed\nso that they couldn't hurt you, and yet not stuffed so much that they\ncouldn't come alive again.\n\nIt was all of a week before they could begin. There is a kind of feeling\nyou have to have about an adventure without which the affair doesn't\ncome off properly. Anybody who has been much by himself in the woods has\nhad it; or sometime, when you are all alone in the house, all at once\nthere comes a kind of pricking of your skin and a tightness in your\nchest, not at all unpleasant, and a kind of feeling that the furniture\nhas its eye on you, or that some one behind your shoulder is about to\nspeak, and immediately after that something happens. Or you feel sure it\nwould have happened if somebody hadn't interrupted.\n\nDorcas Jane _never_ had feelings like that. But about a week after\nOliver had proposed to her that they spend a part of the night in the\nlong gallery, he was standing in front of the Buffalo case, wondering\nwhat actually did happen when a buffalo caught you. Quite unexpectedly,\ndeep behind the big bull's glassy eye, he caught a gleam as of another\neye looking at him, meaningly, and with a great deal of friendliness.\nOliver felt prickles come out suddenly all over his body, and without\nquite knowing why, he began to move away from that place, tip-toe and\nslippingly, like a wild creature in the woods when it does not know who\nmay be about. He told himself it would never do to have the animals come\nalive without Dorcas Jane, and before all those stupid, staring folk who\nmight come in at any minute and spoil everything.\n\nThat night, after their father had gone off clanking to his furnaces,\nDorcas heard her brother tapping on the partition between their rooms,\nas he did sometimes when they played \"prisoner.\" She knew exactly what\nhe meant by it and tapped back that she was ready.\n\nEverything worked out just as they had planned. They heard the strange,\nhollow-sounding echoes of the watchman's voice dying down the halls, as\nstair by stair they dropped the street lamps below them, and saw strange\nshadows start out of things that were perfectly harmless and familiar\nby day.\n\nThere was no light in the gallery except faint up-and-down glimmers from\nthe glass of the cases, and here and there the little spark of an eye.\nOutside there was a whole world of light, the milky way of the street\nwith the meteor roar of the Elevated going by, processions of small\nmoons marching below them across the park, and blazing constellations in\nthe high windows opposite. Tucked into one of the window benches between\nthe cases, the children seemed to swing into another world where almost\nanything might happen. And yet for at least a quarter of an hour\nnothing did.\n\n\"I don't believe nothing ever does,\" said Dorcas Jane, who was not at\nall careful of her grammar.\n\n\"Sh-sh!\" said Oliver. They had sat down directly in front of the Buffalo\nTrail, though Dorcas would have preferred to be farther away from the\nPolar Bear. For suppose it hadn't been properly stuffed! But Oliver had\neyes only for the trail.\n\n\"I want to see where it begins and where it goes,\" he insisted.\n\nSo they sat and waited, and though the great building was never allowed\nto grow quite cold, it was cool enough to make it pleasant for them to\nsit close together and for Dorcas to tuck her hand into the crook of\nhis arm....\n\nAll at once the Bull Buffalo shook himself.\n\n[Illustration: Line Art of Mastadons]\n\n\n\n\nII\n\nWHAT THE BUFFALO CHIEF TOLD\n\n\n\"_Wake! Wake!_\" said the Bull Buffalo, with a roll to it, as though the\nword had been shouted in a deep voice down an empty barrel. He shook the\ndust out of his mane and stamped his fore-foot to set the herd in\nmotion. There were thousands of them feeding as far as the eye could\nreach, across the prairie, yearlings and cows with their calves of that\nseason, and here and there a bull, tossing his heavy head and sending up\nlight puffs of dust under the pawings of his hoof as he took up the\nleader's signal.\n\n\"Wake! Wa--ake!\"\n\nIt rolled along the ground like thunder. At the sound the herds gathered\nthemselves from the prairie, they turned back from the licks, they rose\nup _plop_ from the wallows, trotting singly in the trails that rayed out\nto every part of the pastures and led up toward the high ridges.\n\n\"Wa-ak--\" began the old bull; then he stopped short, threw up his head,\nsniffing the wind, and ended with a sharp snort which changed the words\nto \"_What? What?_\"\n\n\"What's this,\" said the Bull Buffalo, \"Pale Faces?\"\n\n\"They are very young,\" said the young cow, the one with the _going_\nlook. She had just been taken into the herd that season and had the\nplace of the favorite next to the leader.\n\n\"If you please, sir,\" said Oliver, \"we only wished to know where the\ntrail went.\"\n\n\"Why,\" said the Buffalo Chief, surprised, \"to the Buffalo roads, of\ncourse. We must be changing pasture.\" As he pawed contempt upon the\nshort, dry grass, the rattlesnake, that had been sunning himself at the\nfoot of the hummock, slid away under the bleached buffalo skull, and the\nsmall, furry things dived everywhere into their burrows.\n\n\"That is the way always,\" said the young cow, \"when the Buffalo People\nbegin their travels. Not even a wolf will stay in the midst of the\nherds; there would be nothing left of him by the time the hooves had\npassed over.\"\n\nThe children could see how that might be, for as the thin lines began to\nconverge toward the high places, it was as if the whole prairie had\nturned black and moving. Where the trails drew out of the flat lands to\nthe watersheds, they were wide enough for eight or ten to walk abreast,\ntrodden hard and white as country roads. There was a deep, continuous\nmurmur from the cows like the voice of the earth talking to itself\nat twilight.\n\n\"Come,\" said the old bull, \"we must be moving.\"\n\n\"But what is that?\" said Dorcas Jane, as a new sound came from the\ndirection of the river, a long chant stretching itself like a snake\nacross the prairie, and as they listened there were words that lifted\nand fell with an odd little pony joggle.\n\n\"That is the Pawnees, singing their travel song,\" said the Buffalo\nChief.\n\nAnd as he spoke they could see the eagle bonnets of the tribesmen coming\nup the hollow, every man mounted, with his round shield and the point of\nhis lance tilted forward. After them came the women on the pack-ponies\nwith the goods, and the children stowed on the travoises of lodge-poles\nthat trailed from the ponies' withers.\n\n\"Ha-ah,\" said the old bull. \"One has laid his ear to the ground in their\nlodges and has heard the earth tremble with the passing of the\nBuffalo People.\"\n\n\"But where do they go?\" said Dorcas.\n\n\"They follow the herds,\" said the old bull, \"for the herds are their\nfood and their clothes and their housing. It is the Way Things Are that\nthe Buffalo People should make the trails and men should ride in them.\nThey go up along the watersheds where the floods cannot mire, where the\nsnow is lightest, and there are the best lookouts.\"\n\n\"And, also, there is the easiest going,\" said a new voice with a snarly\nrunning whine in it. It came from a small gray beast with pointed ears\nand a bushy tail, and the smut-tipped nose that all coyotes have had\nsince their very first father blacked himself bringing fire to Man from\nthe Burning Mountain. He had come up very softly at the heels of the\nBuffalo Chief, who wheeled suddenly and blew steam from his nostrils.\n\n\"That,\" he said, \"is because of the calves. It is not because a buffalo\ncannot go anywhere it pleases him; down ravines where a horse would\nstumble and up cliffs where even you, O Smut Nose, cannot follow.\"\n\n\"True, Great Chief,\" said the Coyote, \"but I seem to remember trails\nthat led through the snow to very desirable places.\"\n\nThis was not altogether kind, for it is well known that it is only when\nsnow has lain long enough on the ground to pack and have a hard coating\nof ice, that the buffaloes dare trust themselves upon it. When it is\nnew-fallen and soft they flounder about helplessly until they die of\nstarvation, and the wolves pull them down, or the Indians come and kill\nthem. But the old bull had the privilege which belongs to greatness, of\nnot being obliged to answer impertinent things that were said to him. He\nwent on just as if nothing had interrupted, telling how the buffalo\ntrails had found the mountain passes and how they were rutted deep into\nthe earth by the migrating herds.\n\n\"I have heard,\" he said, \"that when the Pale Faces came into the country\nthey found no better roads anywhere than the buffalo traces--\"\n\n\"Also,\" purred Moke-icha, \"I have heard that they found trails through\nlands where no buffalo had been before them.\" Moke-icha, the Puma, lay\non a brown boulder that matched so perfectly with her watered coat that\nif it had not been for the ruffling of the wind on her short fur and the\ntwitchings of her tail, the children might not have discovered her.\n\"Look,\" she said, stretching out one of her great pads toward the south,\nwhere the trail ran thin and white across a puma-colored land, streaked\nwith black lava and purple shadow. Far at the other end it lifted in\nred, wall-sided buttes where the homes of the Cliff People stuck like\nhoneycombs in the wind-scoured hollows.\n\n\"Now I recall a trail in that country,\" said Moke-icha, \"that was older\nthan the oldest father's father of them could remember. Four times a\nyear the People of the Cliffs went down on it to the Sacred Water, and\ncame back with bags of salt on their shoulders.\"\n\nEven as she spoke they could see the people coming out of the Cliff\ndwellings and the priests going into the kivas preparing for\nthe journey.\n\nThat was how it was; when any animal spoke of the country he knew best,\nthat was what the children saw. And yet all the time there was the\nbeginning of the buffalo trail in front of them, and around them, drawn\nthere by that something of himself which every man puts into the work of\nhis hands, the listening tribesmen. One of these spoke now in answer to\nMoke-icha.\n\n\"Also in my part of the country,\" he said, \"long before there were Pale\nFaces, there were trade trails and graded ways, and walled ways between\nvillage and village. We traded for cherts as far south as Little River\nin the Tenasas Mountains, and north to the Sky-Blue Water for copper\nwhich was melted out of rocks, and there were workings at Flint Ridge\nthat were older than the great mound at Cahokia.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" cried both the children at once, \"Mound-Builders!\"--and they\nstared at him with interest.\n\nHe was probably not any taller than the other Indians, but seemed so on\naccount of his feather headdress which was built up in front with a\ncurious cut-out copper ornament. They thought they recognized the broad\nbanner stone of greenish slate which he carried, the handle of which was\ntasseled with turkey beards and tiny tails of ermine. He returned the\nchildren's stare in the friendliest possible fashion, twirling his\nbanner stone as a policeman does his night stick.\n\n\"Were you? Mound-Builders, you know?\" questioned Oliver.\n\n\"You could call us that. We called ourselves Tallegewi, and our trails\nwere old before the buffalo had crossed east of the Missi-Sippu, the\nFather of all Rivers. Then the country was full of the horned people,\nthick as flies in the Moon of Stopped Waters.\" As he spoke, he pointed\nto the moose and wapiti trooping down the shallow hills to the\nwatering-places. They moved with a dancing motion, and the multitude of\ntheir horns was like a forest walking, a young forest in the spring\nbefore the leaves are out and there is a clicking of antlered bough on\nbough. \"They would come in twenty abreast to the licks where we lay in\nwait for them,\" said the Tallega. \"They were the true trail-makers.\"\n\n\"Then you must have forgotten what I had to do with it,\" said a voice\nthat seemed to come from high up in the air, so that they all looked up\nsuddenly and would have been frightened at the huge bulk, if the voice\ncoming from it in a squeaky whisper had not made it seem ridiculous. It\nwas the Mastodon, who had strolled in from the pre-historic room, though\nit was a wonder to the children how so large a beast could move\nso silently.\n\n\"Hey,\" said a Lenni-Lenape, who had sat comfortably smoking all this\ntime, \"I've heard of you--there was an old Telling of my\nfather's--though I hardly think I believed it. What are you doing here?\"\n\n\"I've a perfect right to come,\" said the Mastodon, shuffling\nembarrassedly from foot to foot. \"I was the first of my kind to have a\nman belonging to me, and it was I that showed him the trail to the sea.\"\n\n\"Oh, please, would you tell us about it?\" said Dorcas.\n\nThe Mastodon rocked to and fro on his huge feet, embarrassedly.\n\n\"If--if it would please the company--\"\n\nEverybody looked at the Buffalo Chief, for, after all, it was he who\nbegan the party. The old bull pawed dust and blew steam from his\nnostrils, which was a perfectly safe thing to do in case the story\ndidn't turn out to his liking.\n\n\"Tell, tell,\" he agreed, in a voice like a man shouting down twenty rain\nbarrels at once.\n\nAnd looking about slyly with his little twinkling eyes at the attentive\ncircle, the Mastodon began.\n\n\n\n\nIII\n\nHOW THE MASTODON HAPPENED FIRST TO BELONG TO A MAN, AS TOLD BY ARRUMPA\n\n\n\"In my time, everything, even the shape of the land was different. From\nTwo Rivers it was all marsh, marsh and swamp with squidgy islands, with\nswamp and marsh again till you came to hills and hard land, beyond which\nwas the sea. Nothing grew then but cane and coarse grass, and the water\nrotting the land until there was no knowing where it was safe treading\nfrom year to year. Not that it mattered to my people. We kept to the\nhills where there was plenty of good browse, and left the swamp to the\nGrass-Eaters--bunt-headed, woolly-haired eaters of grass!\"\n\nUp came Arrumpa's trunk to trumpet his contempt, and out from the\nhillslope like a picture on a screen stretched for a moment the flat\nreed-bed of Two Rivers, with great herds of silly, elephant-looking\ncreatures feeding there, with huge incurving trunks and backs that\nsloped absurdly from a high fore-hump. They rootled in the tall grass or\nshouldered in long, snaky lines through the canes, their\ntrunks waggling.\n\n\"Mammoths they were called,\" said Arrumpa, \"and they hid in the swamp\nbecause their tusks curved in and they were afraid of Saber-Tooth, the\nTiger. There were a great many of them, though not so many as our\npeople, and also there was Man. It was the year my tusks began to grow\nthat I first saw him. We were coming up from the river to the\nbedding-ground and there was a thin rim of the moon like a tusk over the\nhill's shoulder. I remember the damp smell of the earth and the good\nsmell of the browse after the sun goes down, and between them a thin\nblue mist curling with a stinging smell that made prickles come along\nthe back of my neck.\n\n\"'What is that?' I said, for I walked yet with my mother.\n\n\"'It is the smell which Man makes so that other people may know where he\nis and keep away from him,' she said, for my mother had never been\nfriends with Man and she did not know any better.\n\n\"Then we came up over the ridge and saw them, about a score, naked and\ndancing on the naked front of the hill. They had a fire in their midst\nfrom which the blue smell went up, and as they danced they sang--\n\n\"'Hail, moon, young moon!\nHail, hail, young moon!\nBring me something that I wish,\nHail, moon, hail!'\n\n\"--catching up fire-sticks in their hands and tossing them toward the\ntusk of the moon. That was how they made the moon grow, by working fire\ninto it, so my man told me afterwards. But it was not until I began to\nwalk by myself that he found me.\n\n\"I had come up from the lower hills all one day,\" said the Mastodon.\n\"There was a feel in the air as if the Great Cold had breathed into it.\nIt curdled blue as pond water, and under the blueness the forest color\nshowed like weed under water. I walked by myself and did not care who\nheard me. Now and then I tore up a young tree, for my tusks had grown\nfast that year and it was good to feel the tree tug at its roots and\nstruggle with me. Farther up, the wind walked on the dry leaves with a\nsound like a thousand wapiti trooping down the mountain. Every little\nwhile, for want of something to do, I charged it. Then I carried a pine,\nwhich I had torn up, on my tusks, until the butt struck a boulder which\nwent down the hill with an avalanche of small stones that set all the\nechoes shouting.\n\n\"In the midst of it I lifted up my voice and said that I was I, Arrumpa,\nwalking by myself,--and just then a dart struck me. The men had come up\nunder cover of the wind on either side so that there was nothing for me\nto do but to move forward, which I did, somewhat hurriedly.\n\n\"I had not come to my full size then, but I was a good weight for my\nyears,\" said Arrumpa modestly,--\"a very good weight, and it was my\nweight that saved me, for the edge of the ravine that opened suddenly in\nfront of me crumbled, so that I came down into the bottom of it with a\ngreat mass of rubbish and broken stone, with a twisted knee, and very\nmuch astonished.\n\n\"I remember blowing to get the blood and dust out of my eyes,--there was\na dart stuck in my forehead,--and seeing the men come swarming over the\nedge of the ravine, which was all walled in on every side, shaking their\nspears and singing. That was the way with men; whatever they did they\nhad to sing about it. 'Ha-ahe-ah!' they sang--\n\n\"'Great Chief, you're about to die,\nThe Gods have said it.'\n\n\"So they came capering, but there was blood in my eyes and my knee hurt\nme, so when one of them stuck his spear almost up to the haft in my\nside, I tossed him. I took him up lightly on my tusks and he lay still\nat the far end of the ravine where I had dropped him. That stopped the\nshouting; but it broke out again suddenly, for the women had come down\nthe wild vines on the walls, with their young on their shoulders, and\nthe wife of the man I had tossed found him. The noise of the hunters was\nas nothing to the noise she made at me. Madness overtook her; she left\noff howling over her man and seizing her son by the hand,--he was no\nmore than half-grown, not up to my shoulder,--she pushed him in front of\nme. 'Take him! Take my son, Man-Killer!' she screamed. 'After you have\ntaken the best of the tribe, will you stop at a youngling?' Then all the\nothers screeched at her like gulls frightened from their rock, and\nstopped silent in great fear to see what I would do about it.\n\n\"I did not know what to do, for there was no way I could tell her I was\nsorry I had killed her husband; and the lad stood where she had pushed\nhim, not making any noise at all but a sharp, steady breathing. So I\ntook him up in my trunk, for, indeed, I did not know what to do, and as\nI held him at the level of my eyes, I saw a strange thing,--that the boy\nwas not afraid. He was not in the least afraid, but very angry.\n\n\"'I hate you, Arrumpa,' he said, 'because you have killed my father. I\nam too little to kill you for it now, but when I am a man I shall kill\nyou.' He struck me with his fists. 'Put me down, Man-Killer!'\n\n\"So I put him down. What else was there to do? And there was a sensation\nin my breast, a sensation as of bending the knees and bowing the\nneck--not at all unpleasant--He stood where I placed him, between my\ntusks, and one of the hunters, who was a man in authority, called out to\nhim to come away while they killed me.\n\n\"'That you shall not,' said my manling, 'for he has killed my father,\ntherefore he is mine to kill according to the custom of killing.'\n\n\"Then the man was angry.\n\n\"'Come away, little fool,' he said. 'He is our meat. Have we not\nfollowed him for three days and trapped him?'\n\n\"The boy looked at him under his brows, drawn level.\n\n\"'That was my father's spear that stuck in him, Opata,' he said.\n\n\"Now, as the man spoke, I began to see what they had done to me these\nthree days, for there was no way out of the ravine, and the women had\nbrought their fleshing-knives and baskets: but the boy was quicker even\nthan my anger. He reached up a hand to either of my tusks,--he could\nbarely lay hands on them,--and his voice shook, though I do not think it\nwas with anger. 'He is mine to kill,' he said, 'according to custom. He\nis my Arrumpa, and I call the tribe to witness. Not one of you shall lay\nhands on him until one of us has killed the other.'\n\n\"Then I lifted up my trunk over him, for my heart swelled against the\nhunters, and I gave voice as a bull should when he walks by himself.\n\n\"'Arr-rr-ump!' I said. And the people were all silent with astonishment.\n\n\"Finally the man who had first spoken, spoke again, very humbly, 'Great\nChief, give us leave to take away your father.' So we gave them leave.\nThey took the hurt man--his back was broken--away by the vine ladders,\nand my young man went and lay face down where his father had lain, and\nshook with many strange noises while water came out of his eyes. When he\nsat up at last and saw me blowing dust on the spear-cut in my side to\nstop the bleeding, he gathered broad leaves, dipped them in pine gum,\nand laid them on the cut. Then I blew dust on these, and seeing that I\nwas more comfortable, Taku-Wakin--that was what I learned to call\nhim--saluted with both hands to his head, palms outward. 'Friend,' he\nsaid,--'for if you are not my friend I think I have not one other in the\nworld,--besides, I am too little to kill you,--I go to bury my father.'\n\n\"For three days I bathed my knee in the spring, and saw faces come to\npeer about the edge of it and heard the beat of the village drums. The\nthird day my young man came, wearing his father's collar of bear's\nteeth, with neither fire-stick nor food nor weapon upon him. \"'Now I am\nall the man my mother has,' he said; 'I must do what is necessary to\nbecome a tribesman.'\n\n\"I did not know then what he meant, but it seems it was a custom.\"\n\nAll the Indians in the group that had gathered about the Mastodon,\nnodded at this.\n\n\"It was so in my time,\" said the Mound-Builder. \"When a youth has come\nto the age where he is counted a man, he goes apart and neither eats nor\ndrinks until, in the shape of some living thing, the Great Mystery has\nrevealed itself to him.\n\n\"It was so he explained it to me,\" agreed Arrumpa; \"and for three days\nhe ate and drank nothing, but walked by himself talking to his god.\nOther times he would talk to me, scratching my hurts and taking the\nticks out of my ears, until--I do not know what it was, but between me\nand Taku-Wakin it happened that we understood, each of us, what the\nother was thinking in his heart as well as if we had words--Is this also\na custom?\"\n\nA look of intelligence passed between the members of his audience.\n\n\"Once to every man,\" said an Indian who leaned against Moke-icha's\nboulder, \"when he shuts all thought of killing out of his heart and\ngives himself to the beast as to a brother, knowledge which is different\nfrom the knowledge of the chase comes to both of them.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Oliver, \"I had a dog once--\" But he became very much\nembarrassed when he discovered that he had drawn the attention of the\ncompany. It had always been difficult for him to explain why it was he\nhad felt so certain that his dog and he had always known what the other\nwas thinking; but the Indians and the animals understood him.\n\n\"All this Taku explained to me,\" went on Arrumpa. \"The fourth day, when\nTaku fainted for lack of food, I cradled him in my tusks and was greatly\ntroubled. At last I laid him on the fresh grass by the spring and blew\nwater on him. Then he sat up laughing and spluttering, but faintly.\n\n\"'Now am I twice a fool,' he said, 'not to know from the first that you\nare my Medicine, the voice of the Mystery.'\n\n\"Then he shouted for his mother, who came down from the top of the\nravine, very timidly, and fed him.\n\n\"After that he would come to me every day, sometimes with a bough of\nwild apples or a basket of acorns, and I would set him on my neck so he\ncould scratch between my ears and tell me all his troubles. His father,\nhe said, had been a strong man who put himself at the head of the five\nchiefs of the tribe and persuaded them to leave off fighting one another\nand band together against the enemy tribes. Opata, the man who had\nwished to kill me, was the man likeliest to be made High Chief in his\nfather's place.\n\n\"'And then my bad days will begin,' said Taku-Wakin, 'for he hates me\nfor my father's sake, and also a little for yours, Old Two-Tails, and he\nwill persuade the Council to give my mother to another man and I shall\nbe made subject to him. Worse,' he said,--'the Great Plan of my father\nwill come to nothing.'\n\n\"He was always talking about this Great Plan and fretting over it, but I\nwas too new to the customs of men to ask what he meant by it.\n\n\"'If I had but a Sign,' he said, 'then they would give me my father's\nplace in the Council ... but I am too little, and I have not yet killed\nanything worth mentioning.'\n\n\"So he would sit on my neck and drum with his heels while he thought,\nand there did not seem to be anything I could do about it. By this time\nmy knee was quite well. I had eaten all the brush in the ravine and was\nbeginning to be lonely. Taku wasn't able to visit me so often, for he\nhad his mother and young brothers to kill for.\n\n\"So one night when the moon came walking red on the trail of the day,\nfar down by Two Rivers I heard some of my friends trumpeting; therefore\nI pulled down young trees along the sides of the ravine, with great\nlumps of earth, and battered the rotten cliffs until they crumbled in a\nheap by which I scrambled up again.\n\n\"I must have traveled a quarter of the moon's course before I heard the\npatter of bare feet in the trail and a voice calling:--\n\n\"'Up! Take me up, Arrumpa!'\n\n\"So I took him up, quite spent with running, and yet not so worn out but\nthat he could smack me soundly between the eyes, as no doubt I deserved.\n\n\"'Beast of a bad heart,' he said, 'did I not tell you that to-morrow the\nmoon is full and the Five Chiefs hold Council?' So he had, but my thick\nwits had made nothing of it. 'If you leave me this night,' said Taku,\n'then they will say that my Medicine has left me and my father's place\nwill be given to Opata.'\n\n\"'Little Chief,' I said, 'I did not know that you had need of me, but it\ncame into my head that I also had need of my own people. Besides, the\nbrush is eaten.'\n\n\"'True, true!' he said, and drummed on my forehead. 'Take me home,' he\nsaid at last, 'for I have followed you half the night, and I must not\nseem wearied at the Council.'\n\n\"So I took him back as far as the Arch Rock which springs high over the\ntrail by which the men of Taku's village went out to the hunting. There\nwas a cleft under the wing of the Arch, close to the cliff, and every\nman going out to the hunt threw a dart at it, as an omen. If it stuck,\nthe omen was good, but if the point of the dart broke against the face\nof the cliff and fell back, the hunter returned to his hut, and if he\nhunted at all that day, he went out in another direction. We could see\nthe shafts of the darts fast in the cleft, bristling in the moonlight.\n\n\"'Wait here, under the Arch,' said Taku-Wakin, 'till I see if the arrow\nof my thought finds a cleft to stick into.'\n\n\"So we waited, watching the white, webby moons of the spiders, wet in\nthe grass, and the man huts sleeping on the hill, and felt the Dawn's\nbreath pricking the skin of our shoulders. The huts were mere heaps of\nbrush like rats' nests.\n\n\"'Shall I walk on the huts for a sign, Little Chief?' said I.\n\n\"'Not that, Old Hilltop,' he laughed; 'there are people under the huts,\nand what good is a Sign without people?'\n\n\"Then he told me how his father had become great by thinking, not for\nhis own clan alone, but for all the people--it was because of the long\nreach of his power that they called him Long-Hand. Now that he was gone\nthere would be nothing but quarrels and petty jealousies. 'They will\nhunt the same grounds twice over,' said Taku-Wakin; 'they will kill one\nanother when they should be killing their enemies, and in the end the\nGreat Cold will get them.'\n\n\"Every year the Great Cold crept nearer. It\ncame like a strong arm and pressed the people west and south so that the\ntribes bore hard on one another.\n\n\"'Since old time,' said Taku-Wakin, 'my people have been sea people. But\nthe People of the Great Cold came down along the ice-rim and cut them\noff from it. My father had a plan to get to the sea, and a Talking Stick\nwhich he was teaching me to understand, but I cannot find it in any of\nthe places where he used to hide it. If I had the Stick I think they\nwould make me chief in my father's place. But if Opata is made chief,\nthen I must give it to him if I find it, and Opata will have all the\nglory. If I had but a Sign to keep them from making Opata chief...' So\nhe drummed on my head with his heels while I leaned against the Arch\nRock--oh, yes, I can sleep very comfortably, standing--and the moon slid\ndown the hill until it shone clear under the rock and touched the\nfeathered butts of the arrows. Then Taku woke me.\n\n\"'Up, put me up, Arrumpa! For now I have thought of a Sign that even the\nFive Chiefs will have respect for.'\n\n\"So I put him up until his foot caught in the cleft of the rock and he\npried out five of the arrows.\n\n\"'Arrows of the Five Chiefs,' he said,--'that the chiefs gave to the\ngods to keep, and the gods have given to me again!'\n\n\"That was the way always with Taku-Wakin, he kept all the god customs of\nthe people, but he never doubted, when he had found what he wanted to\ndo, that the gods would be on his side. He showed me how every arrow was\na little different from the others in the way the blood drain was cut or\nthe shaft feathered.\n\n\"'No fear,' he said. 'Every man will know his own when I come to the\nCouncil.'\n\n\"He hugged the arrows to his breast and laughed over them, so I hugged\nhim with my trunk, and we agreed that once in every full moon I was to\ncome to Burnt Woods, and wait until he called me with something that he\ntook from his girdle and twirled on a thong. I do not know what it was\ncalled, but it had a voice like young thunder.\n\n\"Like this?\" The Mound-Builder cut the air with an oddly shaped bit of\nwood swung on an arm's-length of string, once lightly, like a covey of\nquail rising, and then loud like a wind in the full-branched forest.\n\n\"Just such another. Thrice he swung it so that I might not mistake the\nsound, and that was the last I saw of him, hugging his five arrows, with\nthe moon gone pale like a meal-cake, and the tame wolves that skulk\nbetween the huts for scraps, slinking off as he spoke to them.\"\n\n\"And did they--the Five Chiefs, I mean--have respect for his arrows?\"\nDorcas Jane wondered.\n\n\"So he told me. They came from all the nine villages and sat in a\ncouncil ring, each with the elders of his village behind him, and in\nfront his favorite weapon, tied with eagle feathers for enemies he had\nslain, and red marks for battles, and other signs and trophies. At the\nhead of the circle there was the spear of Long-Hand, and a place left\nfor the one who should be elected to sit in it. But before the Council\nhad time to begin, came Taku-Wakin with his arms folded--though he told\nme it was to hide how his heart jumped in his bosom--and took his\nfather's seat. Around the ring of the chiefs and elders ran a growl like\nthe circling of thunder in sultry weather, and immediately it was turned\ninto coughing; every man trying to eat his own exclamation, for, as he\nsat, Taku laid out, in place of a trophy, the five arrows.\n\n\"'Do we sit at a game of knuckle-bone?' said Opata at last, 'or is this\na Council of the Elders?'\n\n\"'Game or Council,' said Taku-Wakin, 'I sit in my father's place until I\nhave a Sign from him whom he will have to sit there.'\"\n\n\"But I don't understand--\" began Oliver, looking about the circle of\nlistening Indians. \"His father was dead, wasn't he?\"\n\n\"What is 'dead'?\" said the Lenni-Lenape; \"Indians do not know. Our\nfriends go out of their bodies; where? Into another--or into a beast?\nWhen I was still strapped in my basket my father set me on a bear that\nhe had killed and prayed that the bear's cunning and strength should\npass into me. Taku-Wakin's people thought that the heart of Long-Hand\nmight have gone into the Mastodon.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" agreed Arrumpa gravely. \"I remember that Taku would call me\nFather at times, and--if he was very fond of me--Grandfather. But all he\nwanted at that tune was to keep Opata from being elected in his father's\nplace, and Opata, who understood this perfectly, was very angry.\n\n\"'It is the custom,' he said, 'when a chief sleeps in the High\nPlaces,'--he meant the hilltops where they left their dead on poles or\ntied to the tree branches,--'that we elect another to his place in\nthe Council.'\n\n\"'Also it is a custom,' said Taku-Wakin, 'to bring the token of his\ngreat exploit into Council and quicken the heart by hearing of it. You\nhave heard, O Chiefs,\" he said, \"that my people had a plan for the good\nof the people, and it has come to me in my heart that that plan was\nstronger in him than death. For he was a man who finished what he had\nbegun, and it may be that he is long-handed enough to reach back from\nthe place where he has gone. And this is a Sign to me, that he has taken\nhis cut stick, which had the secret of his plan, with him.'\n\n\"Taku-Wakin fiddled with the arrows, laying them straight, hardly daring\nto look up at Opata, for if the chief had his father's cut stick, now\nwould be the time that he would show it. Out of the tail of his eye he\ncould see that the rest of the Council were startled. That was the way\nwith men. Me they would trap, and take the skin of Saber-Tooth to wrap\ntheir cubs in, but at the hint of a Sign, or an old custom slighted,\nthey would grow suddenly afraid. Then Taku looked up and saw Opata\nstroking his face with his hand to hide what he was thinking. He was no\nfool, and he saw that if the election was pressed, Taku-Wakin, boy as he\nwas, would sit in his father's place because of the five arrows.\nTaku-Wakin stood up and stretched out his hand to the Council.\n\n\"'Is it agreed, O Chiefs, that you keep my father's place until there is\na Sign?'--and a deep _Hu-huh_ ran all about the circle. It was sign\nenough for them that the son of Long-Hand played unhurt with arrows that\nhad been given to the gods. Taku stretched his hand to Opata, 'Is it\nagreed, O Chief?'\n\n\"'So long as the tribe comes to no harm,' said Opata, making the best of\na bad business. 'It shall be kept until Long-Hand or his Talking Rod\ncomes back to us.'\n\n\"'And,' said Taku-Wakin to me, 'whether Opata or I first sits in it,\ndepends on which one of us can first produce a Sign.'\"\n\n[Illustration: TAKU AND ARRUMPA.]\n\n\n\n\nIV\n\nTHE SECOND PART OF THE MASTODON STORY CONCERNING THE TRAIL TO THE SEA\nAND THE TALKING STICK OF TAKU-WAKIN\n\n\n\"It was the Talking Stick of his father that Taku-Wakin wanted,\" said\nArrumpa. \"He still thought Opata might have it, for every now and then\nTaku would catch him coming back with marsh mud on his moccasins. That\nwas how I began to understand that the Great Plan was really a plan to\nfind a way _through_ the marsh to the sea on the other side of it.\n\n\"'Opata has the Stick,' said Taku, 'but it will not talk to him;\ntherefore he goes, as my father did, when the waters are low and the\nhummocks of hard ground stand up, to find a safe way for the tribe to\nfollow. But my father had worked as far as the Grass Flats and beyond\nthem, to a place of islands.'\n\n\"'Squidgy Islands,' I told him. 'The Grass-Eaters go there to drop their\ncalves every season.' Taku kicked me behind the ears.\n\n\"'Said I not you were a beast of a bad heart!' he scolded. But how\nshould I know he would care to hear about a lot of silly Mammoths.\n'Also,' he said, 'you are my Medicine. You shall find me the trail of\nthe Talking Stick, and I, Taku, son of Long-Hand, shall lead\nthe people.'\n\n\"'In six moons,' I told him, 'the Grass-Eaters go to the Islands to\ncalve--'\n\n\"'In which time,' said Taku, 'the chiefs will have quarreled six times,\nand Opata will have eaten me. Drive them, Arrumpa, drive them!'\n\n\"Umph, uh-ump!\" chuckled the old beast reminiscently. \"We drove; we\ndrove. What else was there to do? Taku-Wakin was my man. Besides, it was\ngreat fun. One-Tusk helped me. He was one of our bachelor herd who had\nlost a tusk in his first fight, which turned out greatly to his\nadvantage. He would come sidling up to a refractory young cow with his\neyes twinkling, and before anybody suspected he could give such a prod\nwith his one tusk as sent her squealing.... But that came afterward. The\nMammoth herd that fed on our edge of the Great Swamp was led by a\nwrinkled old cow, wise beyond belief. Scrag we called her. She would\ntake the herd in to the bedding-ground by the river, to a landing-point\non the opposite side, never twice the same, and drift noiselessly\nthrough the canebrake, choosing blowy hours when the swish of cane over\nwoolly backs was like the run of the wind. Days when the marsh would be\nfull of tapirs wallowing and wild pig rootling and fighting, there might\nbe hundreds feeding within sound of you and not a hint of it except the\noccasional _toot-toot_ of some silly cow calling for Scrag, or a young\nbull blowing water.\n\n\"They bedded at the Grass Flats, but until Scrag herself had a mind to\ntake the trail to the Squidgy Islands, there was nobody but Saber-Tooth\ncould persuade her.\n\n\"'Then Saber-Tooth shall help us,' said my man.\n\n\"Not for nothing was he called Taku-Wakin, which means 'The Wonderful.'\nHe brought a tiger cub's skin of his father's killing, dried stiff and\nsewed up with small stones inside it. At one end there was a thong with\na loop in it, and it smelled of tiger. I could see the tip of One-Tusk's\ntrunk go up with a start every time he winded it. There was a curled\nmoon high up in the air like a feather, and a moon-white tusk glinting\nhere and there, where the herds drifted across the flats. There was no\ntrouble about our going among them so long as Scrag did not wind us.\n_They_ claimed to be kin to us, and they cared nothing for Man even when\nthey smelled him. We came sidling up to a nervous young cow, and Taku\ndropped from my neck long enough to slip the thong over a hind foot as\nshe lifted it. The thong was wet at first and scarcely touched her.\nPresently it tightened. Then the cow shook her foot to free it and the\nskin rattled. She squealed nervously and started out to find Scrag, who\nwas feeding on the far side of the hummock, and at every step the\ntiger-skin rattled and bounced against her. Eyes winked red with alarm\nand trunks came lifting out of the tall grass like serpents. One-Tusk\nmoved silently, prod-prodding; we could hear the click of ivory and the\nbunting of shoulder against shoulder. Then some silly cow had a whiff of\nthe skin that bounded along in their tracks like a cat, and raised the\ncry of 'Tiger! Tiger!' Far on the side from us, in the direction of the\nSquidgy Islands, Scrag trumpeted, followed by frantic splashing as the\nfrightened herd plunged into the reed-beds. Taku slipped from my neck,\nshaking with laughter.\n\n\"'Follow, follow,' he said; 'I go to bring up the people.'\n\n\"It was two days before Scrag stopped running.\n\n\"From the Grass Flats on to the Islands it was all one reed-bed where\nthe water gathered into runnels between hummocks of rotten rushes, where\nno trail would lie and any false step might plunge you into black bog to\nthe shoulder. About halfway we found the tiger-skin tramped into the\nmire, but as soon as we struck the Islands I turned back, for I was in\nneed of good oak browse, and I wished to find out what had become of\nTaku-Wakin. It was not until one evening when I had come well up into\nthe hills for a taste of fir, that I saw him, black against the sun with\nthe tribe behind him. The Five Chiefs walked each in front of his own\nvillage, except that Taku-Wakin's own walked after Opata, and there were\ntwo of the Turtle clan, each with his own head man, and two under\nApunkewis. Before all walked Taku-Wakin holding a peeled stick upright\nand seeing the end of the trail, but not what lay close in front of him.\nHe did not even see me as I slipped around the procession and left a wet\ntrail for him to follow.\n\n\"That was how we crossed to the Islands, village by village, with\nTaku-Wakin close on my trail, which was the trail of the Grass-Eaters.\nThey swam the sloughs with their children on their shoulders, and made\nrafts of reeds to push their food bundles over. By night they camped on\nthe hummocks and built fires that burned for days in the thick litter of\nreeds. Red reflections glanced like fishes along the water. Then there\nwould be the drums and the--the thunder-twirler--\"\n\n\"But what kept him so long and how did he persuade them?\" Dorcas Jane\nsquirmed with curiosity.\n\n\"He'd been a long time working out the trail through the canebrake,\"\nsaid Arrumpa, \"making a Talking Stick as his father had taught him; one\nring for a day's journey, one straight mark for so many man's paces;\nnotches for turns. When he could not remember his father's marks he made\nup others. When he came to his village again he found they had all gone\nover to Opata's. Apunkewis, who had the two villages under Black Rock\nand was a friend of Long-Hand, told him that there would be a Sign.\n\n\"'There will,' said Taku-Wakin, 'but I shall bring it.' He knew that\nOpata meant mischief, but he could not guess what. All the way to\nOpata's his thought went round and round like a fire-stick in the\nhearth-hole. When he heard the drums he flared up like a spark in the\ntinder. Earlier in the evening there had been a Big Eating at Opata's,\nand now the men were dancing.\n\n\"'_Eyah, eyah!_' they sang.\n\n\"Taku-Wakin whirled like a spark into the ring. '_Eyah, eyah!_' he\nshouted,--\n\n\"'Great are the people\nThey have found a sign,\nThe sign of the Talking Rod!\nEyah! My people!'\n\n\"He planted it full in the firelight where it rocked and beckoned.\n'_Eyah_, the rod is calling,' he sang.\n\n\"The moment he had sight of Opata's face he knew that whatever the chief\nhad meant to do, he did not have his father's Stick. Taku caught up his\nown and twirled it, and finally he hid it under his coat, for if any one\nhad handled it he could have seen that this was not the Stick of\nLong-Hand, but fresh-peeled that season. But because Opata wanted the\nStick of Long-Hand, he thought any stick of Taku's must be the one he\nwanted. And what Opata thought, the rest of the tribe thought also. So\nthey rose up by clans and villages and followed after the Sign. That was\nhow we came to the Squidgy Islands. There were willows there and young\nalders and bare knuckles of rock holding up the land.\n\n\"Beyond that the Swamp began; the water gathered itself into bayous that\nwent slinking, wolflike, between the trees, or rose like a wolf through\nthe earth and stole it from under your very foot. It doubled into black\nlagoons to doze, and young snakes coiled on the lily-pads, so that when\nthe sun warmed them you could hear the shi-shisi-ss like a wind rising.\nAlso by night there would be greenish lights that followed the trails\nfor a while and went out suddenly in whistling noises. Now and then in\nbroad day the Swamp would fall asleep. There would be the plop of\nturtles falling into the creek and the slither of alligators in the mud,\nand all of a sudden not a ripple would start, and between the clacking\nof one reed and another would come the soundless lift and stir of the\nSwamp snoring. Then the hair on your neck would rise, and some man\ncaught walking alone in it would go screaming mad with fear.\n\n\"Six moons we had to stay in that place, for Scrag had hidden the herd\nso cleverly that it was not until the week-old calves began to squeak\nfor their mothers that we found them. And from the time they were able\nto run under their mother's bodies, One-Tusk and I kept watch and watch\nto see that they did not break back to the Squidgy Islands. It was\nnecessary for Taku-Wakin's plan that they should go out on the other\nside where there was good land between the Swamp and the Sea, not\nclaimed by the Kooskooski. We learned to eat grass that summer and\nsquushy reeds with no strength in them--did I say that all the\nGrass-Eaters were pot-bellied? Also I had to reason with One-Tusk, who\nhad not loved a man, and found that the Swamp bored him. By this time,\ntoo, Scrag knew what we were after; she covered her trail and crossed it\nas many times as a rabbit. Then, just as we thought we had it, the wolf\nwater came and gnawed the trail in two.\n\n\"Taku-Wakin would come to me by the Black Lagoon and tell me how Opata\nworked to make himself chief of the nine villages. He had his own and\nTaku-Wakin's, for Taku had never dared to ask it back again, and the\nchief of the Turtle clan was Opata's man.\n\n\"'He tells the people that my Stick will not talk to me any more. But\nhow can it talk, Arrumpa, when you have nothing to tell it?'\n\n\"'Patience,' I said. 'If we press the cows too hard they will break back\nthe way they have come, and that will be worse than waiting.'\n\n\"'And if I do not get them forward soon,' said Taku-Wakin, 'the people\nwill break back, and my father will be proved a fool. I am too little\nfor this thing, Grandfather,' he would say, leaning against my trunk,\nand I would take him up and comfort him.\n\n\"As for Opata, I used to see him sometimes, dancing alone to increase\nhis magic power,--I speak but as the people of Taku-Wakin spoke,--and\nonce at the edge of the lagoon, catching snakes. Opata had made a noose\nof hair at the end of a peeled switch, and he would snare them as they\ndarted like streaks through the water. I saw him cast away some that he\ncaught, and others he dropped into a wicker basket, one with a narrow\nneck such as women used for water. How was I to guess what he wanted\nwith them? But the man smelled of mischief. It lay in the thick air like\nthe smell of the lagoons; by night you could hear it throbbing with the\ndrums that scared away the wandering lights from the nine villages.\n\n\"Scrag was beginning to get the cows together again; but by that time\nthe people had made up their minds to stay where they were. They built\nthemselves huts on platforms above the water and caught turtles in\nthe bayous.\n\n\"'Opata has called a Council,' Taku told me, 'to say that I must make my\nStick talk, or they will know me for a deceiver, a maker of short life\nfor them.'\n\n\"'Short life to him,' I said. 'In three nights or four, the Grass-Eaters\nwill be moving.'\n\n\"'And my people are fast in the mud,' said Taku-Wakin. 'I am a mud-head\nmyself to think a crooked rod could save them.' He took it from his\ngirdle warped by the wet and the warmth of his body. 'My heart is sick,\nArrumpa, and Opata makes them a better chief than I, for I have only\ntried to find them their sea again. But Opata understands them. This is\na foolish tale that will never be finished.'\n\n\"He loosed the stick from his hand over the black water like a boy\nskipping stones, but--this is a marvel--it turned as it flew and came\nback to Taku-Wakin so that he had to take it in his hand or it would\nhave struck him. He stood looking at it astonished, while the moon came\nup and made dart-shaped ripples of light behind the swimming snakes in\nthe black water. For he saw that if the Stick would not leave him,\nneither could he forsake--Is this also known to you?\" For he saw the\nchildren smiling.\n\nThe Indian who leaned against Moke-icha's boulder drew a crooked stick,\nshaped something like an elbow, from under his blanket. Twice he tossed\nit lightly and twice it flew over the heads of the circle and back like\na homing pigeon as he lightly caught it.\n\n\"Boomerangs!\" cried the children, delighted.\n\n\"We called it the Stick-which-kills-flying,\" said the Indian, and hid it\nagain under his blanket.\n\n\"Taku-Wakin thought it Magic Medicine,\" said the Mastodon. \"It was a\nSign to him. Two or three times he threw the stick and always it came\nback to him. He was very quiet, considering what it might mean, as I\ntook him back between the trees that stood knee-deep in the smelly\nwater. We saw the huts at last, built about in a circle and the sacred\nfire winking in the middle. I remembered the time I had watched with\nTaku under the Arch Rock.\n\n\"'Give me leave,' I said, 'to walk among the huts, and see what will come\nof it.'\n\n\"Taku-Wakin slapped my trunk.\n\n\"'Now by the oath of my people, you shall walk,' he said. 'If the herds\nbegin to move, and if no hurt comes to anybody by it, you shall walk;\nfor as long as they are comfortable, even though the Rod should speak,\nthey would not listen.'\n\n\"The very next night Scrag began to move her cows out toward the hard\nland, and when I had marked her trail for five man journeys, I came back\nto look for Taku-Wakin. There was a great noise of singing a little back\nfrom the huts at the Dancing-Place, and all the drums going, and the\nsmoke that drifted along the trails had the smell of a Big Eating. I\nstole up in the dark till I could look over the heads of the villagers\nsquatted about the fire. Opata was making a speech to them. He was\nworking himself into a rage over the wickedness of Taku-Wakin. He would\nstrike the earth with his stone-headed spear as he talked, and the tribe\nwould yelp after him like wolves closing in on a buck. If the Talking\nStick which had led them there was not a liar, let it talk again and\nshow them the way to their sea. Let it talk! And at last, when they had\nscreeched themselves hoarse, they were quiet long enough to hear it.\n\n\"Little and young, Taku-Wakin looked, standing up with his Stick in his\nhand, and the words coming slowly as if he waited for them to reach him\nfrom far off. The Stick was no liar, he said; it was he who had lied to\nthem; he had let them think that this was his father's Stick. It was a\nnew stick much more powerful, as he would yet show them. And who was he\nto make it talk when it would not? Yet it would talk soon...very\nsoon...he had heard it whispering... Let them not vex the Stick lest it\nspeak strange and unthought-of things...\n\n\"Oh, but he was well called 'The Wonderful.' I could see the heads of\nthe tribesmen lifting like wolves taking a new scent, and mothers\ntighten their clutch on their children. Also I saw Opata. Him I watched,\nfor he smelt of mischief. His water-basket was beside him, and as the\npeople turned from baiting Taku-Wakin to believing him, I saw Opata push\nthe bottle secretly with his spear-butt. It rolled into the cleared\nspace toward Taku-Wakin, and the grass ball which stopped its mouth fell\nout unnoticed. _But no water came out!_\n\n\"Many of the waters of the Swamp were bitter and caused sickness, so it\nwas no new thing for a man to have his own water-bottle at Council. But\nwhy should he carry a stopped bottle and no water in it? Thus I watched,\nwhile Taku-Wakin played for his life with the people's minds, and Opata\nwatched neither the people nor him, but the unstopped mouth of the\nwater-bottle.\n\n\"I looked where Opata looked, for I said to myself, from that point\ncomes the mischief, and looking I saw a streak of silver pour out of the\nmouth of the bottle and coil and lift and make as a snake will for the\nnearest shadow. It was the shadow of Taku-Wakin's bare legs. Then I knew\nwhy Opata smelled of mischief when he had caught snakes in the lagoon.\nBut I was afraid to speak, for I saw that if Taku moved the snake would\nstrike, and there is no cure for the bite of the snake called\nSilver Moccasin.\n\n\"Everybody's eyes were on the rod but mine and Opata's, and as I saw\nTaku straighten to throw, I lifted my voice in the dark and trumpeted,\n'Snake! Snake!' Taku leaped, but he knew my voice and he was not so\nfrightened as the rest of them, who began falling on their faces. Taku\nleaped as the Silver Moccasin lifted to strike, and the stick as it flew\nout of his hand, low down like a skimming bird, came back in a\ncircle--he must have practiced many times with it--and dropped the snake\nwith its back broken. The people put their hands over their mouths. They\nhad not seen the snake at all, but a stick that came back to the\nthrower's hand was magic. They waited to see what Opata would do\nabout it.\n\n\"Opata stood up. He was a brave man, I think, for the Stick was Magic to\nhim, also, and yet he stood out against it. Black Magic he said it was,\nand no wonder it had not led them out of the Swamp, since it was a false\nstick and Taku-Wakin a Two-Talker. Taku-Wakin could no more lead them\nout of the Swamp than his stick would leave him. Like it, they would be\nthrown and come back to the hand of Taku-Wakin for his own purposes.\n\n\"He was a clever man, was Opata. He was a fine tall man, beaked like an\neagle, and as he moved about in the clear space by the fire, making a\npantomime of all he said, as their way is in speech-making, he began to\ntake hold on the minds of the people. Taku-Wakin watched sidewise; he\nsaw the snake writhing on the ground and the unstopped water-bottle with\nthe ground dry under it. I think he suspected. I saw a little ripple go\nover his naked body as if a thought had struck him. He stepped aside\nonce, and as Opata came at him, threatening and accusing, he changed his\nplace again, ever so slightly. The people yelped as they thought they\nsaw Taku fall back before him. Opata was shaking his spear, and I began\nto wonder if I had not waited too long to come to Taku-Wakin's rescue,\nwhen suddenly Opata stopped still in his tracks and shuddered. He went\ngray in the fire-light, and--he was a brave man who knew his death when\nhe had met it--from beside his foot he lifted up the broken-backed snake\non his spear-point. Even as he held it up for all of them to see, his\nlimbs began to jerk and stiffen.\n\n\"I went back to look for One-Tusk. The end of those who are bitten by\nthe moccasin is not pretty to see, and besides, I had business. One-Tusk\nand I walked through all nine villages...and when we had come out on the\nother side there were not two sticks of them laid together. Then the\npeople came and looked and were afraid, and Taku-Wakin came and made a\nsound as when a man drops a ripe paw-paw on the ground. 'Pr-r-utt!' he\nsaid, as though it were no more matter than that. 'Now we shall have the\nless to carry.' But the mother of Taku-Wakin made a terrible outcry. In\nthe place where her hut had been she had found the Talking Stick of\nTaku's father, trampled to splinters.\n\n\"She had had it all the time hidden in her bundle. Long-Hand had told\nher it was Magic Medicine and she must never let any one have it. _She_\nthought it was the only thing that had kept her and her children safe on\nthis journey. But Taku told them that it was his father's Rod which had\nbewitched them and kept them from going any farther because it had come\nto the end of its knowledge. Now they would be free to follow his own\nStick, which was so much wiser. So he caught their minds as he had\ncaught the Stick, swinging back from disaster. For this is the way with\nmen, if they have reason which suits them they do not care whether it is\nreasonable or not. It was sufficient for them, one crooked stick being\nbroken, that they should rise up with a shout and follow another.\"\n\nArrumpa was silent so long that the children fidgeted.\n\n\"But it couldn't have been just as easy as that,\" Dorcas insisted. \"And\nwhat did they do when they got to the sea finally?\"\n\n\"They complained of the fishy taste of everything,\" said Arrumpa; \"also\nthey suffered on the way for lack of food, and Apunkewis was eaten by an\nalligator. Then they were afraid again when they came to the place\nbeyond the Swamp where the water went to and fro as the sea pushed it,\nuntil some of the old men remembered they had heard it was the sea's\ncustom. Twice daily the water came in as if to feed on the marsh grass.\nGreat clouds of gulls flew inland, screaming down the wind, and across\nthe salt flats they had their first sight of the low, hard land.\n\n\"We lost them there, for we could not eat the salt grass, and Scrag had\nturned north by a mud slough where the waters were bitter, and red moss\ngrew on the roots of the willows. We ate for a quarter of the moon's\ncourse before we went back around the hard land to see what had become\nof Taku-Wakin. We fed as far as there was any browse between the sea and\nthe marsh, and at last we saw them come, across the salt pastures. They\nwere sleek as otters with the black slime of the sloughs, and there was\nnot a garment left on them which had not become water-soaked and\nuseless. Some of the women had made slips of sea-birds' skins and nets\nof marsh grass for carrying their young. It was only by these things\nthat you could tell that they were Man. They came out where the hard\nland thinned to a tusk, thrust far out into the white froth and the\nthunder. We saw them naked on the rocks, and then with a great shout\njoin hands as they ran all together down the naked sand to worship the\nsea. But Taku-Wakin walked by himself...\"\n\n\"And did you stay there with him?\" asked Oliver when he saw by the stir\nin the audience that the story was quite finished.\n\n\"We went back that winter--One-Tusk and I; in time they all went,\" said\nArrumpa. \"It was too cold by the sea in winter. And the land changed.\nEven in Taku-Wakin's time it changed greatly. The earth shook and the\nwater ran out of the marsh into the sea again, and there was hard ground\nmost of the way to Two Rivers. Every year the tribes used to go down by\nit to gather sea food.\"\n\nThe Indians nodded.\n\n\"It was so in our time,\" they said. \"There were great heaps of shells by\nthe sea where we came and dried fish and feasted.\"\n\n\"Shell Mounds,\" said Oliver. \"I've heard of those, too. But I never\nthought they had stories about them.\"\n\n\"There is a story about everything,\" said the Buffalo Chief; and by this\ntime the children were quite ready to believe him.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nV\n\nHOW HOWKAWANDA AND FRIEND-AT-THE-BACK FOUND THE TRAIL TO THE BUFFALO\nCOUNTRY TOLD BY THE COYOTE\n\n\n\"Concerning that Talking Stick of Taku-Wa-kin's,\"--said the Coyote, as\nthe company settled back after Arrumpa's story,--\"there is a Telling of\n_my_ people ... not of a Rod, but a Skin, a hide of thy people, Great\nChief,\"--he bowed to the Bull Buffalo,--\"that talked of Tamal-Pyweack\nand a Dead Man's Journey--\" The little beast stood with lifted paw and\nnose delicately pointed toward the Bighorn's country as it lifted from\nthe prairie, drawing the earth after it in great folds, high crest\nbeyond high crest flung against the sun; light and color like the inside\nof a shell playing in its snow-filled hollows.\n\nUp sprang every Plainsman, painted shield dropped to the shoulder, right\nhand lifted, palm outward, and straight as an arrow out of every throat,\nthe \"Hey a-hey a-huh!\" of the Indian salutation.\n\n\"Backbone of the World!\" cried the Blackfoot. \"Did you come over that,\nLittle Brother?\"\n\n\"Not I, but my father's father's first father. By the Crooked Horn,\"--he\nindicated a peak like a buffalo horn, and a sag in the crest below it.\n\n\"Then that,\" said Bighorn, dropping with one bound from his aerial\nlookout, \"should be _my_ story, for my people made that trail, and it\nwas long before any other trod in it.\"\n\n\"It was of that first treading that the Skin talked,\" agreed the Coyote.\nHe looked about the company for permission to begin, and then addressed\nhimself to Arrumpa. \"You spoke, Chief Two-Tails, of the 'tame wolves' of\nTaku-Wakin; _were_ they wolves, or--\"\n\n\"Very like you, Wolfling, now that I think of it,\" agreed the Mastodon,\n\"and they were not tame exactly; they ran at the heels of the hunters\nfor what they could pick up, and sometimes they drove up game for him.\"\n\n\"Why should a coyote, who is the least of all wolves, hunt for himself\nwhen he can find a man to follow?\" said the Blackfoot, who sat smoking a\ngreat calumet out of the west corridor. \"Man is the wolf's Medicine. In\nhim he hears the voice of the Great Mystery, and becomes a dog, which is\ngreat gain to him.\"\n\nPleased as if his master had patted him, without any further\nintroduction the Coyote began his story.\n\n\"Thus and so thought the First Father of all the Dogs in the year when\nhe was called Friend-at-the-Back, and Pathfinder. That was the time\nof the Great Hunger, nearly two years after he joined the man pack\nat Hidden-under-the-Mountain and was still known by his lair name\nof Younger Brother. He followed a youth who was the quickest\nafoot and the readiest laugher. He would skulk about the camp at\nHidden-under-the-Mountain watching until the hunters went out. Sometimes\nHow-kawanda--that was the young man he followed--would give a coyote cry\nof warning, and sometimes Younger Brother would trot off in the\ndirection where he knew the game to be, looking back and pointing until\nthe young men caught the idea; after which, when they had killed, the\nhunters would laugh and throw him pieces of liver.\n\n\"The Country of Dry Washes lies between the Cinoave on the south and the\nPeople of the Bow who possessed the Salmon Rivers, a great gray land cut\nacross by deep gullies where the wild waters come down from the\nWall-of-Shining-Rocks and worry the bone-white boulders. The People of\nthe Dry Washes live meanly, and are meanly spoken of by the People of\nthe Coast who drove them inland from the sea borders. After the Rains,\nwhen the quick grass sprang up, vast herds of deer and pronghorn come\ndown from the mountains; and when there were no rains the people ate\nlizards and roots. In the moon of the Frost-Touching-Mildly clouds came\nup from the south with a great trampling of thunder, and flung out over\nthe Dry Washes as a man flings his blanket over a maiden. But if the\nRains were scant for two or three seasons, then there was Hunger, and\nthe dust devils took the mesas for their dancing-places.\n\n\"Now, Man tribe and Wolf tribe are alike in one thing. When there is\nscarcity the packs increase to make surer of bringing down the quarry,\nbut when the pinch begins they hunt scattering and avoid one another.\nThat was how it happened that the First Father, who was still called\nYounger Brother, was alone with Howkawanda when he was thrown by a buck\nat Talking Water in the moon of the Frost-Touching-Mildly. Howkawanda\nhad caught the buck by the antlers in a blind gully at the foot of the\nTamal-Pyweack, trying for the throw back and to the left which drops a\nbuck running, with his neck broken. But his feet slipped on the grass\nwhich grows sleek with dryness, and by the time the First Father came up\nthe buck had him down, scoring the ground on either side of the man's\nbody with his sharp antlers, lifting and trampling. Younger Brother\nleaped at the throat. The toss of the antlers to meet the stroke drew\nthe man up standing. Throwing his whole weight to the right he drove\nhome with his hunting-knife and the buck toppled and fell as a tree\nfalls of its own weight in windless weather.\n\n\"'Now, for this,' said Howkawanda to my First Father, when they had\nbreathed a little, 'you are become my very brother.' Then he marked the\ncoyote with the blood of his own hurts, as the custom is when men are\nnot born of one mother, and Younger Brother, who had never been touched\nby a man, trembled. That night, though it made the hair on his neck rise\nwith strangeness, he went into the hut of Howkawanda at\nHidden-under-the-Mountain and the villagers wagged their heads over it.\n'Hunger must be hard on our trail,' they said, 'when the wolves come to\nhouse with us.'\n\n\"But Howkawanda only laughed, for that year he had found a maiden who\nwas more than meat to him. He made a flute of four notes which he would\nplay, lying out in the long grass, over and over, until she came out to\nhim. Then they would talk, or the maiden would pull grass and pile it in\nlittle heaps while Howkawanda looked at her and the First Father looked\nat his master, and none of them cared where the Rains were.\n\n\"But when no rain fell at all, the camp was moved far up the shrunken\ncreek, and Younger Brother learned to catch grasshoppers, and ate\njuniper berries, while the men sat about the fire hugging their lean\nbellies and talking of Dead Man's Journey. This they would do whenever\nthere was a Hunger in the Country of the Dry Washes, and when they were\nfed they forgot it.\"\n\nThe Coyote interrupted his own story long enough to explain that though\nthere were no buffaloes in the Country of the Dry Washes, on the other\nside of the Wall-of-Shining-Rocks the land was black with them. \"Now and\nthen stray herds broke through by passes far to the north in the Land of\nthe Salmon Rivers, but the people of that country would not let\nHowkawanda's people hunt them. Every year, when they went up by tribes\nand villages to the Tamal-Pyweack to gather pine nuts, the People of the\nDry Washes looked for a possible trail through the Wall to the Buffalo\nCountry. There was such a trail. Once a man of strange dress and speech\nhad found his way over it, but he was already starved when they picked\nhim up at the place called Trap-of-the-Winds, and died before he could\ntell anything. The most that was known of this trail at\nHidden-under-the-Mountain was that it led through Knife-Cut Canyon; but\nat the Wind Trap they lost it.\n\n\"I have heard of that trail, 'said the First Father of all the Dogs to\nHowkawanda, one day, when they had hunted too far for returning and\nspent the night under a juniper: 'a place where the wind tramples\nbetween the mountains like a trapped beast. But there is a trail beyond\nit. I have not walked in it. All my people went that way at the\nbeginning of the Hunger.'\n\n\"'For your people there may be a way,' said Howkawanda, 'but for\nmine--they are all dead who have looked for it. Nevertheless, Younger\nBrother, if we be not dead men ourselves when this Hunger is past, you\nand I will go on this Dead Man's Journey. Just now we have other\nbusiness.'\n\n\"It is the law of the Hunger that the strongest must be fed first, so\nthat there shall always be one strong enough to hunt for the others. But\nHowkawanda gave the greater part of his portion to his maiden.\n\n\"So it happened that sickness laid hold on Howkawanda between two days.\nIn the morning he called to Younger Brother. 'Lie outside,' he said,\n'lest the sickness take you also, but come to me every day with your\nkill, and let no man prevent you.'\n\n\"So Younger Brother, who was able to live on juniper berries, hunted\nalone for the camp of Hidden-under-the-Mountain, and Howkawanda held\nback Death with one hand and gripped the heart of the First Father of\nall the Dogs with the other. For he was afraid that if he died, Younger\nBrother would turn wolf again, and the tribe would perish. Every day he\nwould divide what Younger Brother brought in, and after the villagers\nwere gone he would inquire anxiously and say, 'Do you smell the Rain,\nFriend and Brother?'\n\n\"But at last he was too weak for asking, and then quite suddenly his\nvoice was changed and he said, 'I smell the Rain, Little Brother!' For\nin those days men could smell weather quite as well as the other\nanimals. But the dust of his own running was in Younger Brother's nose,\nand he thought that his master's mind wandered. The sick man counted on\nhis fingers. 'In three days,' he said, 'if the Rains come, the back of\nthe Hunger is broken. Therefore I will not die for three days. Go, hunt,\nFriend and Brother.'\n\n\"The sickness must have sharpened Howkawanda's senses, for the next day\nthe coyote brought him word that the water had come back in the gully\nwhere they threw the buck, which was a sign that rain was falling\nsomewhere on the high ridges. And the next day he brought word, 'The\ntent of the sky is building.' This was the tentlike cloud that would\nstretch from peak to peak of the Tamal-Pyweack at the beginning of the\nRainy Season.\n\n\"Howkawanda rose up in his bed and called the people. 'Go, hunt! go,\nhunt!' he said; 'the deer have come back to Talking Water.' Then he lay\nstill and heard them, as many as were able, going out joyfully. 'Stay\nyou here, Friend and Brother,' he said, 'for now I can sleep a little.'\n\n\"So the First Father of all the Dogs lay at his master's feet and whined\na little for sympathy while the people hunted for themselves, and the\nmyriad-footed Rain danced on the dry thatch of the hut and the baked\nmesa. Later the creek rose in its withered banks and began to talk to\nitself in a new voice, the voice of Raining-on-the-Mountain.\n\n\"'Now I shall sleep well, 'said the sick man. So he fell into deeper and\ndeeper pits of slumber while the rain came down in torrents, the grass\nsprouted, and far away Younger Brother could hear the snapping of the\nbrush as the Horned People came down the mountain.\n\n\"It was about the first streak of the next morning that the people waked\nin their huts to hear a long, throaty howl from Younger Brother.\nHowkawanda lay cold, and there was no breath in him. They thought the\ncoyote howled for grief, but it was really because, though his master\nlay like one dead, there was no smell of death about him, and the First\nFather was frightened. The more he howled, however, the more certain the\nvillagers were that Howkawanda was dead, and they made haste to dispose\nof the body. Now that the back of the Hunger was broken, they wished to\ngo back to Hidden-under-the-Mountain.\n\n\"They drove Younger Brother away with sticks and wrapped the young man\nin fine deerskins, binding them about and about with thongs, with his\nknife and his fire-stick and his hunting-gear beside him. Then they made\nready brush, the dryest they could find, for it was the custom of the\nDry Washes to burn the dead. They thought of the Earth as their mother\nand would not put anything into it to defile it. The Head Man made a\nspeech, putting in all the virtues of Howkawanda, and those that he\nmight have had if he had been spared to them longer, while the women\ncast dust on their hair and rocked to and fro howling. Younger Brother\ncrept as close to the pyre as he dared, and whined in his throat as the\nfire took hold of the brush and ran crackling up the open spaces.\n\n\"It took hold of the wrapped deerskins, ran in sparks like little deer\nin the short hair, and bit through to Howkawanda. But no sooner had he\nfelt the teeth of the flame than the young man came back from the place\nwhere he had been, and sat up in the midst of the burning. He leaped out\nof the fire, and the people scattered like embers and put their hands\nover their mouths, as is the way with men when they are astonished.\nHowkawanda, wrapped as he was, rolled on the damp sand till the fires\nwere out, while Younger Brother gnawed him free of the death-wrappings,\nand the people's hands were still at their mouths. But the first step he\ntook toward them they caught up sticks and stones to threaten.\n\n\"It was a fearful thing to them that he should come back from being\ndead. Besides, the hair was burned half off his head, and he was\nstreaked raw all down one side where the fire had bitten him. He stood\nblinking, trying to pick up their meaning with his eyes. His maiden\nlooked up from her mother's lap where she wept for him, and fled\nshrieking.\n\n\"'Dead, go back to the dead!' cried the Head Man, but he did not stop to\nsee whether Howkawanda obeyed him, for by this time the whole pack was\nsquealing down the creek to Hidden-under-the-Mountain. Howkawanda looked\nat his maiden running fast with the strength of the portion he had saved\nfor her; looked at the empty camp and the bare hillside; looked once at\nthe high Wall of the Pyweack, and laughed as much as his burns would\nlet him.\n\n\"'If we two be dead men, Brother,' he said, 'it may be we shall have\nluck on a Dead Man's Journey.'\n\n\"It would have been better if they could have set out at once, for rain\nin the Country of Dry Washes means snow on the Mountain. But they had to\nwait for the healing of Howkawanda's burns, and to plump themselves\nout a little on the meat--none too fat--that came down on its\nown feet before the Rains. They lay in the half-ruined huts and\nheard, in the intervals of the storm, the beating of tom-toms at\nHidden-under-the-Mountain to keep off the evil influences of one who had\nbeen taken for dead and was alive again.\n\n\"By the time they were able to climb to the top of Knife-Cut Canyon the\nsnow lay over the mountains like a fleece, and at every turn of the wind\nit shifted. From the Pass they dropped down into a pit between the\nranges, where, long before they came to it, they could hear the wind\nbeating about like a trapped creature. Here great mountain-heads had run\ntogether like bucks in autumn, digging with shining granite hooves deep\ninto the floor of the Canyon. Into this the winds would drop from the\nhigh places like broken-winged birds, dashing themselves against the\npolished walls of the Pyweack, dashing and falling back and crying\nwoundedly. There was no other way into this Wind Trap than the way\nHowkawanda and Younger Brother had come. If there was any way out only\nthe Four-Footed People knew it.\n\n\"But over all their trails snow lay, deepening daily, and great rivers\nof water that fell into the Trap in summer stood frozen stiff like ice\nvines climbing the Pyweack.\n\n\"The two travelers made them a hut in broad branches of a great fir, for\nthe snow was more than man-deep already, and crusted over. They laid\nsticks on the five-branched whorl and cut away the boughs above them\nuntil they could stand. Here they nested, with the snow on the upper\nbranches like thatch to keep them safe against the wind. They ran on the\nsurface of the snow, which was packed firm in the bottom of the Trap,\nand caught birds and small game wintering in runways under the snow\nwhere the stiff brush arched and upheld it. When the wind, worn out with\nits struggles, would lie still in the bottom of the Trap, the two would\nrace over the snow-crust whose whiteness cut the eye like a knife,\nworking into every winding of the Canyon for some clue to the Dead\nMan's Journey.\n\n[Illustration: \"Shot downward to the ledge where Howkawanda and Younger\nBrother hugged themselves\"]\n\n\"On one of these occasions, caught by a sudden storm, they hugged\nthemselves for three days and ate what food they had, mouthful by\nmouthful, while the snow slid past them straight and sodden. It closed\nsmooth over the tree where their house was, to the middle branches. Two\ndays more they waited until the sun by day and the cold at night had\nmade a crust over the fresh fall. On the second day they saw something\nmoving in the middle of the Canyon. Half a dozen wild geese had been\ncaught in one of the wind currents that race like rivers about the High\nPlaces of the World, and dropped exhausted into the Trap. Now they rose\nheavily; but, starved and blinded, they could not pitch their flight to\nthat great height. Round and round they beat, and back they dropped from\nthe huge mountain-heads, bewildered. Finally, the leader rose alone\nhigher and higher in that thin atmosphere until the watchers almost lost\nhim, and then, exhausted, shot downward to the ledge where Howkawanda\nand Younger Brother hugged themselves in the shelter of a wind-driven\ndrift. They could see the gander's body shaken all over with the pumping\nof his heart as Younger Brother took him hungrily by the neck.\n\n\"'Nay, Brother,' said Howkawanda, 'but I also have been counted dead,\nand it is in my heart that this one shall serve us better living than\ndead.' He nursed the great white bird in his bosom and fed it with the\nlast of their food and a little snow-water melted in his palm. In an\nhour, rested and strengthened, the bird rose again, beating a wide\ncircle slowly and steadily upward, until, with one faint honk of\nfarewell, it sailed slowly out of sight between the peaks, sure of its\ndirection.\n\n\"'That way,' said Howkawanda, 'lies Dead Man's Journey.'\n\n\"When they came back over the same trail a year later, they were\nfrightened to see what steeps and crevices they had covered. But for\nthat first trip the snow-crust held firm while they made straight for\nthe gap in the peaks through which the wild goose had disappeared. They\ntraveled as long as the light lasted, though their hearts sobbed and\nshook with the thin air and the cold.\n\n\"The drifts were thinner, and the rocks came through with clusters of\nwind-slanted cedars. By nightfall snow began again, and they moved,\ntouching, for they could not see an arm's length and dared not stop lest\nthe snow cover them. And the hair along the back of Younger Brother\nbegan to prick.\n\n\"'Here I die, indeed,' said Howkawanda at last, for he suffered most\nbecause of his naked skin. He sank down in the soft snow at Younger\nBrother's shoulder.\n\n\"'Up, Master,' said Younger Brother, 'I hear something.'\n\n\"'It is the Storm Spirit singing my death song,' said Howkawanda. But\nthe coyote took him by the neck of his deerskin shirt and dragged him\na little.\n\n\"'Now,' he said, 'I smell something.'\n\n\"Presently they stumbled into brush and knew it for red cedar. Patches\nof it grew thick on the high ridges, matted close for cover. As the\ntravelers crept under it they heard the rustle of shoulder against\nshoulder, the moving click of horns, and the bleat of yearlings for\ntheir mothers. They had stumbled in the dark on the bedding-place of a\nflock of Bighorn.\n\n\"'Now we shall also eat,' said Younger Brother, for he was quite empty.\n\n\"The hand of Howkawanda came out and took him firmly by the loose skin\nbetween the shoulders.\n\n\"'There was a coyote once who became brother to a man,' he said, 'and\nmen, when they enter a strange house in search of shelter and direction,\ndo not first think of killing.'\n\n\"'One blood we are,' said the First Father of Dogs, remembering how\nHowkawanda had marked him,' but we are not of one smell and the rams may\ntrample me.'\n\n\"Howkawanda took off his deerskin and put around the coyote so that he\nshould have man smell about him, for at that time the Bighorn had not\nlearned to fear man.\n\n\"They could hear little bleats of alarm from the ewes and the huddling\nof the flock away from them, and the bunting of the Chief Ram's horns on\nthe cedars as he came to smell them over. Younger Brother quivered, for\nhe could think of nothing but the ram's throat, the warm blood and the\ntender meat, but the finger of Howkawanda felt along his shoulders for\nthe scar of the Blood-Mixing, the time they had killed the buck at\nTalking Water. Then the First Father of all the Dogs understood that Man\nwas his Medicine and his spirit leaped up to lick the face of the man's\nspirit. He lay still and felt the blowing in and out of Howkawanda's\nlong hair on the ram's breath, as he nuzzled them from head to heel.\nFinally the Bighorn stamped twice with all his four feet together, as a\nsign that he had found no harm in the strangers. They could feel the\nflock huddling back, and the warmth of the packed fleeces. In the midst\nof it the two lay down and slept till morning.\n\n\"They were alone in the cedar shelter when they woke, but the track of\nthe flock in the fresh-fallen snow led straight over the crest under the\nCrooked Horn to protected slopes, where there was still some browse and\nopen going.\n\n\"Toward nightfall they found an ancient wether the weight of whose horns\nhad sunk him deep in the soft snow, so that he could neither go forward\nnor back. Him they took. It was pure kindness, for he would have died\nslowly otherwise of starvation. That is the Way Things Are,\" said the\nCoyote; \"when one _must_ kill, killing is allowed. But before they\nkilled him they said certain words.\n\n\"Later,\" the Coyote went on, \"they found a deer occasionally and\nmountain hares. Their worst trouble was with the cold. Snow lay deep\nover the dropped timber and the pine would not burn. Howkawanda would\nscrape together moss and a few twigs for a little fire to warm the front\nof him and Younger Brother would snuggle at his back, so between two\nfriends the man saved himself.\"\n\nThe Blackfoot nodded. \"Fire is a very old friend of Man,\" he said; \"so\nold that the mere sight of it comforts him; they have come a long way\ntogether.\" \"Now I know,\" said Oliver, \"why you called the first dog\nFriend-at-the-Back.\"\n\n\"Oh, but there was more to it than that,\" said the Coyote, \"for the next\ndifficulty they had was to carry their food when they found it.\nHowkawanda had never had good use of his shoulder since the fire bit it,\nand even a buck's quarter weights a man too much in loose snow. So he\ntook a bough of fir, thick-set with little twigs, and tied the kill on\nthat. This he would drag behind him, and it rode lightly over the\nsurface of the drifts. When the going was bad, Younger Brother would try\nto tug a little over his shoulder, so at last Howkawanda made a harness\nfor him to pull straight ahead. Hours when they would lie storm-bound\nunder the cedars, he whittled at the bough and platted the twigs\ntogether till it rode easily.\n\n\"In the moon of Tender Leaves, the people of the Buffalo Country, when\nthey came up the hills for the spring kill, met a very curious\nprocession coming down. They saw a man with no clothes but a few tatters\nof deerskin, all scarred down one side of his body, and following at his\nback a coyote who dragged a curiously plaited platform, by means of two\npoles harnessed across his shoulders. It was the first travoise. The men\nof the Buffalo Country put their hands over their mouths, for they had\nnever seen anything like it.\"\n\nThe Coyote waited for the deep \"huh-huh\" of approval which circled the\nattentive audience at the end of the story.\n\n\"Fire and a dog!\" said the Blackfoot, adding a little pinch\nof sweet-grass to his smoke as a sign of thankfulness,--\n\"Friend-on-the-Hearth and Friend-at-the-Back! Man may go far with them.\"\n\nMoke-icha turned her long flanks to the sun. \"Now I thought the tale\nbegan with a mention of a Talking Skin--\"\n\n\"Oh, that!\" The Coyote recalled himself. \"After he had been a year in\nthe Buffalo Country, Howkawanda went back to carry news of the trail to\nthe Dry Washes. All that summer he worked over it while his dogs hunted\nfor him--for Friend-at-the-Back had taken a mate and there were four\ncubs to run with them. Every day, as Howkawanda worked out the trail, he\nmarked it with stone and tree-blazes. With colored earth he marked it on\na buffalo skin; from the Wind Trap to the Buffalo Country.\n\n\"When he came to Hidden-under-the-Mountain he left his dogs behind, for\nhe said, 'Howkawanda is a dead man to them.' In the Buffalo Country he\nwas known as Two-Friended, and that was his name afterward. He was\ndressed after the fashion of that country, with a great buffalo robe\nthat covered him, and his face was painted. So he came to\nHidden-under-the-Mountain as a stranger and made signs to them. And when\nthey had fed him, and sat him in the chief place as was the custom with\nstrangers, he took the writing from under his robe to give it to the\nPeople of the Dry Washes. There was a young woman near by nursing her\nchild, and she gave a sudden sharp cry, for she was the one that had\nbeen his maiden, and under the edge of his robe she saw his scars. But\nwhen Howkawanda looked hard at her she pretended that the child had\nbitten her.\"\n\nDorcas Jane and Oliver drew a long breath when they saw that, so far as\nthe rest of the audience was concerned, the story was finished. There\nwere a great many questions they wished to ask,--as to what became of\nHowkawanda after that, and whether the People of the Dry Washes ever\nfound their way into the Buffalo Country,--but before they could begin\non them, the Bull Buffalo stamped twice with his fore-foot for a sign of\ndanger. Far down at the other end of the gallery they could hear the\nwatchman coming.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVI\n\nDORCAS JANE HEARS HOW THE CORN CAME TO THE VALLEY OF THE MISSI-SIPPU;\nTOLD BY THE CORN WOMAN\n\n\nIt was one of those holidays, when there isn't any school and the Museum\nis only opened for a few hours in the afternoon, that Dorcas Jane had\ncome into the north gallery of the Indian room where her father was at\nwork mending the radiators. This was about a week after the children's\nfirst adventure on the Buffalo Trail, but it was before the holes had\nbeen cut in the Museum wall to let you look straight across the bend in\nthe Colorado and into the Hopi pueblo. Dorcas looked at all the wall\ncases and wondered how it was the Indians seemed to have so much corn\nand so many kinds of it, for she had always thought of corn as a\ncivilized sort of thing to have. She sat on a bench against the wall\nwondering, for the lovely clean stillness of the room encouraged\nthinking, and the clink of her father's hammers on the pipes fell\npresently into the regular _tink-tink-a-tink_ of tortoise-shell rattles,\nkeeping time to the shuffle and beat of bare feet on the dancing-place\nby the river. The path to it led across a clearing between little\nhillocks of freshly turned earth, and the high forest overhead was\nbursting into tiny green darts of growth like flame. The rattles were\nsewed to the leggings of the women--little yellow and black\nland-tortoise shells filled with pebbles--who sang as they danced and\ncut themselves with flints until they bled.\n\n\"Oh,\" said Dorcas, without waiting to be introduced, \"what makes you do\nthat?\"\n\n\"To make the corn grow,\" said the tallest and the handsomest of the\nwomen, motioning to the others to leave off their dancing while she\nanswered. \"Listen! You can hear the men doing their part.\"\n\nFrom the forest came a sudden wild whoop, followed by the sound of a\ndrum, little and far off like a heart beating. \"They are scaring off the\nenemies of the corn,\" said the Corn Woman, for Dorcas could see by her\nheaddress, which was of dried corn tassels dyed in colors, and by a kind\nof kilt she wore, woven of corn husks, that that was what she\nrepresented.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Dorcas; and then, after a moment, \"It sounds as if you were\nsorry, you know.\"\n\n\"When the seed corn goes into the ground it dies,\" said the Corn Woman;\n\"the tribe might die also if it never came alive again. Also we lament\nfor the Giver-of-the-Corn who died giving.\"\n\n\"I thought corn just grew,\" said Dorcas; \"I didn't know it came from any\nplace.\"\n\n\"From the People of the Seed, from the Country of Stone Houses. It was\nbought for us by Given-to-the-Sun. Our people came from the East, from\nthe place where the Earth opened, from the place where the Noise was,\nwhere the Mountain thundered.... This is what I have heard; this is what\nthe Old Ones have said,\" finished the Corn Woman, as though it were some\nsort of song.\n\nShe looked about to the others as if asking their consent to tell the\nstory. As they nodded, sitting down to loosen their heavy leggings,\nDorcas could see that what she had taken to be a shock of last year's\ncornstalks, standing in the middle of the dancing-place, was really tied\ninto a rude resemblance to a woman. Around its neck was one of the\nIndian's sacred bundles; Dorcas thought it might have something to do\nwith the story, but decided to wait and see.\n\n\"There was a trail in those days,\" said the Corn Woman, \"from the\nbuffalo pastures to the Country of the Stone House. We used to travel it\nas far as the ledge where there was red earth for face-painting, and to\ntrade with the Blanket People for salt.\n\n\"But no farther. Hunting-parties that crossed into Chihuahua returned\nsometimes; more often they were given to the Sun.--On the tops of the\nhills where their god-houses were,\" explained the Corn Woman seeing that\nDorcas was puzzled. \"The Sun was their god to them. Every year they gave\ncaptives on the hills they built to the Sun.\"\n\nDorcas had heard the guard explaining to visitors in the Aztec room.\n\"Teocales,\" she suggested.\n\n\"That was one of their words,\" agreed the Corn Woman. \"They called\nthemselves Children of the Sun. This much we knew; that there was a\nSeed. The People of the Cliffs, who came to the edge of the Windswept\nPlain to trade, would give us cakes sometimes for dried buffalo tongues.\nThis we understood was _mahiz_, but it was not until Given-to-the-Sun\ncame to us that we thought of having it for ours. Our men were hunters.\nThey thought it shame to dig in the ground.\n\n\"Shungakela, of the Three Feather band, found her at the fork of the\nTurtle River, half starved and as fierce as she was hungry, but _he_\ncalled her 'Waits-by-the-Fire' when he brought her back to his tipi, and\nit was a long time before we knew that she had any other name. She\nbelonged to one of the mountain tribes whose villages were raided by the\nPeople of the Sun, and because she had been a child at the time, she was\nmade a servant. But in the end, when she had shot up like a red lily and\nher mistress had grown fond of her, she was taken by the priests of\nthe Sun.\n\n\"At first the girl did not know what to make of being dressed so\nhandsomely and fed upon the best of everything, but when they painted\nher with the sign of the Sun she knew. Over her heart they painted it.\nThen they put about her neck the Eye of the Sun, and the same day the\nwoman who had been her mistress and was fond of her, slipped her a seed\nwhich she said should be eaten as she went up the Hill of the Sun, so\nshe would feel nothing. Given-to-the-Sun hid it in her bosom.\n\n\"There was a custom that, in the last days, those who were to go up the\nHill of the Sun could have anything they asked for. So the girl asked to\nwalk by the river and hear the birds sing. When they had walked out of\nsight of the Stone Houses, she gave her watchers the seed in their food\nand floated down the river on a piece of bark until she came ashore in\nthe thick woods and escaped. She came north, avoiding the trails, and\nafter a year Shungakela found her. Between her breasts there was the\nsign of the Sun.\"\n\nThe Corn Woman stooped and traced in the dust the ancient sign of the\nintertwined four corners of the Earth with the Sun in the middle.\n\"Around her neck in a buckskin bag was the charm that is known as the\nEye of the Sun. She never showed it to any of us, but when she was in\ntrouble or doubt, she would put her hand over it. It was her Medicine.\"\n\n\"It was good Medicine, too,\" spoke up the oldest of the dancing women.\n\n\"We had need of it,\" agreed the Corn Woman. \"In those days the Earth was\ntoo full of people. The tribes swarmed, new chiefs arose, kin hunted\nagainst kin. Many hunters made the game shy, and it removed to new\npastures. Strong people drove out weaker and took away their\nhunting-grounds. We had our share of both fighting and starving, but our\ntribe fared better than most because of the Medicine of\nWaits-by-the-Fire, the Medicine of the Sun. She was a wise woman. She\nwas made Shaman. When she spoke, even the chiefs listened. But what\ncould the chiefs do except hunt farther and fight harder? So\nWaits-by-the-Fire talked to the women. She talked of corn, how it was\nplanted and harvested, with what rites and festivals.\n\n\"There was a God of the Seed, a woman god who was served by women. When\nthe women of our tribe heard that, they took heart. The men had been\nafraid that the God of the Corn would not be friendly to us. I think,\ntoo, they did not like the idea of leaving off the long season of\nhunting and roving, for corn is a town-maker. For the tending and\nharvesting there must be one place, and for the guarding of the winter\nstores there must be a safe place. So said Waits-by-the-Fire to the\nwomen digging roots or boiling old bones in the long winter. She was a\nwise woman.\n\n\"It was the fight we had with the Tenasas that decided us. That was a\nyear of great scarcity and the Tenasas took to sending their young men,\ntwo or three at a time, creeping into our hunting-grounds to start the\ngame, and turn it in the direction of their own country. When our young\nmen were sure of this, they went in force and killed inside the borders\nof the Tenasas. They had surprised a herd of buffaloes at Two Kettle\nLicks and were cutting up the meat when the Tenasas fell upon them.\nWaits-by-the-Fire lost her last son by that battle. One she had lost in\nthe fight at Red Buttes and one in a year of Hunger while he was little.\nThis one was swift of foot and was called Last Arrow, for Shungakela had\nsaid, 'Once I had a quiver full.' Waits-by-the-Fire brought him back on\nher shoulders from the place where the fight was. She walked with him\ninto the Council.\n\n\"'The quiver is empty,' she said; 'the food bags, also; will you wait\nfor us to fill one again before you fill the other?'\n\n\"Mad Wolf, who was chief at the time, threw up his hand as a man does\nwhen he is down and craves a mercy he is too proud to ask for. 'We have\nfought the Tenasas,' he said; 'shall we fight our women also?'\n\n\"Waits-by-the-Fire did not wait after that for long speeches in the\nCouncil. She gathered her company quickly, seven women well seasoned and\nnot comely,--'The God of the Corn is a woman god,' she said, sharp\nsmiling,--and seven men, keen and hard runners. The rest she appointed\nto meet her at Painted Rock ten moons from their going.\"\n\n\"So long as that!\" said Dorcas Jane. \"Was it so far from where you lived\nto Mex--to the Country of Stone Houses?\"\n\n\"Not so far, but they had to stay from planting to harvest. Of what use\nwas the seed without knowledge. Traveling hard they crossed the River of\nthe White Rocks and reached, by the end of that moon, the mountain\noverlooking the Country of Stone Houses. Here the men stayed.\nWaits-by-the-Fire arranged everything. She thought the people of the\ntowns might hesitate to admit so many men strangers. Also she had the\nwomen put on worn moccasins with holes, and old food from the year\nbefore in their food bags.\"\n\n\"I should think,\" began Dorcas Jane, \"they would have wanted to put on\nthe best they had to make a good impression.\"\n\n\"She was a wise woman,\" said the Corn Woman; \"she said that if they came\nfrom near, the people of the towns might take them for spies, but they\nwould not fear travelers from so far off that their moccasins had\nholes in them.\"\n\nThe Corn Woman had forgotten that she was telling a story older than the\noaks they sat under. When she came to the exciting parts she said \"we\"\nand \"us\" as though it were something that had happened to them all\nyesterday.\n\n\"It was a high white range that looked on the Country of Stone Houses,\"\nshe said, \"with peaks that glittered, dropping down ridge by ridge to\nwhere the trees left off at the edge of a wide, basket-colored valley.\nIt hollowed like a meal basket and had a green pattern woven through it\nby a river. Shungakela went with the women to the foot of the mountain,\nand then, all at once, he would not let them go until Waits-by-the-Fire\npromised to come back to the foot of the mountain once in every moon to\ntell him how things went with us. We thought it very childish of him,\nbut afterward we were glad we had not made any objection.\n\n\"It was mid-morning when the Seven walked between the fields, with\nlittle food in their bags and none whatever in their stomachs, all in\nrags except Waits-by-the-Fire, who had put on her Shaman's dress, and\naround her neck, tied in a bag with feathers, the Medicine of the Sun.\nPeople stood up in the fields to stare, and we would have stared back\nagain, but we were afraid. Behind the stone house we saw the Hill of the\nSun and the priests moving up and down as Waits-by-the-Fire had\ndescribed it.\n\n\"Below the hill, where the ground was made high, at one side of the\nsteps that went up to the Place of Giving, stood the house of the Corn\nGoddess, which was served by women. There the Seven laid up their\noffering of poor food before the altar and stood on the steps of the\ngod-house until the head priestess noticed them. Wisps of incense smoke\nfloated out of the carved doorways and the drone of the priestess like\nbees in a hollow log. All the people came out on their flat roofs to\nwatch--Did I say that they had two and even three houses, one on top of\nthe other, each one smaller than the others, and ladders that went up\nand down to them?--They stood on the roofs and gathered in the open\nsquare between the houses as still and as curious as antelopes, and at\nlast the priestess of the Corn came out and spoke to us. Talk went on\nbetween her and Waits-by-the-Fire, purring, spitting talk like water\nstumbling among stones. Not one word did our women understand, but they\nsaw wonder grow among the Corn Women, respect and amazement.\n\n\"Finally, we were taken into the god-house, where in the half dark, we\ncould make out the Goddess of the Corn, cut in stone, with green stones\non her forehead. There were long councils between Waits-by-the-Fire and\nthe Corn Woman and the priests that came running from the Temple of the\nSun. Outside the rumor and the wonder swelled around the god-house like\na sudden flood. Faces bobbed up like rubbish in the flood into the\nbright blocks of light that fell through the doorway, and were shifted\nand shunted by other faces peering in. After a long tune the note of\nwonder outside changed to a deep, busy hum; the crowd separated and let\nthrough women bearing food in pots and baskets. Then we knew that\nWaits-by-the-Fire had won.\"\n\n\"But what?\" insisted Dorcas; \"what was it that she had told them?\"\n\n\"That she had had a dream which was sent by the Corn Spirit and that she\nand those with her were under a vow to serve the Corn for the space of\none growing year. And to prove that her dream was true the Goddess of\nthe Corn had revealed to her the speech of the Stone House tribe and\nalso many hidden things. These were things which she remembered from her\ncaptivity which she told them.\"\n\n\"What sort of things?\"\n\n\"Why, that in such a year they had had a pestilence and that the father\nof the Corn Woman had died of eating over-ripe melons. The Corn Women\nwere greatly impressed. But she carried it almost too far ... perhaps\n... and perhaps it was appointed from the beginning that that was the\nway the Corn was to come. It was while we were eating that we realized\nhow wise she was to make us come fasting, for first the people pitied\nus, and then they were pleased with themselves for making us\ncomfortable. But in the middle of it there was a great stir and a man in\nchief's dress came pushing through. He was the Cacique of the Sun and he\nwas vexed because he had not been called earlier. He was that kind of\na man.\n\n\"He spoke sharply to the Chief Corn Woman to know why strangers were\nreceived within the town without his knowledge.\n\n\"Waits-by-the-Fire answered quickly. 'We are guests of the Corn, O\nCacique, and in my dream I seem to have heard of your hospitality to\nwomen of the Corn.' You see there had been an old story when he was\nyoung, how one of the Corn Maidens had gone to his house and had been\nkept there against her will, which was a discredit to him. He was so\nastonished to hear the strange woman speak of it that he turned and went\nout of the god-house without another word. The people took up the\nincident and whispered it from mouth to mouth to prove that the strange\nShaman was a great prophet. So we were appointed a house to live in and\nwere permitted to serve the Corn.\"\n\n\"But what did you do?\" Dorcas insisted on knowing.\n\n\"We dug and planted. All this was new to us. When there was no work in\nthe fields we learned the ways of cooking corn, and to make pots.\nHunting-tribes do not make pots. How should we carry them from place to\nplace on our backs? We cooked in baskets with hot stones, and sometimes\nwhen the basket was old we plastered it with mud and set it on the fire.\nBut the People of the Corn made pots of coiled clay and burned it hard\nin the open fires between the houses. Then there was the ceremony of the\nCorn to learn, the prayers and the dances. Oh, we had work enough! And\nif ever anything was ever said or done to us which was not pleasant,\nWaits-by-the-Fire would say to the one who had offended, 'We are only\nthe servants of the Corn, but it would be a pity if the same thing\nhappened to you that happened to the grandfather of your next-door\nneighbor!'\n\n\"And what happened to him?\"\n\n\"Oh, a plague of sores, a scolding wife,\" or anything that she chanced\nto remember from the time she had been Given-to-the-Sun. _That_ stopped\nthem. But most of them held us to be under the protection of the Corn\nSpirit, and when our Shaman would disappear for two or three days--that\nwas when she went to the mountain to visit Shungakela--_we_ said that\nshe had gone to pray to her own gods, and they accepted that also.\"\n\n\"And all this time no one recognized her?\"\n\n\"She had painted her face for a Shaman,\" said the Corn Woman slowly,\n\"and besides it was nearly forty years. The woman who had been kind to\nher was dead and there was a new Priest of the Sun. Only the one who had\npainted her with the sign of the Sun was left, and he was doddering.\"\nShe seemed about to go on with her story, but the oldest dancing woman\ninterrupted her.\n\n\"Those things helped,\" said the dancing woman, \"but it was her thought\nwhich hid her. She put on the thought of a Shaman as a man puts on the\nthought of a deer or a buffalo when he goes to look for them. That which\none fears, that it is which betrays one. She was a Shaman in her heart\nand as a Shaman she appeared to them.\"\n\n\"She certainly had no fear,\" said the Corn Woman, \"though from the first\nshe must have known--\n\n\"It was when the seed corn was gathered that we had the first hint of\ntrouble,\" she went on. \"When it was ripe the priests and Caciques went\ninto the fields to select the seed for next year. Then it was laid up in\nthe god-houses for the priestess of the Corn to keep. That was in case\nof an enemy or a famine when the people might be tempted to eat it.\nAfter it was once taken charge of by the priestess of the Corn they\nwould have died rather than give it up. Our women did not know how they\nshould get the seed to bring away from the Stone House except to ask for\nit as the price of their year's labor.\"\n\n\"But couldn't you have just taken some from the field?\" inquired Dorcas.\n\"Wouldn't it have grown just the same?\"\n\n\"That we were not sure of; and we were afraid to take it without the\ngood-will of the Corn Goddess. Centcotli her name was. Waits-by-the-Fire\nmade up her mind to ask for it on the first day of the Feast of the Corn\nHarvest, which lasts four days, and is a time of present-giving and\ngood-willing. She would have got it, too, if it had been left to the\nCorn Women to decide. But the Cacique of the Sun, who was always\nwatching out for a chance to make himself important, insisted that it\nwas a grave matter and should be taken to Council. He had never forgiven\nthe Shaman, you see, for that old story about the Corn Maiden.\n\n\"As soon as the townspeople found that the Caciques were considering\nwhether it was proper to give seed corn to the strangers, they began to\nconsider it, too, turning it over in their minds together with a great\nmany things that had nothing to do with it. There had been smut in the\ncorn that year; there was a little every year, but this season there was\nmore of it, and a good many of the bean pods had not filled out. I\nforgot,\" said the Corn Woman, \"to speak of the beans and squashes. They\nwere the younger sisters of the corn; they grew with the corn and twined\nabout it. Now, every man who was a handful or two short of his crop\nbegan to look at us doubtfully. Then they would crowd around the Cacique\nof the Sun to argue the matter. They remembered how our Shaman had gone\napart to pray to her own gods and they thought the Spirit of the Corn\nmight have been offended. And the Cacique would inquire of every one who\nhad a toothache or any such matter, in such a way as to make them think\nof it in connection with the Shaman.--In every village,\" the Corn Woman\ninterrupted herself to say, \"there is evil enough, if laid at the door\nof one person, to get her burned for a witch!\"\n\n\"Was she?\" Dorcas Jane squirmed with anxiety.\n\n\"She was standing on the steps at the foot of the Hill of the Sun, the\nlast we saw of her,\" said the Corn Woman. \"Of course, our women, not\nunderstanding the speech of the Stone Houses, did not know exactly what\nwas going on, but they felt the changed looks of the people. They\nthought, perhaps, they could steal away from the town unnoticed. Two of\nthem hid in their clothing as much Seed as they could lay hands on and\nwent down toward the river. They were watched and followed. So they came\nback to the house where Waits-by-the-Fire prayed daily with her hand on\nthe Medicine of the Sun.\n\n\"So came the last day of the feast when the sacred seed would be sealed\nup in the god-house. 'Have no fear,' said Waits-by-the-Fire, 'for my\ndream has been good. Make yourselves ready for the trail. Take food in\nyour food bags and your carriers empty on your backs.' She put on her\nShaman's dress and about the middle of the day the Cacique of the Sun\nsent for them. He was on the platform in front of the god-house where\nthe steps go up to the Hill of the Sun, and the elders of the town were\nbehind him. Priests of the Sun stood on the steps and the Corn Women\ncame out from the temple of the Corn. As Waits-by-the-Fire went up with\nthe Seven, the people closed in solidly behind them. The Cacique looked\nat the carriers on their backs and frowned.\n\n\"'Why do you come to the god-house with baskets, like laborers of the\nfields?' he demanded.\n\n\"'For the price of our labor, O Cacique,' said the Shaman. 'The gods are\nnot so poor that they accept labor for nothing.'\n\n\"'Now, it is come into my heart,' said the Cacique sourly, 'that the\ngods are not always pleased to be served by strangers. There are signs\nthat this is so.'\n\n\"'It may be,' said Waits-by-the-Fire, 'that the gods are not pleased.\nThey have long memories.' She looked at him very straight and somebody\nin the crowd snickered.\"\n\n\"But wasn't it awfully risky to keep making him mad like that?\" asked\nDorcas. \"They could have just done anything to her!\"\n\n\"She was a wise woman; she knew what she had to do. The Cacique _was_\nangry. He began making a long speech at her, about how the smut had come\nin the corn and the bean crop was a failure,--but that was because there\nhad not been water enough,--and how there had been sickness. And when\nWaits-by-the-Fire asked him if it were only in that year they had\nmisfortune, the people thought she was trying to prove that she hadn't\nhad anything to do with it. She kept reminding them of things that had\nhappened the year before, and the year before. The Cacique kept growing\nmore and more angry, admitting everything she said, until it showed\nplainly that the town had had about forty years of bad luck, which the\nCacique tried to prove was all because the gods had known in advance\nthat they were going to be foolish and let strangers in to serve the\nCorn. At first the people grew excited and came crowding against the\nedge of the platform, shouting, 'Kill her! Kill the witch!' as one and\nthen another of their past misfortunes were recalled to them.\n\n\"But, as the Shaman kept on prodding the Cacique, as hunters stir up a\nbear before killing him, they began to see that there was something more\ncoming, and they stood still, packed solidly in the square to listen. On\nall the housetops roundabout the women and the children were as still as\nimages. A young priest from the steps of the Hill, who thought he must\nback up the Cacique, threw up his arms and shouted, 'Give her to the\nSun!' and a kind of quiver went over the people like the shiver of still\nwater when the wind smites it. It was only at the time of the New Fire,\nbetween harvest and planting, that they give to the Sun, or in great\ntimes of war or pestilence. Waits-by-the-Fire moved out to the edge of\nthe platform.\n\n\"'It is not, O People of the Sun, for what is given, that the gods grow\nangry, but for what is withheld,' she said, 'Is there nothing, priests\nof the Sun, which was given to the Sun and let go again? Think, O\npriests. Nothing?'\n\n\"The priests, huddled on the stairs, began to question among themselves,\nand Waits-by-the-Fire turned to the people. 'Nothing, O Offspring of\nthe Sun?'\n\n\"Then she put off the Shaman's thought which had been a shield to her.\n'Nothing, Toto?' she called to a man in the crowd by a name none knew\nhim by except those that had grown up with him. She was\nGiven-to-the-Sun, and she stood by the carved stone corn of the\ngod-house and laughed at them, shuffling and shouldering like buffaloes\nin the stamping-ground, and not knowing what to think. Voices began to\ncall for the man she had spoken to, 'Toto, O Toto!'\n\n\"The crowd swarmed upon itself, parted and gave up the figure of the\nancient Priest of the Sun, for they remembered in his day how a girl who\nwas given to the Sun had been snatched away by the gods out of sight of\nthe people. They pushed him forward, doddering and peering. They saw the\nwoman put back her Shaman's bonnet from her head, and the old priest\nclap his hand to his mouth like one suddenly astonished.\n\n\"Over the Cacique's face came a cold glint like the coming of ice on\nwater. 'You,' he said, 'you are Given-to-the-Sun?' And he made a gesture\nto the guard to close in on her.\n\n\"'Given-to-the-Sun,' she said. 'Take care how you touch that which\nbelongs to the gods, O Cacique!'\n\n\"And though he still smiled, he took a step backward.\n\n\"'So,' he said, 'you are that woman and this is the meaning of those\nprophecies!'\n\n\"'I am that woman and that prophet,' she said with her hand at her\nthroat and looked from priests to people. 'O People of the Sun, I have\nheard you have a charm,' she said,--'a Medicine of the Sun called the\nEye of the Sun, strong Medicine.'\n\n\"No one answered for a while, but they began to murmur among themselves,\nand at last one shouted that they had such a charm, but it was not for\nwitches or for runaway slave women.\n\n\"You _had_ such a charm,' she said, for she knew well enough that the\nsacred charm was kept in the god-house and never shown to the people\nexcept on very great occasions. She was sure that the priests had never\ndared to tell the people that their Sacred Stone had disappeared with\nthe escaped captive.\n\n\"Given-to-the-Sun took the Medicine bag from her neck and swung it in\nher fingers. _'Had!'_ she said mockingly. The people gave a growl;\nanother time they would have been furious with fright and anger, but\nthey did not wish to miss a syllable of what was about to happen. The\npriests whispered angrily with the guard, but Given-to-the-Sun did not\ncare what the priests did so long as she had the people. She signed to\nthe Seven, and they came huddling to her like quail; she put them\nbehind her.\n\n\"'Is it not true, Children of the Sun, that the favor of the Sun goes\nwith the Eye of the Sun and it will come back to you when the Stone\ncomes back?'\n\n\"They muttered and said that it was so.\n\n\"'Then, will your priests show you the Eye of the Sun or shall I show\nyou?'\n\n\"There was a shout raised at that, and some called to the priests to\nshow the Stone, and others that the woman would bring trouble on them\nall with her offenses. But by this time they knew very well where the\nStone was, and the priests were too astonished to think of anything.\nSlowly the Shaman drew it out of the Medicine bag--\"\n\nThe Corn Woman waited until one of the women handed her the sacred\nbundle from the neck of the Corn image. Out of it, after a little\nrummaging, she produced a clear crystal of quartz about the size of a\npigeon's egg. It gave back the rays of the Sun in a dazzle that, to any\none who had never seen a diamond, would have seemed wonderfully\nbrilliant. Where it lay in the Corn Woman's hand it scattered little\nflecks of reflected light in rainbow splashes. The Indian women made the\nsign of the Sun on their foreheads and Dorcas felt a prickle of\nsolemnity along the back of her neck as she looked at it. Nobody spoke\nuntil it was back again in the Medicine bundle.\n\n\"Given-to-the-Sun held it up to them,\" the story went on, \"and there was\na noise in the square like a noise of the stamping-ground at twilight.\nSome bellowed one thing and some another, and at last a priest of the\nSun moved sharply and spoke:--\n\n\"'The Eye of the Sun is not for the eyes of the vulgar. Will you let\nthis false Shaman impose on you, O Children of the Sun, with a\ncommon pebble?'\n\n\"Given-to-the-Sun stooped and picked up a mealing-stone that was used\nfor grinding the sacred meal in the temple of the Corn.\n\n\"'If your Stone is in the temple and this is a common pebble,' said she,\n'it does not matter what I do with it.' And she seemed about to crush it\non the top of the stone balustrade at the edge of the platform. The\npeople groaned. They knew very well that this was their Sacred Stone and\nthat the priests had deceived them. Given-to-the-Sun stood resting one\nstone upon the other.\n\n\"'The Sun has been angry with you,' she said, 'but the Goddess of the\nCorn saves you. She has brought back the Stone and the Sacrifice. Do not\nshow yourselves ungrateful to the Corn by denying her servants their\nwages. What! will you have all the gods against you? Priestess of the\nCorn,' she called toward the temple, 'do you also mislead the people?'\n\n\"At that the Corn Women came hurrying, for they saw that the people were\nboth frightened and angry; they brought armsful of corn and seeds for\nthe carriers, they took bracelets from their arms and put them for gifts\nin the baskets. The priests of the Sun did not say anything. One of the\nwomen's headbands slipped and the basket swung sideways.\nGiven-to-the-Sun whipped off her belt and tucked it under the basket rim\nto make it ride more evenly. The woman felt something hard in the belt\npressing her shoulder, but she knew better than to say anything. In\nsilence the crowd parted and let the Seven pass. They went swiftly with\ntheir eyes on the ground by the north gate to the mountain. The priests\nof the Sun stood still on the steps of the Hill of the Sun and their\neyes glittered. The Sacrifice of the Sun had come back to them.\n\n\"When our women passed the gate, the crowd saw Given-to-the-Sun restore\nwhat was in her hand to the Medicine bag; she lifted her arms above her\nhead and began the prayer to the Sun.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"I see,\" said Dorcas after a long pause; \"she stayed to keep the People\nof the Sun pacified while the women got away with the seed. That was\nsplendid. But, the Eye of the Sun, I thought you saw her put that in the\nbuckskin bag again?\"\n\n\"She must have had ready another stone of shape and size like it,\" said\nthe Corn Woman. \"She thought of everything. She was a wise woman, and so\nlong as she was called Given-to-the-Sun the Eye of the Sun was hers to\ngive. Shungakela was not surprised to find that his wife had stayed at\nthe Hill of the Sun; so I suppose she must have told him. He asked if\nthere was a token, and the woman whose basket she had propped with her\ngirdle gave it to him with the hard lump that pressed her shoulder. So\nthe Medicine of the Sun came back to us.\n\n\"Our men had met the women at the foot of the mountain and they fled all\nthat day to a safe place the men had made for them. It was for that they\nhad stayed, to prepare food for flight, and safe places for hiding in\ncase they were followed. If the pursuit pressed too hard, the men were\nto stay and fight while the women escaped with the corn. That was how\nGiven-to-the-Sun arranged it.\n\n\"Next day as we climbed, we saw smoke rising from the Hill of the Sun,\nand Shungakela went apart on the mountain, saying, 'Let me alone, for I\nmake a fire to light the feet of my wife's spirit...' They had been\nmarried twenty years.\n\n\"We found the tribe at Painted Rock, but we thought it safer to come on\neast beyond the Staked Plains as Given-to-the-Sun had advised us. At Red\nRiver we stopped for a whole season to plant corn. But there was not\nrain enough there, and if we left off watching the fields for a day the\nbuffaloes came and cropped them. So for the sake of the corn we came\nstill north and made friends with the Tenasas. We bought help of them\nwith the half of our seed, and they brought us over the river, the\nMissi-Sippu, the Father of all Rivers. The Tenasas had boats, round like\nbaskets, covered with buffalo hide, and they floated us over, two\nswimmers to every boat to keep us from drifting downstream.\n\n\"Here we made a town and a god-house, to keep the corn contented. Every\nyear when the seed is gathered seven ears are laid up in the god-house\nin memory of the Seven, and for the seed which must be kept for next\nyear's crop there are seven watchers\"--the Corn Woman included the\ndancers and herself in a gesture of pride. \"We are the keepers of the\nSeed,\" she said, \"and no man of the tribe knows where it is hidden. For\nno matter how hungry the people may become the seed corn must not be\neaten. But with us there is never any hunger, for every year from\nplanting time till the green corn is ready for picking, we keep all the\nceremonies of the corn, so that our cribs are filled to bursting. Look!\"\n\nThe Corn Woman stood up and the dancers getting up with her shook the\nrattles of their leggings with a sound very like the noise a radiator\nmakes when some one is hammering on the other end of it. And when Dorcas\nturned to look for the Indian cribs there was nothing there but the\nfamiliar wall cases and her father mending the steam heater.\n\n[Illustration: SIGN OF THE SUN AND THE FOUR QUARTERS]\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nVII\n\nA TELLING OF THE SALT TRAIL, OF TSE-TSE-YOTE AND THE DELIGHT-MAKERS;\nTOLD BY MOKE-ICHA\n\n\nOliver was so interested in his sister's account of how the corn came\ninto the country, that that very evening he dragged out a tattered old\natlas which he had rescued from the Museum waste, and began to look for\nthe places named by the Corn Woman. They found the old Chihuahua Trail\nsagging south across the Rio Grande, which, on the atlas map, carried\nits ancient name of River of the White Rocks. Then they found the Red\nRiver, but there was no trace of the Tenasas, unless it might be, as\nthey suspected from the sound, in the Country of the Tennessee. It was\nall very disappointing.. \"I suppose,\" suggested Dorcas Jane, \"they don't\nput down the interesting places. It's only the ones that are too dull to\nbe remembered that have to be printed.\"\n\nOliver, who did not believe this was quite the principle on which\natlases were constructed, had made a discovery. Close to the Rio Grande,\nand not far from the point where the Chihuahua Trail, crossed it, there\nwas a cluster of triangular dots, marked Cliff Dwellings. \"There was\ncorn there,\" he insisted. \"You can see it in the wall cases, and Cliff\nDwellings are the oldest old places in the United States. If they were\nhere when the Corn Woman passed, I don't see why she had to go to the\nStone Houses for seed.\" And when they had talked it over they decided to\ngo that very night and ask the Buffalo Chief about it.\n\n\"There was always corn, as I remember it,\" said the old bull, \"growing\ntall about the tipis. But touching the People of the Cliffs--that would\nbe Moke-icha's story.\"\n\nThe great yellow cat came slipping out from the over-weighted thickets\nof wild plum, and settled herself on her boulder with a bound.\nStretching forth one of her steel-tipped pads toward the south she\nseemed to draw the purple distance as one draws a lady by her scarf. The\nthin lilac-tinted haze parted on the gorge of the Rio Grande, between\nthe white ranges. The walls of the canyon were scored with deep\nperpendicular gashes as though the river had ripped its way through them\nwith its claws. Yellow pines balanced on the edge of the cliffs, and\nsmaller, tributary canyons, that opened into it, widened here and there\nto let in tall, solitary trees, with patches of sycamore and wild cherry\nand linked pools for trout.\n\n\"That was a country!\" purred Moke-icha. \"What was it you wished to know\nabout it?\"\n\n\"Ever so many things,\" said Oliver promptly--\"if there were people\nthere, and if they had corn--\"\n\n\"Queres they were called,\" said Moke-icha, \"and they were already a\npeople, with corn of four colors for the four corners of the earth, and\nmany kinds of beans and squashes, when they came to Ty-uonyi.\"\n\n\"Where were they when the Corn Woman passed? Who were the Blanket\nPeople, and what--\"\n\n\"Softly,\" said Moke-icha. \"Though I slept in the kivas and am called\nKabeyde, Chief of the Four-Footed, I did not know _all_ the tales of the\nQueres. They were a very ancient people. On the Salt Trail, where it\npassed by Split Rock, the trail was bitten deep into the granite. I\nthink they could not have been more than three or four hundred years in\nTy-uonyi when I knew them. They came from farther up the river where\nthey had cities built into the rock. And before that? How should I know?\nThey said they came from a hole in the ground, from Shipapu. They traded\nto the south with salt which they brought from the Crawling Water for\ngreen stones and a kind of white wool which grew on bushes, from which\nthey made their clothes. There were no wandering tribes about except the\nDine and they were all devils.\"\n\n\"Devils they may have been,\" said the Navajo, \"but they did not say\ntheir prayers to a yellow cat, O Kabeyde.\"\n\n\"I speak but as the People of the Cliffs,\" said Moke-icha soothingly.\n\"If they called to Dine devils, doubtless they had reason; and if they\nmade prayers and images to me, it was not without a reason: not without\ngood reason.\" Her tail bristled a little as it curled at the tip like a\nsnake. Deep yellow glints swam at the backs of her half-shut eyes.\n\n\"It was because of the Dine, who were not friendly to the Queres, that\nthe towns were built as you see, with the solid outer wall and the doors\nall opening on a court, at the foot of the cliff. It was hot and quiet\nthere with always something friendly going on, children tumbling about\namong the dogs and the turkeys, an old man rattling a gourd and singing\nthe evil away from his eyes, or the _plump, plump_ of the mealing-stone\nfrom the doorways. Now and then a maiden going by, with a tray of her\nbest cooking which she carried to her young man as a sign that she had\naccepted him, would throw me a morsel, and at evenings the priests would\ncome out of the kivas and strike with a clapper of deer's shoulder on a\nflint gong to call the people to the dancing-places.\"\n\nThe children turned to look once more at the narrow rift of Ty-uonyi as\nit opened from the canyon of the Rio Grande between two basalt columns to\nallow the sparkling Rito to pass where barely two men could walk\nabreast. Back from the stream the pale amber cliffs swept in smooth laps\nand folds like ribbons. Crowded against its sheer northern face the\nirregularly terraced heaps of the communal houses looked little as ant\nheaps at the foot of a garden wall. Tiers and tiers of the T-shaped\nopenings of the cave dwellings spotted the smooth cliff, but along the\nsingle two-mile street, except for an occasional obscure doorway, ran\nthe blank, mud-plastered wall of the kivas.\n\nWhere the floor of the canyon widened, the water of the Rito was led out\nin tiny dikes and ditches to water the garden patches. A bowshot on the\nopposite side rose the high south wall, wind and rain washed into tents\nand pinnacles, spotted with pale scrub and blood-red flowers of nopal.\nTrails spidered up its broken steep, and were lost in the cloud-drift or\ndipped out of sight over the edge of the timbered mesa.\n\n\"We would go over the trail to hunt,\" said Moke-icha. \"There were no\nbuffaloes, but blacktail and mule deer that fattened on the bunch grass,\nand bands of pronghorn flashing their white rumps. Quail ran in droves\nand rose among the mesas like young thunder.\n\n\"That was my cave,\" said the Puma, nodding toward a hole high up like a\nspeck on the five-hundred-foot cliff, close up under the great\nceremonial Cave which was painted with the sign of the Morning and the\nEvening Star, and the round, bright House of the Sun Father. \"But at\nfirst I slept in the kiva with Tse-tse-yote. Speaking of devils--there\nwas no one who had the making of a livelier devil in him than my young\nmaster. Slim as an arrow, he would come up from his morning dip in the\nRito, glittering like the dark stone of which knives are made, and his\nhair in the sun gave back the light like a raven. And there was no man's\nway of walking or standing, nor any cry of bird or beast, that he could\nnot slip into as easily as a snake slips into a shadow. He would never\nmock when he was asked, but let him alone, and some evening, when the\npeople smoked and rested, he would come stepping across the court in the\nlikeness of some young man whose maiden had just smiled on him. Or if\nsome hunter prided himself too openly on a buck he had killed, the first\nthing he knew there would be Tse-tse-yote walking like an ancient\nspavined wether prodded by a blunt arrow, until the whole court roared\nwith laughter.\n\n\"Still, Kokomo should have known better than to try to make him one of\nthe Koshare, for though laughter followed my master as ripples follow a\nskipping stone, he laughed little himself.\n\n\"Who were the Koshare? They were the Delight-Makers; one of their secret\nsocieties. They daubed themselves with mud and white paint to make\nlaughter by jokes and tumbling. They had their kiva between us and the\nGourd People, but Tse-tse-yote, who had set his heart on being elected\nto the Warrior Band, the Uakanyi, made no secret of thinking small of\nthe Koshare.\n\n\"There was no war at that time, but the Uakanyi went down with the\nSalt-Gatherers to Crawling Water, once in every year between the\ncorn-planting and the first hoeing, and as escort on the trading trips.\nThey would go south till they could see the blue wooded slope below the\nwhite-veiled mountain, and would make smoke for a trade signal, three\nsmokes close together and one farther off, till the Men of the South\ncame to deal with them. But it was the Salt-Gathering that made\nTse-tse-yote prefer the Warrior Band to the Koshare, for all that\ncountry through which the trail lay was disputed by the Dine. It is true\nthere was a treaty, but there was also a saying at Ty-uonyi, 'a sieve\nfor water and a treaty for the Dine.'\"\n\n[Illustration: Tse-tse-yote and Moke-icha]\n\nThe Navajo broke in angrily, \"The Tellings were to be of the trails, O\nKabeyde, and not of the virtues of my ancestors!\" The children looked at\nhim, round-eyed.\n\n\"Are you the Dine?\" they exclaimed both at once. It seemed to bring the\nCliff People so much nearer.\n\n\"So we were named, though we were called devils by those who feared us,\nand Blanket People by the Plainsmen. We were a tree whose roots were in\nthe desert and whose branches were over all the north, and there is no\nTelling of the Queres, Cochiti, or Ty-uonyi, O Kebeyde,\"--he turned to\nthe puma,--\"which I cannot match with a better of those same Dine.\"\n\n\"There were Dine in this Telling,\" purred Moke-icha, \"and one puma.\nThere was also Pitahaya, the chief, who was so old that he spent most of\nthe time singing the evil out of his eyes. There was Kokomo, who wished\nto be chief in his stead, and there was Willow-in-the-Wind, the turkey\ngirl, who had no one belonging to her. She had a wind-blown way of\nwalking, and her long hair, which she washed almost every day in the\nRito, streamed behind her like the tips of young willows. Finally, there\nwas Tse-tse-yote. But one must pick up the trail before one settles to\nthe Telling,\" said Moke-icha.\n\n\"Tse-tse-yote took me, a nine days' cub, from the lair in Shut Canyon and\nbrought me up in his mother's house, the fifth one on the right from the\ngate that was called, because of a great hump of arrow-stone which was\nbuilt into it, Rock-Overhanging. When he was old enough to leave his\nmother and sleep in the kiva of his clan, he took me with him, where I\nhave no doubt, we made a great deal of trouble. Nights when the moon\ncalled me, I would creep out of Tse-tse's arms to the top of the ladder.\nThe kivas opened downward from a hole in the roof in memory of Shipapu.\nHalf-awake, Tse-tse would come groping to find me until he trod on one\nof the others by mistake, who would dream that the Dine were after him\nand wake the kiva with his howls. Or somebody would pinch my tail and\nTse-tse would hit right and left with his pillows--\"\n\n\"Pillows?\" said Oliver.\n\n\"Mats of reed or deerskin. They would slap at one another, or snatch at\nany convenient ankle or hair, until Kokomo, the master of the kiva,\nwould have to come and cuff them apart. Always he made believe that\nTse-tse or I had started it, and one night he tried to throw me out by\nthe skin of my neck, and I turned in his hand--How was I to know that\nthe skin of man is so tender?--and his smell was the smell of a man who\nnurses grudges.\n\n\"After that, even Tse-tse-yote saw that I was too old for the kiva, so\nhe made me a cave for myself, high up under the House of the Sun Father,\nand afterward he widened it so that he could sit there tying prayer\nplumes and feathering his arrows. By day I hunted with Tse-tse-yote on\nthe mesa, or lay up in a corner of the terrace above the court of the\nGourd Clan, and by night--to say the truth, by night I did very much as\nit pleased me. There was a broken place in the wall-plaster by the gate\nof the Rock-Overhanging, by which I could go up and down, and if I was\ncaught walking on the terrace, nobody minded me. I was Kabeyde, and the\nhunters thought I brought them luck.\"\n\nThus having picked up the trail to her satisfaction, Moke-icha tucked\nher paws under her comfortably and settled to her story.\n\n\"When Tse-tse-yote took me to sleep with him in the kiva of his clan,\nKokomo, who was head of the kiva, objected. So Tse-tse-yote spent the\nthree nights following in a corner of the terrace with me curled up for\nwarmth beside him. Tse-tse's father heard of it and carried the matter\nto Council. Tse-tse had taken me with his own hands from the lair,\nknowing very well what my mother would have done to him had she come\nback and found him there; and Tse-tse's father was afraid, if they took\naway the first fruits of his son's courage, the courage would go with\nit. The Council agreed with him. Kokomo was furious at having the\nmanagement of his kiva taken out of his hands, and Tse-tse knew it.\nLater, when even Tse-tse's father agreed that I was too old for the\nkiva, Tse-tse taught me to curl my tail under my legs and slink on my\nbelly when I saw Kokomo. Then he would scold me for being afraid of the\nkind man, and the other boys would giggle, for they knew very well that\nTse-tse had to beat me over the head with a firebrand to teach me\nthat trick.\n\n\"It was a day or two after I had learned it, that we met\nWillow-in-the-Wind feeding her turkey flock by the Rito as we came from\nhunting, and she scolded Tse-tse for making fun of Kokomo.\n\n\"'It is plain,' she said, 'that you are trying to get yourself elected\nto the Delight-Makers.'\n\n\"'You know very well it is no such thing,' he answered her roughly, for\nit was not permitted a young man to make a choice of the society he\nwould belong to. He had to wait until he was elected by his elders. The\nturkey girl paddled her toes in the Rito.\n\n\"'There is only one way,' she said, 'that a man can be kept from making\nfun of the Koshare, and that is by electing him a member. Now, _I_\nthought you would have preferred the Uakanyi,'--just as if she did not\nknow that there was little else he thought of.\n\n\"Tse-tse pulled up the dry grass and tossed it into the water. 'In the\nold days,' he said, 'I have heard that Those Above sent the\nDelight-Makers to make the people laugh so that the way should not seem\nlong, and the Earth be fruitful. But now the jests of the Koshare are\nscorpions, each one with a sting in its tail for the enemies of the\nDelight-Makers. I had sooner strike mine with a knife or an arrow.'\n\n\"'Enemies, yes,' said Willow-in-the-Wind, 'but you cannot use a knife on\nthose who sit with you in Council. You know very well that Kokomo wishes\nto be chief in place of Pitahaya.'\n\n\"Tse-tse looked right and left to see who listened. 'Kokomo is a strong\nman in Ty-uonyi,' he said; 'it was he who made the treaty with the Dine.\nAnd Pitahaya is blind.'\n\n\"'Aye,' said the turkey girl; 'when you are a Delight-Maker you can make\na fine jest of it.'\n\n\"She had been brought up a foundling in the house of the old chief and\nwas fond of him. Tse-tse, who had heard and said more than became a\nyoung man, was both angry and frightened; therefore he boasted.\n\n\"'Kokomo shall not make me a Koshare,' he said; 'it will not be the\nfirst time I have carried the Council against him.'\n\n\"At that time I did not know so much of the Dine as that they were men.\nBut the day after Willow-in-the-Wind told Tse-tse that Kokomo meant to\nhave him elected to the Koshare if only to keep him from making a mock\nof Kokomo, we went up over the south wall hunting.\n\n\"It was all flat country from there to the roots of the mountains; great\npines stood wide apart, with here and there a dwarf cedar steeping in\nthe strong sun. We hunted all the morning and lay up under a dark oak\nwatching the young winds stalk one another among the lupins. Lifting\nmyself to catch the upper scent, I winded a man that was not of\nTy-uonyi. A moment later we saw him with a buck on his shoulders,\nworking his way cautiously toward the head of Dripping Spring Canyon.\n'Dine!' said Tse-tse; 'fighting man.' And he signed to me that we must\nstalk him.\n\n\"For an hour we slunk and crawled through the black rock that broke\nthrough the mesa like a twisty root of the mountain. At the head of\nDripping Spring we smelled wood smoke. We crept along the canyon rim and\nsaw our man at the bottom of it. He had hung up his buck at the camp and\nwas cutting strips from it for his supper.\n\n\"'Look well, Kabeyde,' said my master; 'smell and remember. This man is\nmy enemy.' I did not like the smell in any case. The Queres smell of the\nearth in which they dig and house, but the Dine smelled of himself and\nthe smoke of sagebrush. Tse-tse's hand was on the back of my neck.\n'Wait,' he said; 'one Dine has not two blankets.' We could see them\nlying in a little heap not far from the camp. Presently in the dusk\nanother man came up the canyon from the direction of the river and\njoined him.\n\n\"We cast back and forth between Dripping Spring and the mouth of the\nTy-uonyi most of the night, but no more Dine showed themselves. At\nsunrise Willow-in-the-Wind met us coming up the Rito.\n\n\"'Feed farther up,' Tse-tse told her; 'the Dine are abroad.'\n\n\"Her face changed, but she did not squeal as the other women did when\nthey heard it. Therefore I respected her. That was the way it was with\nme. Every face I searched, to see if there was fear in it, and if there\nwas none I myself was a little afraid; but where there was fear the back\nof my neck bristled. I know that the hair rose on it when we came to\ntell our story to the Council. That was when Kokomo was called; he came\nrubbing the sleep out of his eyes, pretending that Tse-tse had made a\ntale out of nothing.\n\n\"'We have a treaty with the Dine,' he said. 'Besides, I was out\nrehearsing with the Koshare last night toward Shut Canyon; if there had\nbeen Dine _I_ should have seen them.'\n\n\"It was then that I was aware of Tse-tse's hand creeping along my\nshoulders to hide the bristling.\n\n\"'He is afraid,' said Tse-tse to me in the cave; 'you saw it. Yet he is\nnot afraid of the Dine. Sometimes I think he is afraid of me. That is\nwhy he wished me to join the Koshare, for then he will be my Head, and\nwithout his leave I can do nothing.'\n\n\"This was a true saying. Only a few days after that, I found one of\ntheir little wooden images, painted and feathered like a Delight-Maker,\nin my cave. It was an invitation. It smelled of Kokomo and I scratched\ndirt on it. Then came Tse-tse, and as he turned the little Koshare over\nin his hand, I saw that there were many things had come into his head\nwhich would never come into mine. Presently I heard him laugh as he did\nwhen he had hit upon some new trick for splitting the people's sides,\nlike the bubble of a wicker bottle held under water. He took my chin in\nhis hand. 'Without doubt,' he said, 'this is Kokomo's; he would be very\npleased if you returned it to him.' I understood it as an order.\n\n\"I carried the little Delight-Maker to Kokomo that night in the inner\ncourt, when the evening meal was over and the old men smoked while the\nyounger sat on the housetops and moaned together melodiously. Tse-tse\nlooked up from a game of cherry stones. 'Hey, Kokomo, have you been\ninviting Kabeyde to join the Koshare? A good shot!' he said, and before\nKokomo could answer it, he began putting me through my tricks.\"\n\n\"Tricks?\" cried the children.\n\n\"Jumping over a stick, you know, and showing what I would do if I met\nthe Dine.\" The great cat flattened herself along the ground to spring,\nput back her ears, and showed her teeth with a snarly whine, almost too\nwicked to be pretended. \"I was very good at that,\" said Moke-icha.\n\n\"'The Delight-Maker was for you, Tse-tse,' said the turkey girl next\nmorning. 'Kokomo cannot prove that you gave it to Kabeyde, but he will\nnever forgive you.'\n\n\"True enough, at the next festival the Koshare set the whole of Ty-uonyi\nshouting with a sort of play that showed Tse-tse scared by rabbits in\nthe brush, and thinking the Dine were after them. Tse-tse was furious\nand the turkey girl was so angry on his account that she scolded _him_,\nwhich is the way with women.\n\n\"You see,\" explained Moke-icha to the children, \"if he wanted to be made\na member of the Warrior Band, it wouldn't help him any to be proved a\nbad scout, and a bringer of false alarms. And if he could be elected to\nthe Uakanyi that spring, he would probably be allowed to go on the salt\nexpedition between corn-planting and the first hoeing. But after I had\ncarried back the little Delight-Maker to Kokomo, there were no signs of\nthe four-colored arrow, which was the invitation to the Uakanyi, and\nyoung men whom Tse-tse had mimicked too often went about pretending to\ndiscover Dine wherever a rabbit ran or the leaves rustled.\n\n\"Tse-tse behaved very badly. He was sharp with the turkey girl because\nshe had warned him, and when we hunted on the mesa he would forget me\naltogether, running like a man afraid of himself until I was too winded\nto keep up with him. I am not built for running,\" said Moke-icha, \"my\npart was to pick up the trail of the game, and then to lie up while\nTse-tse drove it past and spring for the throat and shoulder. But when I\nfound myself neglected I went back to Willow-in-the-Wind who wove\nwreaths for my neck, which tickled my chin, and made Tse-tse furious.\n\n\"The day that the names of those who would go on the Salt Trail were\ngiven out--Tse-tse's was not among them--was two or three before the\nfeast of the corn-planting and the last of the winter rains.\nTse-tse-yote was off on one of his wild runnings, but I lay in the back\nof the cave and heard the myriad-footed Rain on the mesa. Between\nshowers there was a soft foot on the ladder outside, and\nWillow-in-the-Wind pushed a tray of her best cooking into the door of\nthe cave and ran away without looking. That was the fashion of a\nlove-giving. I was much pleased with it.\"\n\n\"Oh!--\" Dorcas Jane began to say and broke off. \"Tell us what it was!\"\nshe finished.\n\nMoke-icha considered.\n\n\"Breast of turkey roasted, and rabbit stew with pieces of squash and\nchia, and beans cooked in fat,--very good eating; and of course thin,\nfolded cakes of maize; though I do not care much for corn cakes unless\nthey are well greased. But because it was a love-gift I ate all of it\nand was licking the basket-tray when Tse-tse came back. He knew the\nfashion of her weaving,--every woman's baskets had her own mark,--and as\nhe took it from me his face changed as though something inside him had\nturned to water. Without a word he went down the hill to the chief's\nhouse and I after him.\n\n\"'Moke-icha liked your cooking so well,' he said to the turkey girl,\n'that she was eating the basket also. I have brought it back to you.'\nThere he stood shifting from one foot to another and Willow-in-the-Wind\nturned taut as a bowstring.\n\n\"'Oh,' she said, 'Moke-icha has eaten it! I am very glad to hear it.'\nAnd with that she marched into an inner room and did not come out again\nall that evening, and Tse-tse went hunting next day without me.\n\n\"The next night, which was the third before the feast of planting, being\nlonely, I went out for a walk on the mesa. It was a clear night of wind\nand moving shadow; I went on a little way and smelled man. Two men I\nsmelled, Dine and Queresan, and the Queresan was Kokomo. They were\ntogether in the shadow of a juniper where no man could have seen them.\nWhere I stood no man could have heard them.\n\n\"'It is settled, then,' said Kokomo. 'You send the old man to Shipapu,\nfor which he has long been ready, and take the girl for your trouble.'\n\n\"'Good,' said the Dine. 'But will not the Ko-share know if an extra man\ngoes in with them?'\n\n\"'We go in three bands, and we have taken in so many new members that no\none knows exactly.'\n\n\"'It is a risk,' said the Dine.\n\n\"And as he moved into the wind I knew the smell of him, and it was the\nman we had seen at Dripping Spring; not the hunter, but the one who had\njoined him.\n\n\"'Not so much risk as the chance of not finding the right house in the\ndark,' said Kokomo; 'and the girl has no one belonging to her. Who shall\nsay that she did not go of her own accord?'\n\n\"'At any rate,' the Dine laughed, 'I know she must be as beautiful as\nyou say she is, since you are willing to run the risk of my seeing her.'\n\n\"They moved off, and the wind walking on the pine needles covered what\nthey said, but I remembered what I had heard because they smelled\nof mischief.\n\n\"Two nights later I remembered it again when the Delight-Makers came out\nof the dark in three bands and split the people's sides with laughter.\nThey were disguised in black-and-white paint and daubings of mud and\nfeathers, but there was a Dine among them. By the smell I knew him. He\nwas a tall man who tumbled well and kept close to Kokomo. But a Dine is\nan enemy. Tse-tse-yote had told me. Therefore I kept close at his heels\nas they worked around toward the house of Pitahaya, and my neck\nbristled. I could see that the Dine had noticed me. He grew a little\nfrightened, I think, and whipped at me with the whip of feathers which\nthe Koshare carried to tickle the tribesmen. I laid back my ears--I am\nKabeyde, and it is not for the Dine to flick whips at me. All at once\nthere rose a shouting for Tse-tse, who came running and beat me over the\nhead with his bow-case.\n\n\"'They will think I set you on to threaten the Koshare because they\nmocked me,' he said. 'Have you not done me mischief enough already?'\n\n\"That was when we were back in the cave, where he penned me till\nmorning. There was no way I could tell him that there was a Dine among\nthe Koshare.\"\n\n\"But I thought--\" began Oliver, he looked over to where Arrumpa stood\ndrawing young boughs of maple through his mouth like a boy stripping\ncurrants. \"Couldn't you just have told him?\"\n\n\"In the old days,\" said Moke-icha, \"men spoke with beasts as brothers.\nThe Queres had come too far on the Man Trail. I had no words, but I\nremembered the trick he had taught me, about what to do when I met a\nDine. I laid back my ears and snarled at him.\n\n\"'What!' he said; 'will you make a Dine of _me_?' I saw him frown, and\nsuddenly he slapped his thigh as a man does when thought overtakes him.\nBeing but a lad he would not have dared say what he thought, but he took\nto spending the night on top of the kiva. I would look out of my cave\nand see him there curled up in a corner, or pacing to and fro with the\ndew on his blanket and his face turned to the souls of the prayer plumes\ndrifting in a wide band across the middle heaven.\n\n\"I would have been glad to keep him company, but as neither Tse-tse nor\nWillow-in-the-Wind paid any attention to me in those days, I decided\nthat I might as well go with the men and see for myself what lay at the\nother end of the Salt Trail.\n\n\"I gave them a day's start, so that I might not be turned back; but it\nwas not necessary, since no man looked back or turned around on that\njourney, and no one spoke except those who had been over the trail at\nleast two times. They ate little,--fine meal of parched corn mixed with\nwater,--and what was left in the cup was put into the earth for a thank\noffering. No one drank except as the leader said they could, and at\nnight they made prayers and songs.\n\n\"The trail leaves the mesa at the Place of the Gap, a dry gully snaking\nits way between puma-colored hills and boulders big as kivas. Lasting\nWater is at the end of the second day's journey; rainwater that slips\ndown into a black basin with rock overhanging, cool as an olla. The\nrocks in that place when struck give out a pleasant sound. Beyond the\nGap there is white sand in waves like water, wild hills and raw, red\ncanyons. Around a split rock the trail dips suddenly to Sacred Water,\nshallow and white-bordered like a great dead eye.\"\n\n\"I know that place,\" said the Navajo, \"and I think this must be true,\nfor there is a trail there which bites deep into the granite.\"\n\n\"It was deep and polished even in my day,\" said Moke-icha, \"but that did\nnot interest me. There was no kill there larger than rabbits, and when I\nhad seen the men cast prayer plumes on the Sacred Water and begin to\nscrape up the salt for their packs, I went back to Ty-uonyi. It was not\nuntil I got back to Lasting Water that I picked up the trail of the\nDine. I followed it half a day before it occurred to me that they were\ngoing to Ty-uonyi. One of the smells--there were three of them--was the\nDine who had come in with the Koshare. I remembered the broken plaster\non the wall and Tse-tse asleep on the housetops. _Then_ I hurried.\n\n\"It was blue midnight and the scent fresh on the grass as I came up the\nRito. I heard a dog bark behind the first kiva, and, as I came opposite\nRock-Overhanging, the sound of feet running. I smelled Dine going up the\nwall and slipped back in my hurry, but as I came over the roof of the\nkiva a tumult broke out in the direction of Pitahaya's house. There was\na scream and a scuffle. I saw Tse-tse running and sent him the puma cry\nat which does asleep with their fawns tremble. Down in the long passage\nbetween Pitahaya's court and the gate of Rock-Overhanging, Tse-tse\nanswered with the hunting-whistle.\n\n\"There was a fight going on in the passage. I could feel the cool\ndraught from the open gate,--they must have opened it from the inside\nafter scaling the wall by the broken plaster,--and smelled rather than\nsaw that one man held the passage against Tse-tse. He was armed with a\nstone hammer, which is no sort of weapon for a narrow passage. Tse-tse\nhad caught bow and quiver from the arms that hung always at the inner\nentrance of the passage, but made no attempt to draw. He was crouched\nagainst the wall, knife in hand, watching for an opening, when he heard\nme padding up behind him in the darkness.\n\n\"'Good! Kabeyde,' he cried softly; 'go for him.'\n\n\"I sprang straight for the opening I could see behind the Dine, and felt\nhim go down as I cleared the entrance. Tse-tse panted behind\nme,--'Follow, follow!' I could hear the men my cry had waked, pouring\nout of the kivas, and knew that the Dine we had knocked over would be\ntaken care of. We picked up the trail of those who had escaped, straight\nacross the Rito and over the south wall, but it was an hour before I\nrealized that they had taken Willow-in-the-Wind with them. Old Pitahaya\nwas dead without doubt, and the man who had taken Willow-in-the-Wind\nwas, by the smell, the same that had come in with Kokomo and\nthe Koshare.\n\n\"We were hot on their trail, and by afternoon of the next day I was\ncertain that they were making for Lasting Water. So I took Tse-tse over\nthe rim of the Gap by a short cut which I had discovered, which would\ndrop us back into the trail before they had done drinking. Tse-tse, who\ntrusted me to keep the scent, was watching ahead for a sight of the\nquarry. Thus he saw the Dine before I winded them. I don't know whether\nthey were just a hunting-party, or friends of those we followed. We\ndropped behind a boulder and Tse-tse counted while I lifted every scent.\n\n\"'Five,' he said, 'and the Finisher of the Paths of Our Lives knows how\nmany more between us and Lasting Water!'\n\n\"We did not know yet whether they had seen us, but as we began to move\nagain cautiously, a fox barked in the scrub that was not a fox. Off to\nour left another answered him. So now we were no longer hunters,\nbut hunted.\n\n\"Tse-tse slipped his tunic down to his middle and, unbinding his queue,\nwound his long hair about his head to make himself look as much like a\nDine as possible. I could see thought rippling in him as he worked, like\nwind on water. We began to snake between the cactus and the black rock\ntoward the place where the fox had last barked.\"\n\n\"But _toward_ them---\" Oliver began.\n\n\"They were between us and Lasting Water,\"--Moke-icha looked about the\nlistening circle and the Indians nodded, agreeing. \"When a fox barked\nagain, Tse-tse answered with the impudent folly of a young kit talking\nback to his betters. Evidently the man on our left was fooled by it, for\nhe sheered off, but within a bowshot they began to close on us again.\n\n\"We had come to a thicket of mesquite from which a man might slip\nunnoticed to the head of the gully, provided no one watched that\nparticular spot too steadily. There we lay among the thorns and the\nshadows were long in the low sun. Close on our right a twig snapped and\nI began to gather myself for the spring. The ground sloped a little\nbefore us and gave the advantage. The hand of Tse-tse-yote came along\nthe back of my neck and rested there. 'If a puma lay up here during the\nsun,' he whispered, 'this is the hour he would go forth to his hunting.\nHe would go stretching himself after sleep and having no fear of man,\nfor where Kabeyde lies up, who expects to find man also.' His hand came\nunder my chin as his custom was in giving orders. This was how I\nunderstood it; this I did--\"\n\nThe great cat bounded lightly to the ground, took two or three stretchy\nsteps, shaking the sleep from her flanks, yawned prodigiously, and\ntrotted off toward a thicket of wild plums into which she slipped like a\nbeam of yellow light into water. A moment later she reappeared on the\nopposite side, bounded back and settled herself on the boulder. Around\nthe circle ran the short \"Huh! Huh!\" of Indian approval. The Navajo\nshifted his blanket.\n\n\"A Dine could have done no more for a friend,\" he admitted.\n\n\"I see,\" said Oliver. \"When the Dine saw you coming out of the mesquite\nthey would have been perfectly sure there was no man there. But anyway,\nthey might have taken a shot at you.\"\n\n\"And the twang of the bowstring and the thrashing about of the kill in\nthe thicket would have told Tse-tse exactly where _they_ were,\" said the\nNavajo. \"The Dine when they hunt man do not turn aside for a puma.\"\n\n\"The hardest part of it all,\" said Moke-icha, \"was to keep from showing\nI winded him. I heard the Dine move off, fox-calling to one another, and\nat last I smelled Tse-tse working down the gully. He paid no attention\nto me whatever; his eyes were fixed on the Dine who stood by the spring\nwith his back to him looking down on the turkey girl who was huddled\nagainst the rocks with her hands tied behind her. The Dine looked down\nwith his arms folded, evil-smiling. She looked up and I saw her spit at\nhim. The man took her by the shoulder, laughing still, and spun her up\nstanding. Half a bowshot away I heard Tse-tse-yote. 'Down! Down!' he\nshouted. The girl dropped like a quail. The Dine, whirling on his heel,\nmet the arrow with his throat, and pitched choking. I came as fast as I\ncould between the boulders--I am not built for running--Tse-tse had\nunbound the girl's hands and she leaned against him.\n\n\"Breathing myself before drinking, I caught a new scent up the Gap where\nthe wind came from, but before I had placed it there came a little\nscrape on the rocks under the roof of Lasting Water, small, like the\nrasp of a snake coiling. I had forgot there were three Dine at Ty-uonyi;\nthe third had been under the rock drinking. He came crawling now with\nhis knife in his teeth toward Tse-tse. Me he had not seen until he came\nround the singing rock, face to face with me...\n\n\"When it was over,\" said Moke-icha, \"I climbed up the black roof of\nLasting Water to lick a knife cut in my shoulder. Tse-tse talked to the\ngirl, of all things, about the love-gift she had put in the cave for me.\n'Moke-icha had eaten it before I found her,' he insisted, which was\nunnecessary. I lay looking at the Dine I had killed and licking my wound\ntill I heard, around the bend of the Gap, the travel song of the Queres.\n\n\"It was the Salt Pack coming back, every man with his load on his\nshoulders. They put their hands in their mouths when they saw Tse-tse.\nThere was talk; Willow-in-the-Wind told them something. Tse-tse turned\nthe man he had shot face upward. There was black-and-white paint on his\nbody; the stripes of the Koshare do not come off easily. I saw Tse-tse\nlook from the man to Kokomo and the face of the Koshare turned grayish.\nI had lived with man, and man-thoughts came to me. I had tasted blood of\nmy master's enemies; also Kokomo was afraid, and that is an offense to\nme. I dropped from where I lay ... I had come to my full weight ... I\nthink his back was broken.\n\n\"It is the Way Things Are,\" said Moke-icha. \"Kokomo had let in the Dine\nto kill Pitahaya to make himself chief, and he would have killed Tse-tse\nfor finding out about it. That I saw and smelled in him. But I did not\nwait this time to be beaten with my master's bow-case. I went back to\nShut Canyon, for now that I had killed one of them, it was not good for\nme to live with the Queres. Nevertheless, in the rocks above Ty-uonyi\nyou can still see the image they made of me.\"\n\n\n\n\nVIII\n\nYOUNG-MAN-WHO-NEVER-TURNS-BACK: A TELLING OF THE TALLEGEWI, BY ONE OF\nTHEM\n\n\nIt could only have been for a few moments at the end of Moke-icha's\nstory, before the cliff picture split like a thin film before the\ndancing circles of the watchmen's lanterns, and curled into the shadows\nbetween the cases. A thousand echoes broke out in the empty halls and\nmuffled the voices as the rings of light withdrew down the long gallery\nin glimmering reflections. When they passed to the floor below a very\nremarkable change had come over the landscape.\n\nThe Buffalo Chief and Moke-icha had disappeared. A little way ahead the\ntrail plunged down the leafy tunnel of an ancient wood, along which the\nchildren saw the great elk trotting leisurely with his cows behind him,\nflattening his antlers over his back out of the way of the low-branching\nmaples. The switching of the brush against the elk's dun sides startled\nthe little black bear, who was still riffling his bee tree. The children\nwatched him rise inquiringly to his haunches before he scrambled down\nthe trail out of sight.\n\n\"Lots of those fellows about in my day,\" said the Mound-Builder. \"We\nused to go for them in the fall when they grew fat on the dropping nuts\nand acorns. Elk, too. I remember a ten-pronged buck that I shot one\nwinter on the Elk's-Eye River...\"\n\n\"The Muskingum!\" exclaimed an Iroquois, who had listened in silence to\nthe puma's story. \"Did you call it that too? Elk's-Eye! Clear brown and\nsmooth-flowing. That's the Scioto Trail, isn't it?\" he asked of the\nMound-Builder.\n\n\"You could call it that. There was a cut-off at Beaver Dam to Flint\nRidge and the crossing of the Muskingum, and another that led to the\nmouth of the Kanawha where it meets the River of White-Flashing.\"\n\n\"He means the Ohio,\" explained the Iroquois to the children. \"At flood\nthe whole surface of the river would run to white riffles like the flash\nof a water-bird's wings. But the French called it La Belle Riviere. I'm\nan Onondaga myself,\" he added, \"and in my time the Five Nations held all\nthe territory, after we had driven out the Talle-gewi, between the Lakes\nand the O-hey-yo.\" He stretched the word out, giving it a little\ndifferent turn. \"Indians' names talk little,\" he laughed, \"but they\nsay much.\"\n\n\"Like the trails,\" agreed the Mound-Builder, who was one of the\nTallegewi himself, \"every word is the expression of a need. We had a\ntrade route over this one for copper which we fetched from the Land of\nthe Sky-Blue Water and exchanged for sea-shells out of the south. At the\nmouth of the Scioto it connected with the Kaskaskia Trace to the\nMissi-Sippu, where we went once a year to shoot buffaloes on\nthe plains.\"\n\n\"When the Five Nations possessed the country, the buffaloes came to us,\"\nsaid the Onondaga.\n\n\"Then the Long Knives came on the sea in the East and there was neither\nbuffaloes nor Mengwe,\" answered the Mound-Builder, who did not like\nthese interruptions. He went on describing the Kaskaskia Trail. \"It led\nalong the highlands around the upper waters of the Miami and the drowned\nlands of the Wabash. It was a wonderful trip in the month of the Moon\nHalting, when there was a sound of dropping nuts and the woods were all\none red and yellow rain. But in summer...I should know,\" said the\nMound-Builder; \"I carried a pipe as far as Little Miami once...\"\n\nHe broke off as though the recollection was not altogether a happy one\nand began to walk away from the wood, along the trail, which broadened\nquickly to a graded way, and led up the slope of a high green mound.\n\nThe children followed him without a word. They understood that they had\ncome to the place in the Story of the Trails, which is known in the\nschoolbooks as \"History.\" From the top of the mound they could see\nstrange shapes of earthworks stretching between them and the shore of\nErie. Lakeward the sand and the standing grass was the pale color of the\nmoon that floated above it in the midday sky. Between them the blue of\nthe lake melted into the blue horizon; the turf over the mounds was\nthick and wilted.\n\n\"I suppose I must remember it like this,\" said the Tallega, \"because\nthis is the way I saw it when I came back, an old man, after the fall of\nCahokia. But when this mound was built there were towns here, busy and\ncrowded. The forest came close up on one side, and along the lake front,\nfield touched field for a day's journey. My town was the middle one of\nthree of the Eagle Clan. Our Town House stood here, on the top of this\nmound, and on that other, the tallest, stood the god-house, with the\nSacred Fire, and the four old men watchers to keep it burning.\"\n\n\"I thought,\" said Oliver, trying to remember what he had read about it,\n\"that the mounds were for burials. People dig into them, you know.\"\n\n\"They might think that,\" agreed the Tallega, \"if all they know comes\nfrom what they find by digging. They were for every purpose that\nbuildings are used for, but we always thought it a good omen if we could\nstart a Town Mound with the bones of some one we had loved and\nrespected. First, we laid a circle of stones and an altar with a burnt\noffering, then the bones of the chief, or some of our heroes who were\nkilled in battle. Then the women brought earth in baskets. And if a\nchief had served us well, we sometimes buried him on top and raised the\nmound higher over him, and the mound would be known by his name until\nanother chief arose who surpassed him.\n\n\"Then there were earthworks for forts and signal stations. You'll find\nthose on the high places overlooking the principal trails; there were\nalways heaps of wood piled up for smoke signals. The circles were for\nmeeting-places and for games.\"\n\n\"What sort of games?\" demanded Oliver.\n\n\"Ball-play and races; all that sort of thing. There was a game we played\nwith racquets between goals. Village played against village. The people\nwould sit on the earthworks and clap and shout when the game pleased\nthem, and gambled everything they had on their home-town players.\n\n\"I suppose,\" he added, looking around on the green tumuli, \"I remember\nit like this, because when I lived here I was so full of what was going\non that I had no time for noticing how it looked to me.\"\n\n\"What did go on?\" both the children wished immediately to know.\n\n\"Something different every time the moon changed. Ice-fishing,\ncorn-husking. We did everything together; that was what made it so\ninteresting. The men let us go to the fur traps to carry home the pelts,\nand we hung up the birch-bark buckets for our mothers at the\nsugar-boiling. Maple sugar, you know. Then we would persuade them to\nladle out a little of the boiling sap into plates that we patted out of\nthe snow, which could always be found lingering in the hollows, at\nsugar-makings. When it was still waxy and warm, we rolled up the cooled\nsyrup and ate it out of hand.\n\n\"In summer whole families would go to the bottom lands paw-paw\ngathering. Winter nights there was story-telling in the huts. We had a\nkind of corn, very small, that burst out white like a flower when it was\nparched...\"\n\n\"Pop-corn!\" cried both the children at once. It seemed strange that\nanything they liked so much should have belonged to the Mound-Builders.\n\n\"Why, that was what _we_ called it!\" he agreed, smiling. \"Our mothers\nused to stir it in the pot with pounded hickory nuts and bears' grease.\nGood eating! And the trading trips! Some of our men used to go as far as\nLittle River for chert which they liked better for arrow-points than our\nown flints, being less brittle and more easily worked. That was a canoe\ntrip, down the Scioto, down the O-hey-yo, up the Little Tenasa as far as\nLittle River. There was adventure enough to please everybody.\n\n\"That bird-shaped mound,\" he pointed, \"was built the time we won the\nEagle-Dancing against all the other villages.\"\n\nThe Mound-Builder drew out from under his feather robe a gorget of pearl\nshell, beautifully engraved with the figure of a young man dancing in an\neagle-beaked mask, with eagles' wings fastened to his shoulders.\n\n\"Most of the effigy mounds,\" he said, taking the gorget from his neck to\nlet the children examine it, \"were built that way to celebrate a treaty\nor a victory. Sometimes,\" he added, after a pause, looking off across\nthe wide flat mounds between the two taller ones, \"they were built like\nthese, to celebrate a defeat. It was there we buried the Tallegewi who\nfell in our first battle with the Lenni-Lenape.\"\n\n\"Were they Mound-Builders, too?\" the children asked respectfully, for\nthough the man's voice was sad, it was not as though he spoke of\nan enemy.\n\n\"People of the North,\" he said, \"hunting-people, good foes and good\nfighters. But afterward, they joined with the Mengwe and drove us from\nthe country. _That_ was a Mingo,\"--he pointed to the Iroquois who had\ncalled himself an Onondaga, disappearing down the forest tunnel. They\nsaw him a moment, with arrow laid to bow, the sunlight making tawny\nsplotches on his dark body, as on the trunk of a pine tree, and then\nthey lost him.\n\n\"We were planters and builders,\" said the Tallega, \"and they were\nfighters, so they took our lands from us. But look, now, how time\nchanges all. Of the Lenni-Lenape and the Mengwe there is only a name,\nand the mounds are still standing.\"\n\n\"You said,\" Oliver hinted, \"that you carried a pipe once. Was\nthat--anything particular?\"\n\n\"It might be peace or war,\" said the Mound-Builder. \"In my case it was\nan order for Council, from which war came, bloody and terrible. A\nPipe-Bearer's life was always safe where he was recognized, though when\nthere is war one is very likely to let fly an arrow at anything moving\nin the trails. That reminds me...\" The Tallega put back his feathered\nrobe carefully as he leaned upon his elbow, and the children snuggled\ninto a little depression at the top of the mound where the fire-hole had\nbeen, to listen.\n\n\"There was a boy in our town,\" he began, \"who was the captain of all our\nplays from the time we first stole melons and roasting-ears from the\ntown gardens. He got us into no end of trouble, but no matter what came\nof it, we always stood up for him before the elders. There was nothing\n_they_ could say which seemed half so important to us as praise or blame\nfrom Ongyatasse. I don't know why, unless it was because he could\nout-run and out-wrestle the best of us; and yet he was never pleased\nwith himself unless the rest of us were satisfied to have it that way.\n\n\"Ongyatasse was what his mother called him. It means something very\npretty about the colored light of evening, but the name that he earned\nfor himself, when he was old enough to be Name-Seeking, was\nYoung-Man-Who-Never-Turns-Back.\n\n\"He was the arrow laid to the bow, and he could no more take himself\nback from the adventure he had begun than the shaft can come back to the\nbowstring.\n\n\"Before we were old enough to go up to the god-house and hear the sacred\nTellings, he had half the boys in our village bound to him in an\nunbreakable vow never to turn back from anything we had started. It got\nus into a great many difficulties, some of which were ridiculous, but it\nhad its advantages. The time we chased a young elk we had raised, across\nthe squash and bean vines of Three Towns, we escaped punishment on the\nground of our vow. Any Tallega parent would think a long time before he\nexpected his son to break a promise.\"\n\nOliver kept to the main point of interest. \"Did you get the elk?\"\n\n\"_Of course_. You see we were never allowed to carry a man's hunting\noutfit until we had run down some big game, and brought it in alive to\nprove ourselves proper sportsmen. So partly for that and partly because\nOngyatasse always knew the right words to say to everybody, we were\nforgiven the damage to the gardens.\n\n\"That was the year the Lenni-Lenape came to the Grand Council, which was\nheld here at Sandusky, asking permission to cross our territory toward\nthe Sea on the East. They came out of Shinaki, the Fir-Land, as far as\nNamae-Sippu, and stood crowded between the lakes north of the river. For\nthe last year or two, hunting-parties of theirs had been warned back\nfrom trespass, but this was the first time we youngsters had seen\nanything of them.\n\n\"They were fine-looking fellows, fierce, and tall appearing, with their\nhair cropped up about their ears, and a long hanging scalp-lock tied\nwith eagle feathers. At the same time they seemed savage to us, for they\nwore no clothing but twisty skins about their middles, ankle-cut\nmoccasins, and the Peace Mark on their foreheads.\n\n\"Because of the Mark they bore no weapons but the short hunting-bow and\nwolfskin quivers, with the tails hanging down, and painted breastbands.\nThey were chiefs, by their way of walking, and one of them had brought\nhis son with him. He was about Ongyatasse's age, as handsome as a young\nfir. Probably he had a name in his own tongue, but we called him White\nQuiver. Few of us had won ours yet, and his was man's size, of white\ndeerskin and colored quill-work.\n\n\"Our mothers, to keep us out of the way of the Big Eating which they\nmade ready for the visiting chiefs, had given us some strips of venison.\nWe were toasting them at a fire we had made close to a creek, to stay\nour appetites. My father, who was Keeper of the Smoke for that\noccasion,--I was immensely proud of him,--saw the Lenape boy watching us\nout of the tail of his eye, and motioned to me with his hand that I\nshould make him welcome. My father spoke with his hand so that White\nQuiver should understand--\" The Mound-Builder made with his own thumb\nand forefinger the round sign of the Sun Father, and then the upturned\npalm to signify that all things should be as between brothers. \"I was\nperfectly willing to do as my father said, for, except Ongyatasse, I had\nnever seen any one who pleased me so much as the young stranger. But\neither because he thought the invitation should have come from himself\nas the leader of the band, or because he was a little jealous of our\ninterest in White Quiver, Ongyatasse tossed me a word over his shoulder,\n'We play with no crop-heads.'\n\n\"That was not a true word, for the Lenni-Lenape do not crop the head\nuntil they go on the war-path, and White Quiver's hair lay along his\nshoulders, well oiled, with bright bits of shell tied in it, glittering\nas he walked. Also it is the rule of the Tellings that one must feed the\nstranger. But me, I was never a Name-Seeker. I was happy to stand fourth\nfrom Ongyatasse in the order of our running. For the rest, my brothers\nused to say that I was the tail and Ongyatasse wagged me.\n\n\"Whether he had heard the words or not, the young Lenape saw me stutter\nin my invitation. There might have been a quiver in his face,--at my\nfather's gesture he had turned toward me,--but there was none in his\nwalking. He came straight on toward our fire and _through_ it. Three\nstrides beyond it he drank at the creek as though that had been his only\nobject, and back through the fire to his father. I could see red marks\non his ankles where the fire had bitten him, but he never so much as\nlooked at them, nor at us any more than if we had been trail-grass. He\nstood at his father's side and the drums were beginning. Around the\ngreat mound came the Grand Council with their feather robes and the tall\nheaddresses, up the graded way to the Town House, as though all the gay\nweeds in Big Meadow were walking. It was the great spectacle of the\nyear, but it was spoiled for all our young band by the sight of a slim\nyouth shaking off our fire, as if it had been dew, from his\nreddened ankles.\n\n\"You see,\" said the Mound-Builder, \"it was much worse for us because we\nadmired him immensely, and Ongyatasse, who liked nothing better than\nbeing kind to people, couldn't help seeing that he could have made a\nmuch better point for himself by doing the honors of the village to this\nchief's son, instead of their both going around with their chins in the\nair pretending not to see one another.\n\n\"The Lenni-Lenape won the permission they had come to ask for, to pass\nthrough the territory of the Tallegewi, under conditions that were made\nby Well-Praised, our war-chief; a fat man, a wonderful orator, who never\ntook a straight course where he could find a cunning one. What those\nconditions were you shall hear presently. At the time, we boys were\nscarcely interested. That very summer we began to meet small parties of\nstrangers drifting through the woods, as silent and as much at home in\nthem as foxes. But the year had come around to the Moon of Sap Beginning\nbefore we met White Quiver again.\n\n\"A warm spell had rotted the ice on the rivers, followed by two or three\ndays of sharp cold and a tracking snow. We had been out with Ongyatasse\nto look at our traps, and then the skin-smooth surface of the river\nbeguiled us.\n\n\"We came racing home close under the high west bank where the ice was\nthickest, but as we neared Bent Bar, Young-Man-Who-Never-Turns-Back\nturned toward the trail that cut down to the ford between the points of\nHanging Wood. The ice must have rotted more than we guessed, for halfway\nacross, Ongyatasse dropped through it like a pebble into a pot-hole.\nNext to him was Tiakens, grandson of Well-Praised, and between me and\nTiakens a new boy from Painted Turtle. I heard the splash and shout of\nTiakens following Ongyatasse,--of course, he said afterward that he\nwould have gone to the bottom with him rather than turn back, but I\ndoubt if he could have stopped himself,--and the next thing I knew the\nPainted Turtle boy was hitting me in the nose for stopping him, and\nKills Quickly, who had not seen what was happening, had crashed into us\nfrom behind. We lay all sprawled in a heap while the others hugged the\nbanks, afraid to add their weight to the creaking ice, and Ongyatasse\nwas beating about in the rotten sludge, trying to find a place firm\nenough to climb out on.\n\n\"We had seen both boys disappear for an instant as the ice gave under\nthem, but even when we saw them come to the surface, with Ongyatasse\nholding Tiakens by the hair, we hardly grasped what had happened. The\nedge of the ice-cake had taken Tiakens under the chin and he was\nunconscious. If Ongyatasse had let go of him he would have been carried\nunder the ice by the current, and that would have been the last any one\nwould have seen of him until the spring thaw. But as fast as Ongyatasse\ntried to drag their double weight onto the ice, it broke, and before the\nrest of us had thought of anything to do the cold would have cramped\nhim. I saw Ongyatasse stuffing Tiakens's hair into his mouth so as to\nleave both his hands free, and then there was a running gasp of\nastonishment from the rest of the band, as a slim figure shot out of\nDark Woods, skimming and circling like a swallow. We had heard of the\nsnowshoes of the Lenni-Lenape, but this was the first time we had seen\nthem. For a moment we were so taken up with the wonder of his darting\npace, that it was not until we saw him reaching his long shoeing-pole to\nOngyatasse across the ice, that we realized what he was doing. He had\ncircled about until he had found ice that held, and kicking off his\nsnowshoes, he stretched himself flat on it. I knew enough to catch him\nby the ankles--even then I couldn't help wondering if the scar was still\nthere, for we knew instantly who he was--and somebody caught my feet,\nspreading our weight as much as possible. Over the bridge we made,\nOngyatasse and Tiakens, who had come to himself by this time, crawled\nout on firm ice. In a very few minutes we had stripped them of their wet\nclothing and were rubbing the cramp out of their legs.\n\n\"Ongyatasse, dripping as he was, pushed us aside and went over to White\nQuiver, who was stooping over, fastening his snowshoes. It seemed to\ngive him a great deal of trouble, but at last he raised his head.\n\n\"'This day I take my life at your hands,' said Ongyatasse.\n\n\"'Does Young-Man-Who-Never-Turns-Back take so much from a Crop-Head?'\nsaid the Lenni-Lenape in good Tallegewi, which shows how much they knew\nof us already and how they began to hate us.\n\n\"But when he was touched, Ongyatasse had no equal for highness.\n\n\"'Along with my life I would take friendship too, if it were offered,'\nhe said, and smiled, shivering as he was, in a way we knew so well who\nhad never resisted it. We could see the smile working on White Quiver\nlike a spell. Ongyatasse put an arm over the Lenape's shoulders.\n\n\"'Where the life is, the heart is also,' he said, 'and if the feet of\nOngyatasse do not turn back from the trail they have taken, neither does\nhis heart.' From his neck he slipped off his amulet of white deer's horn\nwhich brought him his luck in hunting, and threw it around the\nother's neck.\n\n\"'Ongyatasse, you have given away your luck!' cried Tiakens, whose head\nwas a little light with the blow the ice-cake had given him.\n\n\"'Both the luck and the life of Young-Man-Who-Never-Turns-Back are safe\nin the hands of a Lenni-Lenape,' said White Quiver, as high as one of\nhis own fir trees, but he loosed a little smile at the corner of his\nmouth as he turned to Tiakens, chattering like a squirrel. 'Unless you\nfind a fire soon, Young-Man-Who-Never-Turns-Back will have need of\nanother friend,' he said; and picking up his shoeing-pole, he was off in\nthe wood again like a weasel darting to cover. We heard the swish of the\nboughs, heavy with new snow, and then silence.\n\n\"But if we had not been able to forget him after the first meeting, you\ncan guess how often we talked of him in the little time that was left\nus. It was not long. Tiakens nearly died of the chill he got, and the\nelders were stirred up at last to break up our band before it led to\nmore serious folly. Ongyatasse was hurried off with a hunting-party to\nMaumee, and I was sent to my mother's brother at Flint Ridge to learn\nstone-working.\n\n\"Not that I objected,\" said the Tallega. \"I have the arrow-maker's\nhand.\" He showed the children his thumb set close to the wrist, the long\nfingers and the deep-cupped palm with the callus running down the\nmiddle. \"All my family were clever craftsmen,\" said the Tallega. \"You\ncould tell my uncle's points anywhere you found them by the fine, even\nflaking, and my mother was the best feather-worker in Three Towns,\"--he\nran his hands under the folds of his mantle and held it out for the\nchildren to admire the pattern. \"Uncle gave me this banner stone as the\nwage of my summer's work with him, and I thought myself overpaid at\nthe time.\"\n\n\"But what did you do?\" asked both children at once.\n\n\"Everything, from knocking out the crude flakes with a stone hammer to\nshaping points with a fire-hardened tip of deer's horn. The ridge was\nmiles long and free to any one who chose to work it, but most people\npreferred to buy the finished points and blades. There was a good trade,\ntoo, in turtle-backs.\" The Tallega poked about in the loose earth at the\ntop of the mound and brought up a round, flattish flint about the size\nof a man's hand, that showed disk-shaped flakings arranged like the\nmarking of a turtle-shell. \"They were kept workable by being buried in\nthe earth, and made into knives or razors or whatever was needed,\" he\nexplained.\n\n\"That summer we had a tremendous trade in broad arrow-points, such as\nare used for war or big game. We sold to all the towns along the north\nfrom Maumee to the headwaters of the Susquehanna, and we sold to the\nLenni-Lenape. They would appear suddenly on the trails with bundles of\nfurs or copper, of which they had a great quantity, and when they were\nsatisfied with what was offered for it, they would melt into the woods\nagain like quail. My uncle used to ask me a great many questions about\nthem which I remembered afterward. But at the time--you see there was a\ngirl, the daughter of my uncle's partner. She was all dusky red like the\ntall lilies at Big Meadow, and when she ran in the village races with\nher long hair streaming, they called her Flying Star.\n\n\"She used to bring our food to us when we opened up a new working, a\nwolf's cry from the old,--sizzling hot deer meat and piles of boiled\ncorn on bark platters, and meal cakes dipped in maple syrup. I stayed on\ntill the time of tall weeds as my father had ordered, and then for a\nwhile longer for the new working, which interested me tremendously.\nFirst we brought hickory wood and built a fire on the exposed surface of\nthe ridge. Then we splintered the hot stone by throwing water on it, and\ndug out the splinters. In two or three days we had worked clean through\nthe ledge of flint to the limestone underneath. This we also burnt with\nfire, after we had protected the fresh flint by plastering it with clay.\nWhen we had cleared a good piece of the ledge, we could hammer it off\nwith the stone sledges and break it up small for working. It was as good\nsport to me as moose-hunting or battle.\n\n\"We had worked a man's length under the ledge, and one day I looked up\nwith the sun in my eyes, as it reddened toward the west, and saw\nOngyatasse standing under a hickory tree. He was dressed for running,\nand around his mouth and on both his cheeks was the white Peace Mark. I\nmade the proper sign to him as to one carrying orders.\n\n\"'You are to come with me,' he said. 'We carry a pipe to Miami.'\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nIX\n\nHOW THE LENNI-LENAPE CAME FROM SHINAKI AND THE TALLEGEWI FOUGHT THEM:\nTHE SECOND PART OF THE MOUND-BUILDER'S STORY\n\n\n\"Two things I thought as I looked at Never-Turns-Back, black against the\nsun. First, that it could be no very great errand that he ran upon, or\nthey would never have trusted it to a youth without honors; and next,\nthat affairs at Three Towns must be serious, indeed, if they could spare\nno older man for pipe-carrying. A third came to me in the night as I\nconsidered how little agreement there was between these two, which was\nthat there must be more behind this sending than a plain call\nto Council.\n\n\"Ongyatasse told me all he knew as we lay up the next night at Pigeon\nRoost. There had not been time earlier, for he had hurried off to carry\nhis pipe to the village of Flint Ridge as soon as he had called me, and\nwe had padded out on the Scioto Cut-off at daybreak.\n\n\"What he said went back to the conditions that were made by Well-Praised\nfor the passing of the Lenni-Lenape through our territory. They were to\ngo in small parties, not more than twenty fighting men to any one of\nthem. They were to change none of our landmarks, enter none of our towns\nwithout permission from the Town Council, and to keep between the lake\nand the great bend of the river, which the Lenni-Lenape called\nAllegheny, but was known to us as the River of the Tallegewi.\n\n\"Thus they had begun to come, few at first, like the trickle of melting\nice in the moon of the Sun Returning, and at the last, like grasshoppers\nin the standing corn. They fished out our rivers and swept up the game\nlike fire in the forest. Three Towns sent scouts toward Fish River who\nreported that the Lenape swarmed in the Dark Wood, that they came on\nfrom Shinaki thick as their own firs. Then the Three Towns took council\nand sent a pipe to the Eagle villages, to the Wolverines and the Painted\nTurtles. These three kept the country of the Tallegewi on the north from\nMaumee to the headwaters of the Allegheny, and Well-Praised was their\nwar leader.\n\n\"Still,\" said the Mound-Builder, \"except that he was the swiftest\nrunner, I couldn't understand why they had chosen an untried youth for\npipe-carrying.\"\n\nHe felt in a pouch of kit fox with the tail attached, which hung from\nthe front of his girdle like the sporran of a Scotch Highlander. Out of\nit he drew a roll of birch bark painted with juice of poke-berries. The\nTallega spread it on the grass, weighting one end with the turtle-back,\nas he read, with the children looking over his shoulder.\n\n[Illustration: Well-Praised, war-chief of the Eagle Clan to the Painted\nTurtles;--Greeting.]\n\n[Illustration: Come to the Council House at Three Towns.]\n\n[Illustration: On the fifth day of the Moon Halting.]\n\n[Illustration: We meet as Brothers.]\n\n\"An easy scroll to read,\" said the Tallega, as the released edges of the\nbirch-bark roll clipped together. \"But there was more to it than that.\nThere was an arrow play; also a question that had to be answered in a\ncertain way. Ongyatasse did not tell me what they were, but I learned at\nthe first village where we stopped.\n\n\"This is the custom of pipe-carrying. When we approached a settlement we\nwould show ourselves to the women working in the fields or to children\nplaying, anybody who would go and carry word to the Head Man that the\nPipe was coming. It was in order to be easily recognized that Ongyatasse\nwore the Peace Mark.\"\n\nThe Mound-Builder felt in his pouch for a lump of chalky white clay with\nwhich he drew a wide mark around his mouth, and two cheek-marks like a\nparenthesis. It would have been plain as far as one could see him.\n\n\"That was so the villages would know that one came with Peace words in\nhis mouth, and make up their minds quickly whether they wanted to speak\nwith him. Sometimes when there was quarreling between the clans they\nwould not receive a messenger. But even in war-times a man's life was\nsafe as long as he wore the White Mark.\"\n\n\"Ours is a white flag,\" said Oliver.\n\nThe Mound-Builder nodded.\n\n\"All civilized peoples have much the same customs,\" he agreed, \"but the\nLenni-Lenape were savages.\n\n\"We lay that night at Pigeon Roost in the Scioto Bottoms with wild\npigeons above us thick as blackberries on the vines. They woke us going\nout at dawn like thunder, and at mid-morning they still darkened the\nsun. We cut into the Kaskaskia Trail by a hunting-trace my uncle had\ntold us of, and by the middle of the second day we had made the first\nEagle village. When we were sure we had been seen, we sat down and\nwaited until the women came bringing food. Then the Head Man came in\nfull dress and smoked with us.\"\n\nOut of his pouch the Tallega drew the eagle-shaped ceremonial pipe of\nred pipestone, and when he had fitted it to the feathered stem, blew a\nsalutatory whiff of smoke to the Great Spirit.\n\n\"Thus we did, and later in the Council House there were ceremonies and\nexchange of messages. It was there, when all seemed finished, that I saw\nthe arrow play and heard the question.\n\n\"Ongyatasse drew an arrow from his quiver and scraped it. There was\ndried blood on the point, which makes an arrow untrue to its aim, but it\nwas no business for a youth to be cleaning his arrows before the elders\nof the Town House; therefore, I took notice that this was the meat of\nhis message. Ongyatasse scraped and the Head Man watched him.\n\n\"'There are many horned heads in the forest this season,' he said at\nlast.\n\n\"'Very many,' said Ongyatasse; 'they come into the fields and eat up the\nharvest.'\n\n\"'In that case,' said the Head Man, 'what should a man do?'\n\n\"'What can he do but let fly at them with a broad arrow?' said\nOngyatasse, putting up his own arrow, as a man puts up his work when it\nis finished.\n\n\"But as the arrow was not clean, and as the Lenni-Lenape had shot all\nthe deer, if I had not known that Well-Praised had devised both question\nand answer, it would have seemed all foolishness. There had been no\nGeneral Council since the one at which the treaty of passage was made\nwith the Lenni-Lenape; therefore I knew that the War-Chief had planned\nthis sending of dark messages in advance, messages which no\nYoung-Man-Who-Never-Turns-Back had any right to understand.\n\n\"'But why the Painted Scroll?' I said to Ongyatasse; for if, as I\nsupposed, the real message was in the question and answer, I could not\nsee why there should still be a Council called.\n\n\"'The scroll,' said my friend, 'is for those who are meant to be fooled\nby it.'\n\n\"'But who should be fooled?'\n\n\"'Whoever should stop us on the trail.'\n\n\"'My thoughts do not move so fast as my feet, O my friend,' said I. 'Who\nwould stop a pipe-carrier of the Tallegewi?\" \"'What if it should be the\nHorned Heads?' said Ongyatasse.\n\n\"That was a name we had given the Lenni-Lenape on account of the\nfeathers they tied to the top of their hair, straight up like horns\nsprouting. Of course, they could have had no possible excuse for\nstopping us, being at peace, but I began to put this together with\nthings Ongyatasse had told me, particularly the reason why no older man\nthan he could be spared from Three Towns. He said the men were\nrebuilding the stockade and getting in the harvest.\n\n\"The middle one of Three Towns was walled, a circling wall of earth half\nman high, and on top of that, a stockade of planted posts and wattles.\nIt was the custom in war-times to bring the women and the corn into the\nwalled towns from the open villages. But there had been peace so long in\nTallega that our stockade was in great need of rebuilding, and so were\nthe corn bins. Well-Praised was expecting trouble with the Lenni-Lenape,\nI concluded; but I did not take it very seriously. The Moon of Stopped\nWaters was still young in the sky, and the fifth day of the Moon Halting\nseemed very far away to me.\n\n\"We were eleven days in all carrying the Pipe to the Miami villages, and\nthough they fed us well at the towns where we stopped, we were as thin\nas snipe at the end of it. It was our first important running, you see,\nand we wished to make a record. We followed the main trails which\nfollowed the watersheds. Between these, we plunged down close-leaved,\nsweating tunnels of underbrush, through tormenting clouds of flies. In\nthe bottoms the slither of our moccasins in the black mud would wake\nclumps of water snakes, big as a man's head, that knotted themselves\ntogether in the sun. There is a certain herb which snakes do not love\nwhich we rubbed on our ankles, but we could hear them rustle and hiss as\nwe ran, and the hot air was all a-click and a-glitter with insects'\nwings; ... also there were trumpet flowers, dusky-throated, that made me\nthink of my girl at Flint Ridge... Then we would come out on long ridges\nwhere oak and hickory shouldered one another like the round-backed\nbillows of the lake after the storm. We made our record. And for all\nthat we were not so pressed nor so overcome with the dignity of our\nerrand that we could not spare one afternoon to climb up to the\nWabashiki Beacon. It lies on the watershed between the headwaters of the\nMaumee and the Wabash, a cone-shaped mound and a circling wall within\nwhich there was always wood piled for the beacon light, the Great Gleam,\nthe Wabashiki, which could be seen the country round for a two days'\njourney. The Light-Keeper was very pleased with our company and told us\nold tales half the night long, about how the Beacon had been built and\nhow it was taken by turns by the Round Heads and the Painted Turtles. He\nasked us also if we had seen anything of a party of Lenni-Lenape which\nhe had noted the day before, crossing the bottoms about an hour after he\nhad sighted us. He thought they must have gone around by Crow Creek,\navoiding the village, and that we should probably come up with them the\nnext morning, which proved to be the case.\n\n\"They rose upon us suddenly as we dropped down to the east fork of the\nMaumee, and asked us rudely where we were going. They had no right, of\ncourse, but they were our elders, to whom it is necessary to be\nrespectful, and they were rather terrifying, with their great bows, tall\nas they were, stark naked except for a strip of deerskin, and their\nfeathers on end like the quills of an angry porcupine. We had no weapons\nourselves, except short hunting-bows,--one does not travel with peace on\nhis mouth and a war weapon at his back,--so we answered truly, and\nOngyatasse read the scroll to them, which I thought unnecessary.\n\n\"'Now, I think,' said my friend, when the Lenape had left us with some\nquestion about a hunting-party, which they had evidently invented to\nexcuse their rudeness, 'that it was for such as these that the scroll\nwas written.' But we could not understand why Well-Praised should have\ngone to all that trouble to let the Lenni-Lenape know that he had called\na Council.\n\n\"When we had smoked our last pipe, we were still two or three days from\nThree Towns, and we decided to try for a cut-off by a hunting-trail\nwhich Ongyatasse had been over once, years ago, with his father. These\nhunting-traces go everywhere through the Tallegewi Country. You can tell\nthem by the way they fork from the main trails and, after a day or two,\nthin into nothing. We traveled well into the night from the place that\nOngyatasse remembered, so as to steer by the stars, and awoke to the\npleasant pricking of adventure. But we had gone half the morning before\nwe began to be sure that we were followed.\n\n\"Jays that squawked and fell silent as we passed, called the alarm again\na few minutes later. A porcupine which we saw, asleep upon a log, woke\nup and came running from behind us. We thought of the Lenni-Lenape.\nWhere a bare surface of rock across our path made it possible to turn\nout without leaving a track, we stole back a few paces and waited.\nPresently we made out, through the thick leaves, a youth, about our age\nwe supposed, for his head was not cropped and he was about the height of\nOngyatasse. When we had satisfied ourselves that he was alone, we took\npleasure in puzzling him. As soon as he missed our tracks in the trail,\nhe knew that he was discovered and played quarry to our fox very\ncraftily. For an hour or two we stalked one another between the buckeye\nboles, and then I stepped on a rotten log which crumbled and threw me\nnoisily. The Lenape let fly an arrow in our direction. We were nearing a\ncrest of a ridge where the underbrush thinned out, and as soon as we had\na glimpse of his naked legs slipping from tree to tree, Ongyatasse made\na dash for him. We raced like deer through the still woods, Ongyatasse\ngaining on the flying figure, and I about four laps behind him. A low\nbranch swished blindingly across my eyes for a moment, and when I could\nlook again, the woods were suddenly still and empty.\n\n\"I dropped instantly, for I did not know what this might mean, and\ncreeping cautiously to the spot where I had last seen them, I saw the\nearth opening in a sharp, deep ravine, at the bottom of which lay\nOngyatasse with one leg crumpled under him. I guessed that the Lenape\nmust have led him to the edge and then slipped aside just in time to let\nthe force of Ongyatasse's running carry him over. Without waiting to\nplan, I began to climb down the steep side of the ravine. About halfway\ndown I was startled by a rustling below, and, creeping along the bottom\nof the bluff, I saw the Lenni-Lenape with his knife between his teeth,\nwithin an arm's length of my friend. I cried out, and in a foolish\neffort to save him, I must have let go of the ledge to which I clung.\nThe next thing I knew I was lying half-stunned, with a great many pains\nin different parts of me, at the bottom of the ravine, almost within\ntouch of Ongyatasse and a young Lenape with an amulet of white deer's\nhorn about his neck and, across his back, what had once been a white\nquiver. He was pouring water from a birch-bark cup upon my friend, and\nas soon as he saw that my eyes were opened he came and offered me a\ndrink. There did not seem to be anything to say, so we said nothing, but\npresently, when I could sit up, he washed the cut on the back of my\nhead, and then he showed me that Ongyatasse's knee was out of place, and\nsaid that we ought to pull it back before he came to himself.\n\n\"I crawled over--I had saved myself by falling squarely on top of White\nQuiver so that nothing worse happened to me than sore ribs and a finger\nbroken--and took my friend around the body while our enemy pulled the\nknee, and Ongyatasse groaned aloud and came back. Then White Quiver tied\nup my finger in a splint of bark, and we endured our pains and\nsaid nothing.\n\n\"We were both prisoners of the Lenape. So we considered ourselves; we\nwaited to see what he would do about it. Toward evening he went off for\nan hour and returned with a deer which he dressed very skillfully and\ngave us to eat. Then, of the wet hide, he made a bandage for\nOngyatasse's knee, which shrunk as it dried and kept down the swelling.\n\n\"'Now I shall owe you my name as well as my life,' said Ongyatasse, for\nif his knee had not been properly attended, that would have been the end\nof his running.\n\n\"'Then your new name would be Well-Friended,' said the Lenape, and he\nmade a very good story of how I had come tumbling down on both of them.\nWe laughed, but Ongyatasse had another question.\n\n\"'There was peace on my mouth and peace between Lenni-Lenape and\nTallegewi. Why should you chase us?'\n\n\"'The Tallegewi send a Pipe to the Three Clans. Will you swear that the\nmessage that went with it had nothing to do with the Lenni-Lenape?'\n\n\"'What should two boys know of a call to Council?' said Ongyatasse, and\nshowed him the birch-bark scroll, to which White Quiver paid no\nattention.\n\n\"'There is peace between us, and a treaty, the terms of which were made\nby the Tallegewi, all of which we have kept. We have entered no town\nwithout invitation. When one of our young men stole a maiden of yours we\nreturned her to her village.' He went on telling many things, new to us,\nof the highness of the Lenni-Lenape. 'All this was agreed at the Three\nTowns by Cool Waters,' said he. 'Now comes a new order. We may not enter\nthe towns at all. The treaty was for camping privileges in any one place\nfor the space of one moon. Now, if we are three days in one place, we\nare told that we must move on. The Lenni-Lenape are not Two-Talkers. If\nwe wear peace on our mouths we wear it in our hearts also.'\n\n\"'There is peace between your people and mine, and among the Tallegewi,\npeace.'\n\n\"'So,' said White Quiver. 'Then why do they rebuild their stockades and\nfetch arrow-stone from far quarries? And why do they call a Council in\nthe Moon of the Harvest?'\n\n\"I remembered the good trade my uncle, the arrow-maker, had had that\nsummer, and was amazed at his knowledge of it, so I answered as I had\nbeen taught. 'If I were a Lenape,' said I, 'and thought that the\nCouncils of the Tallegewi threatened my people, I would know what those\nCouncils were if I made myself a worm in the roof-tree to overhear it.'\n\n\"'Aye,' he said, 'but you are only a Tallega.'\n\n\"He was like that with us, proud and humble by turns. Though he was a\nnaked savage, traveling through our land on sufferance, he could make us\ncrawl in our hearts for the Tallegewi. He suspected us of much evil,\nmost of which was true as it turned out; yet all the time we lay at the\nbottom of the ravine, for the most part helpless, he killed every day\nfor us, and gathered dry grass to make a bed for Ongyatasse.\n\n\"We talked no more of the Council or of our errand, but as youths will,\nwe talked of highness, and of big game in Shinaki, and of the ways of\nthe Tallegewi, of which for the most part he was scornful.\n\n\"Corn he allowed us as a great advantage, but of our towns he doubted\nwhether they did not make us fat and Two-Talkers.\n\n\"'Town is a trade-maker,' he said; 'men who trade much for things, will\nalso trade for honor.'\n\n\"'The Lenni-Lenape carry their honor in their hands,' said Ongyatasse,\n'but the Tallegewi carry theirs in their forehead.'\n\n\"He meant,\" said the Mound-Builder, turning to the children, \"that the\nLenni-Lenape fought for what they held most dear, and the Tallegewi\nschemed and plotted for it. That was as we were taught. With us, the\nhand is not lifted until the head has spoken. But as it turned out,\nbetween Tallegewi and Lenape, the fighters had the best of it.\"\n\nHe sighed, making the salutation to the dead as he looked off, across\nthe burial-grounds, to the crumbling heap of the god-house.\n\n\"But I don't understand,\" said Dorcas; \"were Ongyatasse and White Quiver\nfriends or enemies?\"\n\n\"They were two foes who loved one another, and though their tribes fell\ninto long and bloody war, between these two there was highness and, at\nthe end, most wonderful kindness. The first time that we got Ongyatasse\nto his feet and he found that his knee, though feeble, was as good as\never, he said to White Quiver, leaning on his shoulder,--\n\n\"'Concerning the call to Council, there was more to it than was written\non the scroll, the meaning of which was hidden from me who carried it.'\n\n\"'Which is no news to me,' said the Lenni-Lenape; 'also,' he said, 'the\nmessage was arranged beforehand, for it required no answer.'\n\n\"I asked him how he knew that, and he mocked at me.\n\n\"'Any time these five days you could have gone forward with the answer\nhad it been important for you to get back to Cool Waters!'\n\n\"That was true. I could have left Ongyatasse and gone on alone, but\nnothing that had happened so far had made us think that we must get back\nquickly. White Quiver asked us one day what reason Well-Praised had\ngiven for requiring that the Lenni-Lenape should pass through the\ncountry with not more than twenty fighting men in the party. To save the\ngame, we told him, which seemed to us reasonable; though I think from\nthat hour we began to feel that the Tallegewi, with all their walled\ntowns and monuments, had been put somehow in the wrong by the wild\ntribes of Shinaki.\n\n\"We stayed on in the ravine, waiting on Ongyatasse's knee, until we saw\nthe new rim of the Halting Moon curled up like a feather. The leaves of\nthe buckeye turned clear yellow and the first flock of wild geese went\nover. We waited one more day for White Quiver to show us a short cut to\nthe Maumee Trail, and just when we had given him up, we were aware of a\nstrange Lenape in warpaint moving among the shadows. He stood off from\nus with his arms folded and his face was as bleak as a winter-bitten wood.\n\n\"'Wash the lie from your mouth,' he said, 'and follow.'\n\n\"Without a word he turned and began to move from us through the smoky\nlight with which the wood was filling. His head was cropped for\nwar--that was why we did not know him--and along the shoulder he turned\ntoward us was the long scrape of a spear-point. That was why we\nfollowed, saying nothing. Toward daylight the lame knee began to give\ntrouble. White Quiver came back and put his shoulder under Ongyatasse's,\nso we moved forward, wordlessly. Birds awoke in the woods, and hoarfrost\nlay white on the crisped grasses.\n\n\"On a headland from which the lake glinted white as a blade of flint on\nthe horizon, we waited the sunrise. Smoke arose, from Wabashiki, from\nthe direction of the Maumee settlements, from the lake shore towns; tall\nplumes of smoke shook and threatened. Curtly, while we ate, White Quiver\ntold us what had happened; how the Tallegewi, in violation of the\ntreaty, had fallen suddenly on scattered bands of the Lenni-Lenape and\nall but exterminated them. The Tallegewi said that it was because they\nhad discovered that the Lenni-Lenape had plotted to fall upon our towns,\nas soon as the corn was harvested, and take them. But White Quiver\nthought that the whole thing was a plan of Well-Praised from the\nbeginning. He had been afraid to refuse passage to the Lenape, on\naccount of their great numbers, and had arranged to have them broken up\nin small parties so that they could be dealt with separately.\"\n\n\"And which was it?\" Oliver wished to know.\n\n\"It was a thousand years ago,\" said the Mound-Builder. \"Who remembers?\nBut we were ashamed, my friend and I, for we understood now that the\nsecret meaning of our message about the Horned Heads had been that the\nTallegewi should fall upon the Lenape wherever they found them. You\nremember that it was part of the question and answer that they 'came\ninto the fields and ate up the harvest.'\n\n\"There might have been a plot, but, on the other hand, we knew that the\npainted scroll had been a blind to make the Lenni-Lenape think that the\nTallegewi would do nothing until they had taken counsel. But we had\ncarried a war message with peace upon our mouths and we were ashamed\nbefore White Quiver. We had talked much highness with him, and besides,\nwe loved him. As it turned out we were not wrong in thinking he loved\nus. As we stood making out the points of direction for the trail,\nOngyatasse's knee gave under him, and as White Quiver put out his arm\nwithout thinking, a tremor passed over them. They stood so leaning each\non each for a moment. 'Your trail lies thus ... and thus ...' said the\nLenape, 'but I do not know what you will find at the end of it.' Then he\nloosed his arm from my friend's shoulder, took a step back, and the\nforest closed about him.\n\n\"We were two days more on the trail, though we did not go directly to\nCool Waters. Some men of the Painted Turtles that we met, told us the\nfight had passed from the neighborhood of the towns and gathered at Bent\nBar Crossing. Our fathers were both there, which we made an excuse for\njoining them. At several places we saw evidences of fighting. All the\nbands of Lenni-Lenape that were not too far in our territory had come\nhurrying back toward Fish River, and other bands, as the rumor of\nfighting spread, came down out of Shinaki like buzzards to a carcass.\nFrom Cool Waters to Namae-sippu, the Dark Wood was full of war-cries and\ngroaning. At Fish River the Tallegewi fell in hundreds ... there is a\nmound there ... at Bent Bar the Lenni-Lenape held the ford, keeping a\npassage open for flying bands that were pressed up from the south by the\nPainted Turtles. Ongyatasse went about getting together his old band\nfrom the Three Towns, fretting because we were not allowed to take the\nfront of the battle.\n\n\"Three days the fight raged about the crossing. The Lenni-Lenape were\nthe better bowmen; their long arrows carried heavier points. Some that I\nfound in the breasts of my friends, I had made, and it made my own heart\nhot within me. The third day, men from the farther lake towns came up\nthe river in their canoes, and the Lenape, afraid of being cut off from\ntheir friends in the Dark Wood, broke across the river. As soon as they\nbegan to go, our young men, who feared the fight would be over without\nthem, could not be held back. Ongyatasse at our head, we plunged into\nthe river after them.\n\n\"Even in flight the Lenni-Lenape were most glorious fighters. They dived\namong the canoes to hack holes in the bottoms, and rising from under the\nsides they pulled the paddlers bodily into the river. We were mad with\nour first fight, we youngsters, for we let them lead us up over the bank\nand straight into ambush. We were the Young-Men-Who-Never-Turned-Back.\n\n\"That was a true name for many of us,\" said the Mound-Builder. \"I\nremember Ongyatasse's shrill eagle cry above the '_G'we! G'we_!' of the\nLenni-Lenape, and the next thing I knew I was struggling in the river,\nbleeding freely from a knife wound, and somebody was pulling me into a\ncanoe and safety.\"\n\n\"And Ongyatasse--?\" The children looked at the low mound between the\nCouncil Place and the God-House.\n\nThe Mound-Builder nodded.\n\n\"We put our spears together to make a tent over him before the earth was\npiled,\" he said, \"and it was good to be able to do even so much as that\nfor him. For we thought at first we should never find him. He was not on\nthe river, nor in our side of the Dark Wood, and the elders would not\npermit us to go across in search of him. But at daylight the gatherers\nof the dead saw something moving from under the mist that hid the\nopposite bank of the river. We waited, arrow on bowstring, not knowing\nif it were one of our own coming back to us or a Lenape asking for\nparley. But as it drew near we saw it was a cropped head, and he towed a\ndead Tallega by the hair. Ripples that spread out from his quiet wake\ntook the sun, and the measured dip of the swimmer's arm was no louder\nthan the whig of the cooter that paddled in the shallows.\n\n\"It had been a true word that Ongyatasse had given his life and his luck\nto White Quiver; the Lenape had done his best to give them back again.\nAs he came ashore with the stiffened form, we saw him take the white\ndeer amulet from his own neck and fasten it around the neck of\nOngyatasse. Then, disdaining even to make the Peace sign for his own\nsafe returning, he plunged into the river again, swimming steadily\nwithout haste until the fog hid him.\"\n\nThe Mound-Builder stood up, wrapping his feather mantle about him and\nbegan to move down the slope of the Town Mound, the children following.\nThere were ever so many things they wished to hear about, which they\nhoped he might be going to tell them, but halfway down he turned and\npointed. Over south and east a thin blue film of smoke rose up straight\nfrom the dark forest.\n\n\"That's for you, I think. Your friend, the Onondaga, is signaling you;\nhe knows the end of the story.\"\n\nTaking hands, the children ran straight in the direction of the smoke\nsignal, along the trail which opened before them.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nX\n\nTHE MAKING OF A SHAMAN: A TELLING OF THE IROQUOIS TRAIL, BY THE ONONDAGA\n\n\nDown the Mound-Builder's graded way the children ran looking for the\nOnondaga. Like all the trail in the Museum Country it covered a vast\ntract of country in a very little while, so that it was no time at all\nbefore they came out among high, pine-covered swells, that broke along\nthe watercourses into knuckly granite headlands. From one of these,\nsteady puffs of smoke arose, and a moment later they could make out the\nfigure of an Indian turning his head from side to side as he searched\nthe surrounding country with the look of eagles. They knew him at once,\nby the Medicine bundle at his belt and the slanting Iroquois feather,\nfor their friend the Onondaga.\n\n\"I was looking for you by the lake shore trail,\" he explained as Oliver\nand Dorcas Jane climbed up to him. \"You must have come by the\nMusking-ham-Mahoning; it drops into the Trade Trail of the Iroquois\nyonder,\"--he pointed south and east,--\"the Great Trail, from the\nMohican-ittuck to the House of Thunder.\" He meant the Hudson River and\nthe Falls of Niagara. \"Even at our village, which was at the head of the\nlake here, we could hear the Young Thunders, shouting from behind the\nfalls,\" he told them.\n\nA crooked lake lay below them like a splinter of broken glass between\nthe headlands. From the far end of it the children could see smoke\nrising. \"We used to signal our village from here when we went on the\nwar-trail,\" said the Onondaga; \"we would cut our mark on a tree as we\nwent out, and as we came back we added the war count. I was looking for\nan old score of mine to-day.\"\n\n\"Had it anything to do with the Mound-Builders?\" Dorcas wished to know.\n\"He said you knew the end of that story.\"\n\nThe Onondaga shook his head.\n\n\"That was a hundred years before my time, and is a Telling of the\nLenni-Lenape. In the Red Score it is written, the Red Score of the\nLenni-Lenape. When my home was in the village there, the Five Nations\nheld all the country between the lakes and the Mohican-ittuck. But there\nwere many small friendly tribes along the borders, Algonquian mostly.\"\n\nHe squatted on his heels beside the fire and felt in his belt for the\npipe and tobacco pouch without which no Telling proceeds properly.\n\n\"In my youth,\" said the Onondaga, \"I was very unhappy because I had no\nVision. When my time came I walked in the forest and ate nothing, but\nthe Mystery would not speak to me. Nine days I walked fasting, and then\nmy father came to find me under a pine tree, with my eyes sunk in my\nhead and my ribs like a basket. But because I was ashamed I told him my\nMystery was something that could not be talked about, and so I told\nthe Shaman.\n\n\"My father was pleased because he thought it meant that I was to be a\nvery great Shaman myself, and the other boys envied me. But in my heart\nI was uneasy. I did not know what to make of my life because the Holder\nof the Heavens had not revealed himself to me. To one of my friends he\nhad appeared as an eagle, which meant that he was to be a warrior, keen\nand victorious; and to another as a fox, so that he studied cunning; but\nwithout any vision I did not know what to make of myself. My heart was\nslack as a wetted bowstring. My father reproached me.\n\n\"'The old women had smoke in their eyes,' he said; 'they told me I had a\nson, now I see it is a woman child.'\n\n\"My mother was kinder. 'Tell me,' she said, 'what evil dream unknots the\ncords of your heart?'\n\n\"So at last I told her.\n\n\"My mother was a wise woman. 'To a dog or a child,' she said, 'one\nspeaks the first word on the lips, but before a great Shaman one\nconsiders carefully. What is a year of your life to the Holder of the\nHeavens? Go into the forest and wait until his message is ripe for you.'\nShe was a wise woman.\n\n\"So I put aside my bow and quiver, and with them all desire of meat and\nall thought of killing. With my tomahawk I cut a mark in that chestnut\nyonder and buried my weapon at the foot of it. I had my knife, my pipe,\nand my fire-stick. Also I felt happy and important because my mother had\nmade me believe that the Holder of the Heavens thought well of me. I was\ngiving him a year in which to tell me what to do with my life.\n\n\"I turned east, for, I said, from the east light comes. It was an old\ntrail even in those days. It follows the watershed from the lake to\nOneida, and clears the Mohawk Valley northward. It was the Moon of\nTender Leaves when I set out, and by the time nuts began to ripen I had\ncome to the lowest hills of the Adirondacks.\n\n\"Sometimes I met hunting-parties or women gathering berries, and bought\ncorn and beans from them, but for the most part I lived on seeds and\nroots and wild apples.\n\n\"By the time I had been a month or two without killing, the smell of\nmeat left me. Rabbits ran into my hands, and the mink, stealing along\nthe edge of the marsh to look for frogs, did not start from me. Deer\ncame at night to feed on the lily buds on the lake borders. They would\ncome stealing among the alders and swim far out to soak their coats.\nWhen they had made themselves mosquito-proof, they would come back to\nthe lily beds and I would swim among them stilly, steering by the red\nreflection of my camp-fire in their eyes. When my thought that was not\nthe thought of killing touched them, they would snort a little and\nreturn to the munching of lilies, and the trout would rise in bubbly\nrings under my arms as I floated. But though I was a brother to all the\nEarth, the Holder of the Heavens would not speak to me.\n\n\"Sometimes, when I had floated half the night between the hollow sky of\nstars and its hollow reflection, the Vision seemed to gather on the\nsurface of the water. It would take shape and turn to the flash of a\nloon's wet wing in the dawning, Or I would sit still in the woods until\nmy thought was as a tree, and the squirrels would take me for a tree and\nrun over me. Then there would come a strange stir, and the creeping of\nmy flesh along my spine until the Forest seemed about to speak ... and\nsuddenly a twig would snap or a jay squawk, and I would be I again, and\nthe tree a tree....\n\n\"It was the first quarter of the Moon of Falling Leaves,\" said the\nOnondaga filling his pipe again and taking a fresh start on his story.\n\"There was a feel in the air that comes before the snow, but I was very\nhappy in my camp by a singing creek far up on the Adirondacks, and kept\nputting off moving the camp from day to day. And one evening when I came\nin from gathering acorns, I discovered that I had had a visitor. Mush of\nacorn meal which I had left in my pot had been eaten. That is right, of\ncourse, if the visitor is hungry; but this one had wiped out his tracks\nwith a leafy bough, which looked like trickery.\n\n\"It came into my mind that it might have been one of the Gahonga, the\nspirits that dwell in rocks and rivers and make the season fruitful.\"\n\n\"Oh!\" cried Dorcas, \"Indian fairies! Did you have those?\"\n\n\"There are spirits in all things,\" said the Onondaga gravely. \"There are\nOdowas, who live in the underworld and keep back the evil airs that\nbring sickness. You can see the bare places under the pines where they\nhave their dancing-places. And there are the Gandaiyah who loose wild\nthings from the traps and bring dew on the strawberry blossoms. But all\nthese are friendly to man. So I cooked another pot of food and lay down\nin my blanket. I sleep as light as a wild thing myself. In the middle of\nthe night I was wakened by the sound of eating. Presently I heard\nsomething scrape the bottom of the pot, and though I was afraid, I could\nnot bear to have man or spirit go from my camp hungry. So I spoke to\nthe sound.\n\n\"'There is food hanging in the tree,' I said. I had hung it up to keep\nthe ants from it. But as soon as I finished speaking I heard the Thing\ncreeping away. In the morning I found it had left the track of one small\ntorn moccasin and a strange misshapen lump. It came up from and\ndisappeared into the creek, so I was sure it must have been a Gahonga.\nBut that evening as I sat by my fire I was aware of it behind me. No, I\nheard nothing; I felt the thought of that creature touching my thought.\nWithout looking round I said, 'What is mine is yours, brother.' Then I\nlaid dry wood on the fire, and getting up I walked away without looking\nback. But when I was out of the circle of light I looked and I saw the\nThing come out of the brush and warm its hands.\n\n\"Then I knew that it was human, so I dropped my blanket over it from\nbehind and it lay without moving. I thought I had killed it, but when I\nlifted the blanket I saw that it was a girl, and she was all but dead\nwith fright. She lay looking at me like a deer that I had shot, waiting\nfor me to plunge in the knife. It is a shame to any man to have a girl\nlook at him as that one looked at me. I made the sign of friendship and\nset food before her, and water in a cup of bark. Then I saw what had\nmade the clumsy track; it was her foot which she had cut on the rocks\nand bound up with strips of bark. Also she was sick with fright and\nstarvation.\n\n\"For two days she lay on my bed and ate what I gave her and looked at me\nas a trapped thing looks at the owner of the trap. I tried her with all\nthe dialects I knew, and even with a few words I had picked up from a\nsummer camp of Wabaniki. I had met them a week or two before at\nOwenunga, at the foot of the mountains.\n\n\"She put her hand over her mouth and looked sideways to find a way out\nof the trap.\n\n\"I was sorry for her, but she was a great nuisance. I was so busy\ngetting food for her that I had no time to listen for the Holder of the\nHeavens, and besides, there was a thickening of the air, what we call\nthe Breath of the Great Moose, which comes before a storm. If we did not\nwish to be snowed in, we had to get down out of the mountain, and on\naccount of her injured foot we had to go slowly.\n\n\"I had it in mind to take her to the camp of the Wabaniki at Owenunga,\nbut when she found out where we were going she tried to run away. After\nthat I carried her, for the cut in her foot opened and bled.\n\n\"She lay in my arms like a hurt fawn, but what could I do? There was a\ntent of cloud all across the Adirondack, and besides, it is not proper\nfor a young girl to be alone in the woods with a strange man,\" said the\nOnondaga, but he smiled to himself as he said it.\n\n\"It was supper-time when we came to Crooked Water. There was a smell of\ncooking, and the people gathering between the huts.\n\n\"There was peace between the Five Nations and the Wabaniki, so I walked\nboldly into the circle of summer huts and put the girl down, while I\nmade the stranger's sign for food and lodging. But while my hand was\nstill in the air, there was a shout and a murmur and the women began\nsnatching their children back. I could see them huddling together like\nbuffalo cows when their calves are tender, and the men pushing to the\nfront with caught-up weapons in their hands.\n\n\"I held up my own to show that they were weaponless.\n\n\"'I want nothing but food and shelter for this poor girl,' I said. I had\nlet her go in order to make the sign language, for I had but a few words\nof their tongue. She crouched at my feet covering her face with her long\nhair. The people stood off without answering, and somebody raised a cry\nfor Waba-mooin. It was tossed about from mouth to mouth until it reached\nthe principal hut, and presently a man came swaggering out in the dress\nof a Medicine Man. He was older than I, but he was also fat, and for all\nhis Shaman's dress I was not frightened. I knew by the way the girl\nstopped crying that she both knew and feared him.\n\n\"The moment Waba-mooin saw her he turned black as a thunderhead. He\nscattered words as a man scatters seeds with his hand. I was too far to\nhear him, but the people broke out with a shower of sticks and stones.\nAt that the girl sprang up and spread her arms between me and the\npeople, crying something in her own tongue, but a stone struck her on\nthe point of the shoulder. She would have dropped, but I caught her, I\nheld her in my arms and looked across at the angry villagers and\nWaba-mooin. Suddenly power came upon me....\n\n\"It is something all Indian,\" said the Onon-daga,--\"something White Men\ndo not understand. It is Magic Medicine, the power of the Shaman, the\npower of my thought meeting the evil thought of the Wabaniki and turning\nit back as a buffalo shield turns arrows. I gathered up the girl and\nwalked away from that place slowly as becomes a Shaman. No more stones\nstruck me; the arrow of Waba-mooin went past me and stuck in an oak. My\npower was upon me.\n\n\"I must have walked half the night, hearing the drums at Crooked Water\nscaring away evil influences. I would feel the girl warm and soft in my\narms as a fawn, and then after a time she would seem to be a part of me.\nThe trail found itself under my feet; I was not in the least wearied.\nThe girl was asleep when I laid her down, but toward morning she woke,\nand the moment I looked in her eyes, I knew that whatever they had\nstoned her for at Owenunga, her eyes were friendly.\n\n\"'_M'toulin_,' she said, which is the word in her language for Shaman,\n'what will you do with me?'\n\n\"There was nothing I could do but take her to my mother as quickly as\npossible. There was a wilderness of hills to cross before we struck the\ntrail through Mohawk Valley. That afternoon the snow began to fall in\ngreat dry flakes, thickening steadily. The girl walked when she could,\nbut most of the time I carried her. I had the power of a Shaman, though\nthe Holder of the Heavens had not yet spoken to me.\n\n\"We pushed to the top of the range before resting, and all night we\ncould hear the click and crash of deer and moose going down before the\nsnow. All the next day there was one old bull moose kept just ahead of\nus. We knew he was old because of his size and his being alone. Two or\nthree times we passed other bulls with two or three cows and their\ncalves of that season yarding among the young spruce, but the old bull\nkept on steadily down the mountain. His years had made him weather-wise.\nThe third day the wind shifted the snow, and we saw him on the round\ncrown of a hill below us, tracking.\"\n\nThe Onondaga let his pipe go out while he explained the winter habits of\nmoose.\n\n\"When the snow is too deep for yarding,\" he said, \"they look for the\nlower hills that have been burnt over, so that the growth is young and\ntender. When the snow is soft, after a thaw, they will track steadily\nback and forth until the hill is laced with paths. They will work as\nlong as the thaw lasts, pushing the soft snow with their shoulders to\nrelease the young pine and the birches. Then, when the snow crusts, they\ncan browse all along the paths for weeks, tunneling far under.\n\n\"We saw our bull the last afternoon as we came down from the cloud cap,\nand then the white blast cut us off and we had only his trail to follow.\nWhen we came to the hill we could still hear him thrashing about in his\ntrails, so I drew down the boughs of a hemlock and made us a shelter and\na fire. For two days more the storm held, with cold wind and driven\nsnow. About the middle of the second day I heard a heavy breathing above\nour hut, and presently the head of the moose came through the hemlock\nthatch, and his eyes were the eyes of a brother. So I knew my thought\nwas still good, and I made room for him in the warmth of the hut. He\nmoved out once or twice to feed, and I crept after him to gather grass\nseeds and whatever could be found that the girl could eat. We had had\nnothing much since leaving the camp at Crooked Water.\n\n\"And by and by with the hunger and anxiety about Nukewis, which was the\nname she said she should be called by, my thought was not good any more.\nI would look at the throat of the moose as he crowded under the hemlock\nand think how easily I could slit it with my knife and how good moose\nmeat toasted on the coals would taste. I was glad when the storm cleared\nand left the world all white and trackless. I went out and prayed to the\nHolder of the Heavens that he would strengthen me in the keeping of my\nvow and also that he would not let the girl die.\n\n\"While I prayed a rabbit that had been huddling under the brush and the\nsnow, came hopping into my trail; it hopped twice and died with the\ncold. I took it for a sign; but when I had cooked it and was feeding it\nto the girl she said:--\n\n\"'Why do you not eat, M'toulin,' for we had taught one another a few\nwords of our own speech.\n\n\"'I am not hungry,' I told her.\n\n\"'While I eat I can see that your throat is working with hunger,' she\ninsisted. And it was true I could have snatched the meat from her like a\nwolf, but because of my vow I would not.\n\n\"'M'toulin, there is a knife at your belt; why have you not killed the\nmoose to make meat for us?'\n\n\"'Eight moons I have done no killing, seeking the Vision and the Voice,'\nI told her. 'It is more than my life to me.'\n\n\"When I had finished, she reached over with the last piece of rabbit and\nlaid it on the fire. It was a sacrifice. As we watched the flame lick it\nup, all thought of killing went out of my head like the smoke of\nsacrifice, and my thought was good again.\n\n\"When the meat she had eaten had made her strong, Nukewis sat up and\ncrossed her hands on her bosom.\n\n\"'M'toulin,' she said, 'the evil that has come on you belongs to me. I\nwill go away with it. I am a witch and bring evil on those who are\nkind to me.'\n\n\"'Who says you are a witch?'\n\n\"'All my village, and especially Waba-mooin. I brought sickness on the\nvillage, and on you hunger and the breaking of your vow.'\n\n\"'I have seen Waba-mooin,' I said. 'I do not think too much of his\nopinions.'\n\n\"'He is the Shaman of my village,' said Nukewis. 'My father was Shaman\nbefore him, a much greater Shaman than Waba-mooin will ever be. He\nwanted my father's Medicine bundle which hung over the door to protect\nme; my father left it to me when he died. But afterward there was a\nsickness in the village, and Waba-mooin said it was because the powerful\nMedicine bundle was left in the hands of an ignorant girl. He said for\nthe good of the village it ought to be taken away from me. But _I_\nthought it was because so many people came to my house with their sick,\nbecause of my Medicine bundle, and Waba-mooin missed their gifts. He\nsaid that if I was not willing to part with my father's bundle, that he\nwould marry me, but when I would not, then he said that I was a witch!'\n\n\"'Where is the bundle now?' I asked her.\n\n\"'I hid it near our winter camp before we came into the mountains. But\nthere was sickness in the mountains and Waba-mooin said that it also was\nmy fault. So they drove me out with sticks and stones. That is why they\nwould not take me back.'\n\n\"'Then,' I said, 'when Waba-mooin goes back to the winter camp, he will\nfind the Medicine bundle.'\n\n\"'He will never find it,' she said, 'but he will be the only Shaman in\nthe village and will have all the gifts. But listen, M'toulin, by now\nthe people are back in their winter home. It is more than two days from\nhere. If you go without me, they will give you food and shelter, but\nwith me you will have only hard words and stones. Therefore, I leave\nyou, M'toulin.' She stood up, made a sign of farewell.\n\n\"'You must show me the way to your village first,' I insisted.\n\n\"I saw that she meant what she said, and because I was too weak to run\nafter her, I pretended. I thought that would hold her.\n\n\"We should have set out that moment, but a strange lightness came in my\nhead. I do not know just what happened. I think the storm must have\nbegun again early in the afternoon. There was a great roaring as of wind\nand the girl bending over me, wavering and growing thin like smoke.\nTwice I saw the great head of the moose thrust among the hemlock boughs,\nand heard Nukewis urging and calling me. She lifted my hands and clasped\nthem round the antlers of the moose; I could feel his warm breath.... He\nthrew up his head, drawing me from my bed, wonderfully light upon my\nfeet. We seemed to move through the storm. I could feel the hairy\nshoulder of the moose and across his antlers Nukewis calling me. I felt\nmyself carried along like a thin bubble of life in the storm that poured\ndown from the Adirondack like Niagara. At last I slipped into darkness.\n\n\"I do not know how long this lasted, but presently I was aware of a\nlight that began to grow and spread around me. It came from the face of\nthe moose, and when I looked up out of my darkness it changed to the\nface of a great kind man. He had on the headdress of a chief priest, the\ntall headdress of eagle plumes and antlers. I had hold of one of them,\nand his arm was around and under me. But I knew very well who held me.\n\n\"'You have appeared to me at last,' I said to him.\n\n\"'I have appeared, my son.' His voice was kind as the sound of summer\nwaters.\n\n\"'I looked for you long, O Taryenya-wagon!'\n\n\"'You looked for me among your little brothers of the wild,' he said,\n'and for you the Vision was among men, my son.'\n\n\"'How, among men?'\n\n\"'What you did for that poor girl when you put your good thought between\nher and harm. That you must do for men.'\n\n\"'I am to be a Shaman, then?' I thought of my father.\n\n\"'According to a man's power,' said the Holder of the Heavens,--'as my\npower comes upon him....'\"\n\nThe Onondaga puffed silently for a while on his pipe.\n\nDorcas Jane fidgeted. \"But I don't understand,\" she said at last; \"just\nwhat was it that happened?\"\n\n\"It was my Mystery,\" said the Onondaga; \"my Vision that came to me out\nof the fasting and the sacrifice. You see, there had been very little\nfood since leaving Crooked Water, and Nukewis--\"\n\n\"You gave it all to her.\" Dorcas nodded. \"But still I don't understand?\"\n\n\"The moose had begun to travel down the mountain and like a good brother\nhe came back for me. Nukewis lifted me up and bound me to his antlers,\nholding me from the other side, but I was too weak to notice.\n\n\"We must have traveled that way for hours through the storm until we\nreached the tall woods below the limit of the snow. When I came to\nmyself, I was lying on a bed of fern in a bright morning and Nukewis was\ncooking quail which she had snared with a slip noose made of her hair. I\nate--I could eat now that I had had my Vision--and grew strong. All the\nupper mountain was white like a tent of deerskin, but where we were\nthere was only thin ice on the edges of the streams.\n\n\"We stayed there for one moon. I wished to get my strength back, and\nbesides, we wished to get married, Nukewis and I.\"\n\n\"But how could you, without any party?\" Dorcas wished to know. She had\nnever seen anybody get married, but she knew it was always spoken of as\na Wedding Party.\n\n\"We had the party four months later when we got back to my own village,\"\nexplained the Onondaga. \"For that time I built a hut, and when I had led\nher across the door, as our custom was, I scattered seeds upon\nher--seeds of the pine tree. Then we sat in our places on either side\nthe fire, and she made me cake of acorn meal, and we made a vow as we\nate it that we would love one another always.\n\n\"We were very happy. I hunted and fished, and the old moose fed in our\nmeadow. Nukewis used to gather armfuls of grass for him. When we went\nback to my wife's village he trotted along in the trail behind us like a\ndog. Nukewis wished to go back after her father's Medicine bag, and\nbeing a woman she did not wish to go to my mother without her dower.\nThere were many handsome skins and baskets in her father's hut which had\nbeen given to him when he was Medicine Man. She felt sure Waba-mooin\nwould not have touched them. And as for me, I was young enough to want\nWaba-mooin to see that I was also a Shaman.\n\n\"We stole into Nukewis's hut in the dark, and when it was morning a\nlight snow was over the ground to cover our tracks, and there was our\nsmoke going up and the great moose standing at our door chewing his cud\nand over the door the Medicine bag of Nukewis's father. How the\nneighbors were astonished! They ran for Waba-mooin, and when I saw him\ncoming in all his Shaman's finery, I put on the old Medicine Man's shirt\nand his pipe and went out to smoke with him as one Shaman with another.\"\n\nThe Onondaga laughed to himself, remembering. \"It was funny to see him\ntry to go through with it, but there was nothing else for him to do. I\nought to have punished him a little for what he did to Nukewis, but my\nheart was too full of happiness and my Mystery. And perhaps it was\npunishment enough to have me staying there in the village with all the\nfolk bringing me presents and neglecting Waba-mooin. I think he was glad\nwhen we set out for my own village in the Moon of the Sap Running.\n\n\"I knew my mother would be waiting for me, and besides, I wished my son\nto be born an Onondaga.\"\n\n\"And what became of the old moose?\"\n\n\"Somewhere on the trail home we lost him. Perhaps he heard his own tribe\ncalling...and perhaps... He was the Holder of the Heavens to me, and\nfrom that time neither I nor my wife ate any moose meat. That is how it\nis when the Holder of the Heavens shows Himself to his children. But\nwhen I came by the tree where I had cut the first score of my search for\nHim, I cut a picture of the great moose, with my wife and I on either\nside of him.\"\n\nThe Onondaga pointed with his feathered pipe to a wide-boled chestnut a\nrod or two down the slope. \"It was that I was looking for to-day,\" he\nsaid. \"If you look you will find it.\"\n\nAnd continuing to point with the long feathered stem of his pipe, the\nchildren rose quietly hand in hand and went to look.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nXI\n\nTHE PEARLS OF COFACHIQUE: HOW LUCAS DE AYLLON CAME TO LOOK FOR THEM AND\nWHAT THE CACICA FAR-LOOKING DID TO HIM; TOLD BY THE PELICAN\n\n\nOne morning toward the end of February the children were sitting on the\nlast bench at the far end of the Bird Gallery, which is the nicest sort\nof place to sit on a raw, slushy day. You can look out from it on one\nside over the flamingo colony of the Bahamas, and on the other straight\ninto the heart of the Cuthbert Rookery in Florida. Just opposite is the\ngreen and silver coral islet of Cay Verde, with the Man-of-War Birds\nnesting among the flat leaves of the sea-grape.\n\nIf you sit there long enough and nobody comes by to interrupt, you can\ntaste the salt of the spindrift over the banks of Cay Verde, and watch\nthe palmetto leaves begin to wave like swords in the sea wind. That is\nwhat happened to Oliver and Dorcas Jane. The water stirred and shimmered\nand the long flock of flamingoes settled down, each to its own mud\nhummock on the crowded summer beaches. All at once Oliver thought of\nsomething.\n\n\"I wonder,\" he said, \"if there are trails on the water and through the\nair?\"\n\n\"Why, of course,\" said the Man-of-War Bird; \"how else would we find our\nislet among so many? North along the banks till we sight the heads of\nNassau, then east of Stirrup Cay, keeping the scent of the land flowers\nto windward, to the Great Bahama, and west by north to where blue water\nruns between the Biscayne Keys to the mouth of the Miami. That is how we\nreach the mainland in season, and back again to Cay Verde.\"\n\n\"It sounds like a long way,\" said Oliver.\n\n\"That's nothing,\" said the tallest Flamingo. \"We go often as far east as\nthe Windward Islands, and west to the Isthmus. But the ships go farther.\nWe have never been to the place where the ships come from.\"\n\nIt was plain that the Flamingo was thinking of a ship as another and\nmore mysterious bird. The Man-of-War Bird seemed to know better. The\nchildren could see, when he stretched out his seven-foot spread of wing,\nthat he was a great traveler.\n\n\"What _I_ should like to know,\" he said, \"is how the ships find their\nway. With us we simply rise higher and higher, above the fogs, until we\nsee the islands scattered like green nests and the banks and shoals\nwhich from that height make always the same pattern in the water, brown\nstreaks of weed, gray shallows, and deep water blue. But the ships,\nthough they never seem to leave the surface of the water, can make a\nshorter course than we in any kind of weather.\"\n\nOliver was considering how he could explain a ship's compass to the\nbirds, but only the tail end of his thinking slipped out. \"They call\nsome of them men-of-war, too,\" he chuckled.\n\n\"You must have thought it funny the first time you saw one,\" said Dorcas\nJane.\n\n\"Not me, but my ancestors,\" said the Man-of-War Bird; \"_they_ saw the\nGreat Admiral when he first sailed in these waters. They saw the three\ntall galleons looming out of a purple mist on the eve of discovery,\ntheir topsails rosy with the sunset fire. The Admiral kept pacing,\npacing; watching, on the one hand, lest his men surprise him with a\nmutiny, and on the other, glancing overside for a green bough or a\nfloating log, anything that would be a sign of land. We saw him come in\npride and wonder, and we saw him go in chains.\"\n\nLike all the Museum people, the Man-of-War Bird said \"we\" when he spoke\nof his ancestors.\n\n\"There were others,\" said the Flamingo. \"I remember an old man looking\nfor a fountain.\"\n\n\"Ponce de Leon,\" supplied Dorcas Jane, proud that she could pronounce\nit.\n\n\"There is no harm in a fountain,\" said a Brown Pelican that had come\nsailing into Cuthbert Rookery with her wings sloped downward like a\nparachute. \"It was the gold-seekers who filled the islands with the\nthunder of their guns and the smoke of burning huts.\"\n\nThe children turned toward the Pelican among the mangrove trees, crowded\nwith nests of egret and heron and rosy hornbill.\n\nThe shallow water of the lagoon ran into gold-tipped ripples. In every\none the low sun laid a tiny flake of azure. Over the far shore there was\na continual flick and flash of wings, like a whirlwind playing with a\nheap of waste paper. Crooked flights of flamingoes made a moving\nreflection on the water like a scarlet snake, but among the queer\nmangrove stems, that did not seem to know whether they were roots or\nbranches, there was a lovely morning stillness. It was just the place\nand hour for a story, and while the Brown Pelican opened her well-filled\nmaw to her two hungry nestlings, the Snowy Egret went on with\nthe subject.\n\n\"They were a gallant and cruel and heroic and stupid lot, the Spanish\ngold-seekers,\" she said. \"They thought nothing of danger and hunger, but\nthey could not find their way without a guide any further than their\neyes could see, and they behaved very badly toward the poor Indians.\"\n\n\"We saw them all,\" said the Flamingo,--\"Cortez and Balboa and Pizarro.\nWe saw Panfilo Narvaez put in at Tampa Bay, full of zeal and gold\nhunger, and a year later we saw him at Appalache, beating his stirrup\nirons into nails to make boats to carry him back to Havana. We alone\nknow why he never reached there.\"\n\nThe Pelican by this time had got rid of her load of fish and settled\nherself for conversation. \"Whatever happened to them,\" she said, \"they\ncame back,--Spanish, Portuguese, and English,--back they came. I\nremember how Lucas de Ayllon came to look for the pearls of\nCofachique--\"\n\n\"Pearls!\" said the children both at once.\n\n\"Very good ones,\" said the Pelican, nodding her pouched beak; \"as large\nas hazel nuts and with a luster like a wet beach at evening. The best\nwere along the Savannah River where some of my people had had a rookery\nsince any of them could remember. Ayllon discovered the pearls when he\ncame up from Hispaniola looking for slaves, but it was an evil day for\nhim when he came again to fill his pockets with them, for by that time\nthe lady of Cofachique was looking for Ayllon.\"\n\n\"For Soto, you mean,\" said the Snowy Egret,--\n\n\"Hernando de Soto, the Adelantado of Florida, and that is _my_ story.\"\n\n\"It is all one story,\" insisted the Pelican. \"Ayllon began it. His ship\nput in at the Savannah at the time of the pearling, when the best of our\nyoung men were there, and among them Young Pine, son of Far-Looking, the\nChief Woman.\n\n\"The Indians had heard of ships by this time, but they still believed\nthe Spaniards were Children of the Sun, and trusted them. They had not\nyet learned what a Spaniard will do for gold. They did not even know\nwhat gold was, for there was none of it at Cofachique. The Cacique came\ndown to the sea to greet the ships, with fifty of his best fighting men\nbehind him, and when the Spaniard invited them aboard for a feast, he\nlet Young Pine go with them. He was as straight as a pine, the young\nCacique, keen and strong-breasted, and about his neck he wore a twist of\npearls of three strands, white as sea foam. Ayllon's eyes glistened as\nhe looked at them, and he gave word that the boy was not to be\nmishandled. For as soon as he had made the visiting Indians drunk with\nwine, which they had never tasted before and drank only for politeness,\nthe Spaniard hoisted sail for Hispaniola.\n\n\"Young Pine stood on the deck and heard his father calling to him from\nthe shore, and saw his friends shot as they jumped overboard, or were\ndragged below in chains, and did not know what to do at such treachery.\nThe wine foamed in his head and he hung sick against the rail until\nAyllon came sidling and fidgeting to find out where the pearls came\nfrom. He fingered the strand on Young Pine's neck, making signs of\nfriendship.\n\n\"The ship was making way fast, and the shore of Cofachique was dark\nagainst the sun. Ayllon had sent his men to the other side of the ship\nwhile he talked with Young Pine, for he did not care to have them learn\nabout the pearls.\n\n\"Young Pine lifted the strand from his neck, for by Ayllon's orders he\nwas not yet in chains. While the Spaniard looked it over greedily, the\nboy saw his opportunity. He gave a shout to the sea-birds that wheeled\nand darted about the galleon, the shout the fishers give when they throw\noffal to the gulls, and as the wings gathered and thickened to hide him\nfrom the guns, he dived straight away over the ship's side into the\ndarkling water.\n\n\"All night he swam, steering by the death-fires which the pearlers had\nbuilt along the beaches, and just as the dawn came up behind him to turn\nthe white-topped breakers into green fire, the land swell caught him.\nFour days later a search party looking for those who had jumped\noverboard, found his body tumbled among the weeds along the outer shoals\nand carried it to his mother, the Cacica, at Talimeco.\n\n[Illustration: \"She could see the thoughts of a man while they were\nstill in his heart\"]\n\n\"She was a wonderful woman, the Chief Woman of Cofachique, and\nterrible,\" said the Pelican. \"It was not for nothing she was called\nFar-Looking. She could see the thoughts of a man while they were still\nin his heart, and the doings of men who were far distant. When she\nwished to know what nobody could tell her, she would go into the\nSilence; she would sit as still as a brooding pelican; her limbs would\nstiffen and her eyes would stare--\n\n\"That is what she did the moment she saw that the twist of pearls was\ngone from her son's neck. She went silent with her hand on his dead\nbreast and looked across the seas into the cruel heart of the Spaniard\nand saw what would happen. 'He will come back,' she said; 'he will come\nback to get what I shall give him for _this_.'\n\n\"She meant the body of Young Pine, who was her only son,\" said the\nPelican, tucking her own gawky young under her breast, \"and that is\nsomething a mother never forgets. She spent the rest of her time\nplanning what she would do to Lucas de Ayllon when he came back.\n\n\"There was a lookout built in the palmetto scrub below the pearling\nplace, and every day canoes scouted far to seaward, with runners ready\nin case ships were sighted. Talimeco was inland about a hundred miles up\nthe river and the Cacica herself seldom left it.\n\n\"And after four or five years Ayllon, with the three-plied rope of\npearls under his doublet, came back.\n\n\"The Cacica was ready for him. She was really the Chief Woman of\nCofachique,--the Cacique was only her husband,--and she was obeyed as no\nordinary woman,\" said the Brown Pelican.\n\n\"She was not an ordinary woman,\" said the Snowy Egret, fluffing her\nwhite spray of plumes. \"If she so much as looked at you and her glance\ncaught your eye, then you had to do what she said, whether you liked it\nor not. But most of her people liked obeying her, for she was as wise as\nshe was terrible. That was why she did not kill Lucas de Ayllon at the\npearling place as the Cacique wished her to do. 'If we kill him,' said\nthe Chief Woman, 'others will come to avenge him. We must send him home\nwith such a report that no others of his kind will visit this coast\nagain.' She had everything arranged for that.\"\n\nThe Egret settled to her nest again and the Pelican went on with the\nstory.\n\n\"In the spring of the year Ayllon came loafing up the Florida coast with\ntwo brigantines and a crew of rascally adventurers, looking for slaves\nand gold. At least Ayllon said he was looking for slaves, though most of\nthose he had carried away the first time had either jumped overboard or\nrefused their food and died. But he had not been willing to tell anybody\nabout the pearls, and he had to have some sort of excuse for returning\nto a place where he couldn't be expected to be welcomed.\n\n\"And that was the first surprise he had when he put to shore on the\nbluff where the city of Savannah now stands, with four small boats,\nevery man armed with a gun or a crossbow.\n\n\"The Indians, who were fishing between the shoals, received the\nSpaniards kindly; sold them fish and fresh fruit for glass beads, and\nshowed themselves quite willing to guide them in their search for slaves\nand gold. Only there was no gold: nothing but a little copper and\nstinging swarms of flies, gray clouds of midges and black ooze that\nsucked the Spaniards to their thighs, and the clatter of scrub palmetto\nleaves on their iron shirts like the sound of wooden swords, as the\nIndians wound them in and out of trails that began in swamps and arrived\nnowhere. Never once did they come any nearer to the towns than a few\npoor fisher huts, and never a pearl showed in any Indian's necklace or\nearring. The Chief Woman had arranged for that!\n\n\"All this time she sat at Talimeco in her house on the temple mound--\"\n\n\"Mounds!\" interrupted the children both at once. \"Were they\nMound-Builders?\"\n\n\"They built mounds,\" said the Pelican, \"for the Cacique's house and the\nGod-House, and for burial, with graded ways and embankments. The one at\nTalimeco was as tall as three men on horseback, as the Spaniards\ndiscovered later--Soto's men, not Ayllon's. _They_ never came within\nsound of the towns nor in sight of the league-long fields of corn nor\nthe groves of mulberry trees. They lay with their goods spread out along\nthe beach without any particular order and without any fear of the few\npoor Indians they saw.\n\n\"That was the way the Chief Woman had arranged it. All the men who came\ndown to the ships were poorly dressed and the women wrinkled, though she\nwas the richest Cacica in the country, and had four bearers with feather\nfans to accompany her. All this time she sat in the Silences and sent\nher thoughts among the Spaniards so that they bickered among themselves,\nfor they were so greedy for gold that no half-dozen of them would trust\nanother half-dozen out of their sight. They would lie loafing about the\nbeaches and all of a sudden anger would run among them like thin fire in\nthe savannahs, which runs up the sap wood of the pines, winding, and\ntaking flight from the top like a bird. Then they would stab one another\nin their rages, or roast an Indian because he would not tell them where\ngold was. For they could not get it out of their heads that there was\ngold. They were looking for another Peru.\n\n\"Toward the last, Ayllon had to sleep in his ship at night so jealous\nhis captains were of him. He had a touch of the swamp fever which takes\nthe heart out of a man, and finally he was obliged to show them the\nthree-plied rope of pearls to hold them. To just a few of his captains\nhe showed it, but the Indian boy he had taken to be his servant saw them\nfingering it in the ship's cabin and sent word to the Chief Woman.\"\n\nThe sun rose high on the lagoon as the Pelican paused in her story, and\nbeyond the rookery the children could see blue water and a line of surf,\nwith the high-pooped Spanish ships rising and falling. Beyond that were\nthe low shore and the dark wood of pines and the shining leaves of the\npalmettoes like a lake spattered with the light--split by their needle\npoints. They could see the dark bodies of the Indian runners working\ntheir way through it to Talimeco. The Pelican went on with the story.\n\n\"'Now it is time,' said the Cacica, and the Cacique's Own--that was a\nband of picked fighting men--took down their great shields of woven cane\nfrom the god-house and left Talimeco by night. And from every seacoast\ntown of Cofachique went bowmen and spearsmen. They would be sitting by\ntheir hearth-fires at evening, and in the morning they would be gone. At\nthe same time there went a delegation from Talimeco to Lucas de Ayllon\nto say that the time of one of the Indian feasts was near, and to invite\nhim and his men to take part in it. The Spaniards were delighted, for\nnow they thought they should see some women, and maybe learn about gold.\nBut though scores of Indians went down, with venison and maize cakes in\nbaskets, no women went at all, and if the Spaniards had not been three\nfourths drunk, that would have warned them.\n\n\"When Indians mean fighting they leave the women behind,\" explained the\nPelican, and the children nodded.\n\n\"The Spaniards sat about the fires where the venison was roasting, and\ntalked openly of pearls. They had a cask of wine out from the ship, and\nsome of their men made great laughter trying to dance with the young men\nof Cofachique. But one of the tame Indians that Ayllon had brought from\nHispaniola with him, went privately to his master. 'I know this dance,'\nhe said; 'it is a dance of death.' But Ayllon dared do nothing except\nhave a small cannon on the ship shot off, as he said, for the\ncelebration, but really to scare the Indians.\"\n\n\"And they were scared?\"\n\n\"When they have danced the dance of death and vengeance there is nothing\ncan scare Indians,\" said the Brown Pelican, and the whole rookery\nagreed with her.\n\n\"At a signal,\" she went on, \"when the Spaniards were lolling after\ndinner with their iron shirts half off, and the guns stacked on the\nsand, the Indians fell upon them with terrible slaughter. Ayllon got\naway to his ships with a few of his men, but there were not boats enough\nfor all of them, and they could not swim in their armor. Some of them\ntried it, but the Indians swam after them, stabbing and pulling them\nunder. That night Ayllon saw from his ships the great fires the Indians\nmade to celebrate their victory, and the moment the day popped suddenly\nout of the sea, as it does at that latitude, he set sail and put the\nships about for Hispaniola, without stopping to look for survivors.\n\n\"But even there, I think, the Cacica's thought followed him. A storm\ncame up out of the Gulf, black with thunder and flashing green fire. The\nships were undermanned, for the sailors, too, had been ashore feasting.\nOne of the brigantines--but not the one which carried Ayllon--staggered\nawhile in the huge seas and went under.\"\n\n\"And the pearls, the young chief's necklace, what became of that?\" asked\nDorcas.\n\n\"It went back to Talimeco with the old chief's body and was buried with\nhim. You see, that had been the signal. Ayllon had the necklace with him\nin the slack of his doublet. He thought it would be a good time after\nthe feast to show it to the Cacique and inquire where pearls could be\nfound. He had no idea that it had belonged to the Cacique's son; all\nIndians looked very much alike to him. But when the Cacique saw Young\nPine's necklace in the Spaniard's hand, he raised the enemy shout that\nwas the signal for his men, who lay in the scrub, to begin the battle.\nAyllon struck down the Cacique with his own sword as the nearest at\nhand. But the Cacique had the pearls, and after the fighting began there\nwas no time for the Spaniard to think of getting them back again. So the\npearls went back to Talimeco, with axes and Spanish arms, to be laid up\nin the god-house for a trophy. It was there, ten years later, that\nHernando de Soto found them. As for Ayllon, his pride and his heart were\nbroken. He died of that and the fever he had brought back from\nCofachique, but you may be sure he never told exactly what happened to\nhim on that unlucky voyage. Nobody had any ear in those days for voyages\nthat failed; they were all for gold and the high adventure.\"\n\n\"What I want to know,\" said Dorcas, \"is what became of the Cacica, and\nwhether she saw Mr. de Soto coming and why, if she could look people in\nthe eye and make them do what she wanted, she didn't just see Mr. de\nAyllon herself and tell him to go home again.\"\n\n\"It was only to her own people she could do that,\" said the Pelican.\n\"She could send her dream to them too, if it pleased her, but she never\ndared to put her powers to the test with the strangers. If she had tried\nand failed, then the Indians would have been certain of the one thing\nthey were never quite sure of, that the Spaniards were the Children of\nthe Sun. As for the horses, they never did get it out of their minds\nthat they might be eaten by them. I think the Cacica felt in her heart\nthat the strangers were only men, but it was too important to her to be\nfeared by her own people to take any chances of showing herself afraid\nof the Spaniards. That was why she never saw Ayllon, and when it was at\nlast necessary that Soto should be met, she left that part of the\nbusiness to the young Princess.\"\n\n\"That,\" said the Snowy Egret, \"should be my story! The egrets were\nsacred at Cofachique,\" she explained to the children; \"only the chief\nfamily wore our plumes. Our rookery was in the middle swamp a day inland\nfrom Talimeco, safe and secret. But we used to go past the town every\nday fishing in the river. That is how we knew the whole story of what\nhappened there and at Tuscaloosa.\"\n\nDorcas remembered her geography. \"Tuscaloosa is in Alabama,\" she said;\n\"that's a long way from Savannah.\"\n\n\"Not too long for the Far-Looking. She and the Black Warrior--that's\nwhat Tuscaloosa means--were of one spirit. In the ten or twelve years\nafter the Cacique, her husband, was killed, she put the fear of\nCofachique on all the surrounding tribes, as far as Tuscaloosa River.\n\n\"There was an open trail between the two chief cities of Cofachique and\nMobila, which was called the Tribute Road because of the tribes that\ntraveled it, bringing tribute to one or another of the two Great Ones.\nBut not any more after the Princess who was called the Pearl of\nCofachique walked in it.\"\n\n\"Oh, Princesses!\" sighed Dorcas Jane, \"if we could just see one!\"\n\nThe Snowy Egret considered. \"If the Pelicans would dance for you--\"\n\n\"Have the Pelicans a _dance_?\"\n\n\"Of all the dances that the Indians have,\" said the Egret, \"the first\nand the best they learned from the Wing People. Some they learned from\nthe Cranes by the water-courses, and some from the bucks prancing before\nthe does on the high ridges; old, old dances of the great elk and the\nwapiti. In the new of the year everything dances in some fashion, and by\ndancing everything is made one, sky and sea, and bird and dancing leaf.\nOld time is present, and all old feelings are as the times and feelings\nthat will be. These are the things men learned in the days of the\nUnforgotten, dancing to make the world work well together by times and\nseasons. But the Pelicans can always dance a little; anywhere in their\nrookeries you might see them bowing and balancing. Watch, now, in the\nclear foreshore.\"\n\nTrue enough, on the bare, ripple-packed sand that glimmered like the\ninside of a shell, several of the great birds were making absurd dips\nand courtesies toward one another; they spread their wings like flowing\ndraperies and began to sway with movements of strange dignity. The high\nsun filmed with silver fog, and along the heated air there crept an\neerie feel of noon.\n\n\"When half a dozen of them begin to circle together,\" said the Snowy\nEgret, \"turn round and look toward the wood.\"\n\nAt the right moment the children turned, and between the gray and somber\nshadows of the cypress they saw her come. All in white she was--white\ncloth of the middle bark of mulberries, soft as linen, with a cloak of\noriole feathers black and yellow, edged with sables. On her head was the\nroyal circlet of egret plumes nodding above the yellow circlet of the\nSun. When she walked, it made them think of the young wind stirring in\nthe corn. Around her neck she wore, in the fashion of Cofachique, three\nstrands of pearls reaching to the waist, in which she rested her\nleft arm.\n\n\"That was how the Spaniards saw her for the first time, and found her so\nlovely that they forgot to ask her name; they called her 'The Lady of\nCofachique,' and swore there was not a lovelier lady in Europe nor one\nmore a princess.\n\n\"Which might easily be true,\" said the Egret, \"for she was brought up to\nbe Cacica in Far-Looking's place, after the death of her son\nYoung Pine.\"\n\nThe Princess smiled on the children as she came down the cypress trail.\nOne of her women, who moved unobtrusively beside her, arranged cushions\nof woven cane, and another held a fan of painted skin and feather work\nbetween her and the sun. A tame egret ruffled her white plumes at the\nPrincess's shoulder.\n\n\"I was telling them about the pearls of Cofachique,\" said the Egret who\nhad first spoken to the children, \"and of how Hernando de Soto came to\nlook for them.\"\n\n\"Came and looked,\" said the Princess. One of her women brought a casket\ncarved from a solid lump of cypress, on her knee. Around the sides of\nthe casket and on the two ends ran a decoration of woodpeckers' heads\nand the mingled sign of the sun and the four quarters which the Corn\nWoman had drawn for Dorcas on the dust of the dancing-floor.\n\nThe Princess lifted the lid and ran her fine dark fingers through a heap\nof gleaming pearls. \"There were many mule loads such as these in the\ngod-house at Talimeco,\" she said; \"we filled the caskets of our dead\nCaciques with them. What is gold that he should have left all these for\nthe mere rumor of it?\"\n\nShe was sad for a moment and then stern. \"Nevertheless, I think my aunt,\nthe Cacica, should have met him. She would have seen that he was a man\nand would have used men's reasons with him. She made Medicine against\nhim as though he were a god, and in the end his medicine was stronger\nthan ours.\"\n\n\"If you could tell us about it--\" invited Dorcas Jane.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nXII\n\nHOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME TO TUSCALOOSA: A TELLING OF THE TRIBUTE ROAD BY\nTHE LADY OF COFACHIQUE\n\n\n\"There was a bloom on the sea like the bloom on a wild grape when the\nAdelantado left his winter quarters at Anaica Apalache,\" said the\nPrincess. \"He sent Maldonado, his captain, to cruise along the Gulf\ncoast with the ships, and struck north toward Cofachique. That was in\nMarch, 1540, and already his men and horses were fewer because of\nsickness and skirmishes with the Indians. They had for guide Juan Ortiz,\none of Narvaez's men who had been held captive by the Indians these\neight years, and a lad Perico who remembered a trading trip to\nCofachique. And what he could not remember he invented. He made Soto\nbelieve there was gold there. Perhaps he was thinking of copper, and\nperhaps, since the Spaniards had made him their servant, he found it\npleasanter to be in an important position.\n\n\"They set out by the old sea trail toward Alta-paha, when the buds at\nthe ends of the magnolia boughs were turning creamy, and the sandhill\ncrane could be heard whooping from the lagoons miles inland. First went\nthe captains with the Indian guides in chains, for they had a way of\ndisappearing in the scrub if not watched carefully, and then the foot\nsoldiers, each with his sixty days' ration on his back. Last of all came\na great drove of pigs and dogs of Spain, fierce mastiffs who made\nnothing of tearing an Indian in pieces, and had to be kept in leash by\nPedro Moron, who was as keen as a dog himself. He could smell Indians in\nhiding and wood smoke three leagues away. Many a time when the\nexpedition was all but lost, he would smell his way to a village.\n\n\"They went north by east looking for gold, and equal to any adventure.\nAt Achese the Indians, who had never heard of white men, were so\nfrightened that they ran away into the woods and would not come out\nagain. Think what it meant to them to see strange bearded men, clad in\niron shirts, astride of fierce, unknown animals,--for the Indians could\nnot help but think that the horses would eat them. They had never heard\nof iron either. Nevertheless, the Spaniards got some corn there, from\nthe high cribs of cane set up on platforms beside the huts.\n\n\"Everywhere Soto told the Caciques that he and his men were the Children\nof the Sun, seeking the highest chief and the richest province, and\nasked for guides and carriers, which usually he got. You may be sure the\nIndians were glad to be rid of them so cheaply.\n\n\"The expedition moved toward Ocute, with the bloom of the wild vines\nperfuming all the air, and clouds of white butterflies beginning to\ntwinkle in the savannahs.\"\n\n\"But,\" said Dorcas, who had listened very attentively, \"I thought\nSavannah was a place.\"\n\n\"Ever so many places,\" said the Princess; \"flat miles on miles of slim\npines melting into grayness, sunlight sifting through their plumy tops,\nwith gray birds wheeling in flocks, or troops of red-headed\nwoodpeckers, and underfoot nothing but needles and gray sand. Far ahead\non every side the pines draw together, but where one walks they are wide\napart, so that one seems always about to approach a forest and never\nfinds it. These are the savannahs.\n\n\"Between them along the water-courses are swamps; slow, black water and\nwide-rooted, gull-gray cypress, flat-topped and all adrip with moss. And\neverywhere a feeling of snakes--wicked water-snakes with yellow rims\naround their eyes.\n\n\"They crossed great rivers, Ockmulgee, Oconee, Ogechee, making a bridge\nof men and paddling their way across with the help of saddle cruppers\nand horses' tails. If the waters were too deep for that, they made\npiraguas--dug-out canoes, you know--and rafts of cane. By the time they\nhad reached Ocute the Spaniards were so hungry they were glad to eat\ndogs which the Indians gave them, for there was such a scarcity of meat\non all that journey that the sick men would sometimes say, 'If only I\nhad a piece of meat I think I would not die!'\"\n\n\"But where was all the game?\" Oliver insisted on knowing.\n\n\"Six hundred men with three hundred horses and a lot of Indian carriers,\ncoming through the woods, make a great deal of noise,\" said the\nPrincess. \"The Spaniards never dared to hunt far from the trail for fear\nof getting lost. There were always lurking Indians ready to drive an\narrow through a piece of Milan armor as if it were pasteboard, and into\nthe body of a horse over the feather of the shaft, so that the Spaniards\nwondered, seeing the little hole it made, how the horse had died.\n\n\"Day after day the expedition would wind in and out of the trail,\nbunching up like quail in the open places, and dropping back in single\nfile in the canebrake, with the tail of the company so far from the head\nthat when there was a skirmish with the Indians at either end, it would\noften be over before the other end could catch up. In this fashion they\ncame to Cofaque, which is the last province before Cofachique.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Dorcas, \"and did the Chief Woman see them coming? The one who\nwas Far-Looking!\"\n\n\"She saw too much,\" said the Egret, tucking her eggs more warmly under\nher breast. \"She saw other comings and all the evil that the White Men\nwould bring and do.\"\n\n\"Whatever she saw she did her best to prevent,\" said the Princess.\n\"Three things she tried. Two of them failed. There are two trails into\nthe heart of Cofachique, one from the west from Tuscaloosa, and the\nother from Cofaque, a very secret trail through swamp and palmetto\nscrub, full of false clues and blind leads.\n\n\"Far-Looking sat in the god-house at Talimeco, and sent her thought\nalong the trail to turn the strangers back; but what is the thought of\none woman against six hundred men! It reached nobody but the lad Perico,\nand shook him with a midnight terror, so that he screamed and threw\nhimself about. The Spaniards came running with book and bell, for the\npriest thought the boy was plagued by a devil. But the soldiers thought\nit was all a pretense to save himself from being punished for not\nknowing the trail to Cofachique.\n\n\"Nobody really knew it, because the Cofachiquans, who were at war with\nCofaque, had hidden it as a fox covers the trail to her lair. But after\nbeating about among the sloughs and swamps like a rabbit in a net, and\nbeing reduced to a ration of eighteen grains of corn, the Spaniards came\nto the river about a day's journey above the place where Lucas de\nAyllon's men had died. They caught a few stray Indians, who allowed\nthemselves to be burnt rather than show the way to their towns,--for so\nthe Cacica had ordered them,--and at last the expedition came to a\nvillage where there was corn.\"\n\n\"But I shouldn't think the Indians would give it to them,\" said Dorcas.\n\n\"Indians never refuse food, if they have it, even to their enemies,\"\nsaid the Princess.\n\nThe children could see that this part of the story was not pleasant\nremembering for the Lady of Cofachique. She pushed the pearls away as\nthough they wearied her, and her women came crowding at her shoulder\nwith soft, commiserating noises like doves. They were beautiful and\nyoung like her, and wore the white dress of Cofachique, a skirt of\nmulberry fiber and an upper garment that went over the left shoulder and\nleft the right arm bare except for the looped bracelets of shell and\npearl. Their long hair lay sleek across their bosoms and, to show that\nthey were privileged to wait upon the Chief Woman, they had each a\nsingle egret's plume in the painted bandeau about her forehead.\n\n\"Far-Looking was both aunt and chief to me,\" said the Princess; \"it was\nnot for me to question what she did. Our country had been long at war\nwith Cofaque, at cost of men and corn. And Soto, as he came through that\ncountry, picked up their War Leader Patofa, and the best of their\nfighting men, for they had persuaded him that only by force would he get\nanything from the Cacica of Cofachique. The truth was that it was only\nby trusting to the magic of the white men that Patofa could get to us.\nThe Adelantado allowed him to pillage such towns as they found before he\nthought better of it and sent Patofa and his men back to Cofaque, but by\nthat time the thing had happened which made the Cacica's second plan\nimpossible. Our fighting men had seen what the Spaniards could do, and I\nhad seen what they could be.\"\n\nProudly as she said it, the children could see, by the way the Princess\nfrowned to herself and drummed with her fingers on the cypress wood,\nthat the old puzzle of the strangers who were neither gods nor men\nworked still in her mind.\n\n\"The Cacica's first plan,\" she went on, \"which had been to lose them in\nthe swamps and savannahs, had failed. Her second was to receive them\nkindly and then serve them as she had served Ayllon.\n\n\"They made their camp at last across the river from Talimeco, and I with\nmy women went out to meet them as a great Cacique should be met, in a\ncanoe with an awning, with fan-bearers and flutes and drums. I saw that\nI pleased him,\" said the Princess. \"I gave him the pearls from my neck,\nand had from him a ring from his finger set with a red stone. He was a\nhandsome and a gallant gentleman, knowing what was proper toward\nPrincesses.\"\n\n\"And all this time you were planning to kill him?\" said Dorcas, shocked.\n\nThe Princess shook her head.\n\n\"Not I, but the Cacica. She told me nothing. Talimeco was a White Town;\nhow should I know that she planned killing in it. She sat in the Place\nof the Silences working her mischief and trusted me to keep the\nSpaniards charmed and unsuspicious. How should I know what she meant? I\nam chief woman of Cofachique, but I am not far-looking.\n\n\"I showed the Adelantado the god-house with its dead Caciques all\nstuffed with pearls, and the warrior-house where the arms of Ayllon were\nlaid up for a trophy. It would have been well for him to be contented\nwith these things. I have heard him say they would have been a fortune\nin his own country, but he was bitten with the love of gold and mad with\nit as if a water moccasin had set its fangs in him. I had no gold, and I\ncould not help him to get Far-Looking into his power.\n\n\"That was his plan always, to make the chief person of every city his\nhostage for the safety of his men. I would have helped him if I could,\"\nthe Princess admitted, \"for I thought him glorious, but the truth was, I\ndid not know.\n\n\"There was a lad, Islay, brought up with me in the house of my aunt, the\nCacica, who went back and forth to her with messages to the Place of the\nSilences, and him I drove by my anger to lead the Spaniards that way.\nBut as he went he feared her anger coming to meet him more than he\nfeared mine that waited him at home. One day while the Spanish soldiers\nwho were with him admired the arrows which he showed them in his quiver,\nso beautifully made, he plunged the sharpest of them into his throat. He\nwas a poor thing,\" said the Princess proudly, \"since he loved neither me\nnor my aunt enough to serve one of us against the other. We succeeded\nonly in serving Soto, for now there was no one to carry word for the\nCacica to the men who were to fall upon the Spaniards and destroy them\nas they had destroyed Ayllon.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" said the Princess, \"if she had told me her plan and her\nreason for it, things would have turned out differently. At any rate,\nshe need not have become, as she did finally, my worst enemy, and died\nfighting me. At that time she was as mother and chief to me, and I could\nnever have wished her so much bitterness as she must have felt sitting\nunvisited in the Place of the Silences, while I took the Adelantado\npearling, and the fighting men, who should have fallen upon him at her\nword, danced for his entertainment.\n\n\"She had to come out at last to find what had happened to Islay, for\nwhose death she blamed me, and back she went without a word to me, like\na hot spider to spin a stronger web. This time she appealed to\nTuscaloosa. They were of one mind in many things, and between them they\nkept all the small tribes in tribute.\n\n\"It was about the time of the year when they should be coming with it\nalong the Tribute Road, and the Cacica sent them word that if they could\nmake the Spaniards believe that there was gold in their hills, she would\nremit the tribute for one year. There was not much for them to do, for\nthere were hatchets and knives in the tribute, made of copper, in which\nSoto thought he discovered gold. It may be so: once he had suspected it,\nI could not keep him any longer at Talimeco. The day that he set out\nthere went another expedition secretly from the Cacica to Tuscaloosa.\n'These men,' said the message, 'must be fought by men.' And Tuscaloosa\nsmiled as he heard it, for it was the first time that the Cacica had\nadmitted there was anything that could not be done by a woman. But at\nthat she had done her cleverest thing, because, though they were\nfriends, the Black Warrior wanted nothing so much as an opportunity to\nprove that he was the better warrior.\n\n\"It was lovely summer weather,\" said the Princess, \"as the Spaniards\npassed through the length of Cofachique; the mulberry trees were\ndripping with ripe fruit, the young corn was growing tall, and the\nIndians were friendly. They passed over the Blue Ridge where it breaks\nsouth into woody hills. Glossy leaves of the live-oak made the forest\nspaces vague with shadows; bright birds like flame hopped in and out and\nhid in the hanging moss, whistling clearly; groves of pecans and walnuts\nalong the river hung ropy with long streamers of the purple muscadines.\n\n\"You have heard,\" said the Lady of Cofachique, hesitating for the first\ntime in her story, and yet looking so much the Princess that the\nchildren would never have dared think anything displeasing to her, \"that\nI went a part of the way with the Adelantado on the Tribute Road?\" Her\nlovely face cleared a little as they shook their heads.\n\n\"It is not true,\" she said, \"that I went for any reason but my own wish\nto learn as much as possible of the wisdom of the white men and to keep\nmy own people safe in the towns they passed through. I had my own women\nabout me, and my own warriors ran in the woods on either side, and\nshowed themselves to me in the places where the expedition halted,\nunsuspected by Soto. It was as much as any Spaniard could do to tell one\nhalf-naked Indian from another.\n\n\"The pearls, too,\"--she touched the casket with her foot,--\"the finest\nthat Soto had selected from the god-house, I kept by me. I never meant\nto let them go, though there were some of them I gave to a soldier ...\nthere were slaves, too, of Soto's who found the free life of Cofachique\nmore to their liking than the fruitless search for gold....\"\n\n\"She means,\" said the Snowy Egret, seeing that the Princess did not\nintend to say any more on that point, \"that she gave them for bribes to\none of Soto's men, a great bag full, though there came a day when he\nneeded the bag more than the pearls and he left them scattered on the\nfloor of the forest. It was about the slaves who went with her when she\ngave Soto the slip in the deep woods, that she quarreled afterward with\nthe old Cacica.\"\n\n\"At the western border of Cofachique, which is the beginning of\nTuscaloosa's land,\" went on the Princess, \"I came away with my women and\nmy pearls; we walked in the thick woods and we were gone. Where can a\nwhite man look that an Indian cannot hide from him? It is true that I\nknew by this time that the Cacica had sent to Tuscaloosa, but what was\nthat to me? The Adelantado had left of his own free will, and I was not\nthen Chief Woman of Cofachique. At the first of the Tuscaloosa towns the\nBlack Warrior awaited them. He sat on the piazza of his house on the\nprincipal mound. He sat as still as the Cacica in the Place of Silences,\na great turban stiff with pearls upon his head, and over him the\nstandard of Tuscaloosa like a great round fan on a slender stem, of fine\nfeather-work laid on deerskin. While the Spaniards wheeled and raced\ntheir horses in front of him, trying to make an impression, Soto could\nnot get so much as the flick of an eyelash out of the Black Warrior.\nGentleman of Spain as he was and the King's own representative, he had\nto dismount at last and conduct himself humbly.\n\n\"The Adelantado asked for obedience to his King, which Tuscaloosa said\nhe was more used to getting than giving. When Soto wished for food and\ncarriers, Tuscaloosa gave him part, and, dissembling, said the rest were\nat his capital of Mobila. Against the advice of his men Soto consented\nto go there with him.\n\n\"It was a strong city set with a stockade of tree-trunks driven into the\nground, where they rooted and sent up great trees in which wild pigeons\nroosted. It was they that had seen the runners of Cofachique come in\nwith the message from Far-Looking. All the wood knew, and the Indians\nknew, but not the Spaniards. Some of them suspected. They saw that the\nbrush had been cut from the ground outside the stockade, as if\nfor battle.\n\n\"One of them took a turn through the town and met not an old man nor any\nchildren. There were dancing women, but no others. This is the custom of\nthe Indians when they are about to fight,--they hide their families.\n\n\"Soto was weary of the ground,\" said the Princess. \"This we were told by\nthe carriers who escaped and came back to Cofachique. He wished to sit\non a cushion and sleep in a bed again. He came riding into the town with\nthe Cacique on a horse as a token of honor, though Tuscaloosa was so\ntall that they had trouble finding a horse that could keep his feet from\nthe ground, and it must have been as pleasant for him as riding a lion\nor a tiger. But he was a great chief, and if the Spaniards were not\nafraid to ride neither would he seem to be. So they came to the\nprincipal house, which was on a mound. All the houses were of two\nstories, of which the upper was open on the sides, and used for\nsleeping. Soto sat with Tuscaloosa in the piazza and feasted; dancing\ngirls came out in the town square with flute-players, and danced for\nthe guard.\n\n\"But one of Soto's men, more wary than the rest, walked about, and saw\nthat the towers of the wall were full of fighting men. He saw Indians\nhiding arrows behind palm branches.\n\n\"Back he went to the house where Soto was, to warn him, but already the\ntrouble had begun. Tuscaloosa, making an excuse, had withdrawn into the\nhouse, and when Soto wished to speak to him sent back a haughty answer.\nSoto would have soothed him, but one of Soto's men, made angry with the\ninsolence of the Indian who had brought the Cacique's answer, seized the\nman by his cloak, and when the Indian stepped quickly out of it,\nanswered as quickly with his sword. Suddenly, out of the dark houses,\ncame a shower of arrows.\"\n\n\"It was the plan of the Cacica of Cofachique,\" explained the Egret. \"The\nmen of Mobila had meant to fall on the Spaniards while they were eating,\nbut because of the Spanish gentleman's bad temper, the battle began\ntoo soon.\"\n\n\"It was the only plan of hers that did not utterly fail,\" said the\nPrincess, \"for with all her far-looking she could not see into the\nAdelantado's heart. Soto and his guard ran out of the town, every one\nwith, an arrow sticking in him, to join themselves to the rest of the\nexpedition which had just come up. Like wasps out of a nest the Indians\npoured after them. They caught the Indian carriers, who were just easing\ntheir loads under the walls. With every pack and basket that the\nSpaniards had, they carried them back into the town, and the gates of\nthe stockade were swung to after them.\"\n\n\"All night,\" said the Egret, \"the birds were scared from their roost by\nthe noise of the battle. Several of the horses were caught inside the\nstockade; these the Indians killed quickly. The sound of their dying\nneighs was heard at all the rookeries along the river.\"\n\n\"The wild tribes heard of it, and brought us word,\" said the Princess.\n\"Soto attacked and pretended to withdraw. Out came the Indians after\nhim. The Spaniards wheeled again and did terrible slaughter. They came\nat the stockade with axes; they fired the towers. The houses were all of\ndry cane and fine mats of cane for walls; they flashed up in smoke and\nflame. Many of the Indians threw themselves into the flames rather than\nbe taken. At the last there were left three men and the dancing women.\nThe women came into the open by the light of the burning town, with\ntheir hands crossed before them. They stood close and hid the men with\ntheir skirts, until the Spaniards came up, and then parted. So the last\nmen of Mobila took their last shots and died fighting.\"\n\n\"Is that the end?\" said Oliver, seeing the Princess gather up her pearls\nand the Egret preparing to tuck her bill under her wing. He did not feel\nvery cheerful over it.\n\n\"It was the end of Mobila and the true end of the expedition,\" said the\nPrincess. Rising she beckoned to her women. She had lost all interest in\na story which had no more to do with Cofachique.\n\n\"Both sides lost,\" said the Egret, \"and that was the sad part of it. All\nthe Indians were killed; even the young son of Tuscaloosa was found with\na spear sticking in him. Of the Spaniards but eighteen died, though few\nescaped unwounded. But they lost everything they had, food, medicines,\ntools, everything but the sword in hand and the clothes they stood in.\nAnd while they lay on the bare ground recovering from their wounds came\nJuan Ortiz, who had been sent seaward for that purpose, with word that\nMaldonado lay with the ships off the bay of Mobila,--that's Mobile, you\nknow,--not six days distant, to carry them back to Havana.\n\n\"And how could Soto go back defeated? No gold, no pearls, no conquests,\nnot so much as a map, even,--only rags and wounds and a sore heart. In\nspite of everything he was both brave and gallant, and he knew his duty\nto the King of Spain. He could not go back with so poor a report of the\ncountry to which he had been sent to establish the fame and might of His\nMajesty. Forbidding Juan Ortiz to tell the men about the ships, with\nonly two days' food and no baggage, he turned away from the coast, from\nhis home and his wife and safe living, toward the Mississippi. He had no\nhope in his heart, I think, but plenty of courage. And if you like,\"\nsaid the Egret, \"another day we will tell you how he died there.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, please,\" said Dorcas, \"it is so very sad; and, besides,\" she\nadded, remembering the picture of Soto's body being lowered at night\ninto the dark water, \"it is in the School History.\"\n\n\"In any case,\" said the Egret, \"he was a brave and gallant gentleman,\nkind to his men and no more cruel to the Indians than they were to one\nanother. There was only one of the gentlemen of Spain who never had\n_any_ unkindness to his discredit. That was Cabeza de Vaca; he was one\nof Narvaez's men, and the one from whom Soto first heard of\nFlorida,--but that is also a sad story.\"\n\nNeither of the children said anything. The Princess and her women lost\nthemselves in the shadowy wood. The gleam here and there of their white\ndresses was like the wing of tall white birds. The sun sailing toward\nnoon had burnt the color out of the sky into the deep water which could\nbe seen cradling fresh and blue beyond the islets. One by one the\npelicans swung seaward, beating their broad wings all in time like the\nstroke of rowers, going to fish in the clean tides outside of\nthe lagoons.\n\nThe nests of the flamingoes lay open to the sun except where here and\nthere dozed a brooding mother.\n\n\"Don't you know any not-sad stories?\" asked Dorcas, as the Egret showed\nsigns again of tucking her head under her wing.\n\n\"Not about the Iron Shirts,\" said the Egret. \"Spanish or Portuguese or\nEnglish; it was always an unhappy ending for the Indians.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Dorcas, disappointed; and then she reflected, \"If they hadn't\ncome, though, I don't suppose we would be here either.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you,\" said the Man-of-War Bird, who was a great traveler,\n\"they didn't all land on this coast. Some of them landed in Mexico and\nmarched north into your country. I've heard things from gulls at Panuco.\nYou don't know what the land birds might be able to tell you.\"\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nXIII\n\nHOW THE IRON SHIRTS CAME LOOKING FOR THE SEVEN CITIES OF CIBOLA; TOLD BY\nTHE ROAD-RUNNER\n\n\nFrom Cay Verde in the Bahamas to the desert of New Mexico, by the Museum\ntrail, is around a corner and past two windows that look out upon the\nwest. As the children stood waiting for the Road-Runner to notice them,\nthey found the view not very different from the one they had just left.\nUnending, level sands ran into waves, and strange shapes of rocks loomed\nthrough the desert blueness like steep-shored islands. It was vast and\nterrifying like the sea, and yet a very pleasant furred and feathered\nlife appeared to be going on there between the round-headed cactus, with\nits cruel fishhook thorns, and the warning, blood-red blossoms that\ndripped from the ocatilla. Little frisk-tailed things ran up and down\nthe spiney shrubs, and a woodpecker, who had made his nest in its pithy\nstalk, peered at them from a tall _sahuaro_.\n\nThe Road-Runner tilted his long rudder-like tail, flattened his crested\nhead until it reminded them of a wicked snake, and suddenly made up his\nmind to be friendly.\n\n\"Come inside and get your head in the shade,\" he invited. \"There's no\nharm in the desert sun so long as you keep something between it and your\nhead. I've known Indians to get along for days with only the shade of\ntheir arrows.\"\n\nThe children snuggled under the feathery shadow of the mesquite beside\nhim.\n\n\"We're looking for the trail of the Iron Shirts,\" said Oliver. \"Alvar\nNunez Cabeza de Vaca,\" added Dorcas Jane, who always remembered names.\nThe Road-Runner ducked once or twice by way of refreshing his memory.\n\n\"There was a black man with him, and they went about as Medicine Men to\nthe Indians who believed in them, and at the same time treated them very\nbadly. But that was nearly four hundred years ago, and they never came\ninto this part of the country, only into Texas. And they hadn't any iron\nshirts either, scarcely anything to put either on their backs or into\ntheir stomachs.\"\n\n\"Nevertheless,\" quavered a voice almost under Oliver's elbow, \"they\nbrought the iron shirts, and the long-tailed elk whose hooves are always\nstumbling among our burrows.\"\n\nThe children had to look close to make out the speckled fluff of\nfeathers hunched at the door of its _hogan_.\n\n\"Meet my friend Thla-po-po-ke-a,\" said the Road-Runner, who had picked\nup his manners from miners and cowboys as well as from Spanish\nexplorers.\n\nThe Burrowing Owl bobbed in her own hurried fashion. \"Often and often,\"\nshe insisted with a whispering _whoo-oo_ running through all the\nsentences, \"I've heard the soldiers say that it was Cabeza de Vaca put\nit into the head of the King of Spain to send Francisco Coronado to look\nfor the Seven Cities. In my position one hears the best of everything,\"\nwent on Po-po-ke-a. \"That is because all the important things happen\nnext to the ground. Men are born and die on the ground, they spread\ntheir maps, they dream dreams.\"\n\nThe children could see how this would be in a country where there was\nnever a house or a tree and scarcely anything that grew more than\nknee-high to a man. The long sand-swells, and the shimmer of heat-waves\nin the air looked even more like the sea now that they were level with\nit. Off to the right what seemed a vast sheet of water spread out like\nquicksilver on the plain; it moved with a crawling motion, and a coyote\nthat trotted across their line of vision seemed to swim in it, his head\njust showing above the slight billows.\n\n\"It's only mirage,\" said the Road-Runner; \"even Indians are fooled by it\nif they are strange to the country. But it is quite true about the\nground being the place to hear things. All day the Iron Shirts would\nride in a kind of doze of sun and weariness. But when they sat at meals,\nloosening their armor buckles, then there would be news. We used to run\nwith it from one camp to another--I can run faster than a horse can\nwalk--until the whole mesa would hear of it.\"\n\n\"But the night is the time for true talking,\" insisted Po-po-ke-a. \"It\nwas then we heard that when Cabeza de Vaca returned to Spain he made one\nreport of his wanderings to the public, and a secret report to the King.\nAlso that the Captain-General asked to be sent on that expedition\nbecause he had married a young wife who needed much gold.\"\n\n\"At that time we had not heard of gold,\" said the Road-Runner; \"the\nSpaniards talked so much of it we thought it must be something good to\neat, but it turned out to be only yellow stones. But it was not all\nCabeza de Vaca's doing. There was another story by an Indian, Tejo, who\ntold the Governor of Mexico that he remembered going with his father to\ntrade in the Seven Cities, which were as large as the City of Mexico,\nwith whole streets of silver workers, and blue turquoises over\nthe doors.\"\n\n\"If there is a story about it--\" began Oliver, looking from one to the\nother invitingly, and catching them looking at each other in the\nsame fashion.\n\n\"Brother, there is a tail to you,\" said the Burrowing Owl quickly, which\nseemed to the children an unnecessary remark, since the Road-Runner's\nlong, trim tail was the most conspicuous thing about him. It tipped and\ntilted and waggled almost like a dog's, and answered every purpose of\nconversation.\n\nNow he ducked forward on both legs in an absurd way he had. \"To you, my\nsister--\" which is the polite method of story asking in that part of\nthe country.\n\n\"My word bag is as empty as my stomach,\" said Po-po-ke-a, who had eaten\nnothing since the night before and would not eat until night again.\n\"_Sons eso_--to your story.\"\n\n\"_Sons eso, tse-na_,\" said the Road-Runner, and began.\n\n\"First,\" he said, \"to Hawikuh, a city of the Zunis, came Estevan, the\nblack man who had been with Cabeza de Vaca, with a rattle in his hand\nand very black behavior. Him the Indians killed, and the priest who was\nwith him they frightened away. Then came Coronado, with an army from\nMexico, riding up the west coast and turning east from the River of the\nBrand, the one that is now called Colorado, which is no name at all, for\nall the rivers hereabout run red after rain. They were a good company of\nmen and captains, and many of those long-tailed elk,--which are called\nhorses, sister,\" said the Road-Runner aside to Po-po-ke-a,--\"and the\nIndians were not pleased to see them.\"\n\n\"That was because there had been a long-tailed star seen over\nTo-ya-lanne, the sacred mountain, some years before, one of the kind\nthat is called Trouble-Bringer. They thought of it when they looked at\nthe long tails of the new-fashioned elk,\" said Po-po-ke-a, who had not\nliked being set right about the horses.\n\n\"In any case,\" went on the Road-Runner, \"there was trouble. Hawikuh was\none of these little crowded pueblos, looking as if it had been crumpled\ntogether and thrown away, and though there were turquoises over the\ndoors, they were poor ones, and there was no gold. And as Hawikuh, so\nthey found all the cities of Cibola, and the cities of the Queres, east\nto the River of White Rocks.\"\n\nDorcas Jane nudged Oliver to remind him of the Corn Woman and\nTse-tse-yote. All the stories of that country, like the trails, seemed\nto run into one another.\n\n\"Terrible things happened around Tiguex and at Cicuye, which is now\nPecos,\" said the Road-Runner, \"for the Spaniards were furious at finding\nno gold, and the poor Indians could never make up their minds whether\nthese were gods to be worshiped, or a strange people coming to conquer\nthem, who must be fought. They were not sure whether the iron shirts\nwere to be dreaded as magic, or coveted as something they could use\nthemselves. As for the horses, they both feared and hated them. But\nthere was one man who made up his mind very quickly.\n\n\"He was neither Queres nor Zuni, but a plainsman, a captive of their\nwars. He was taller than our men, leaner and sharp-looking. His god was\nthe Morning Star. He made sacrifices to it. The Spaniards called him the\nTurk, saying he looked like one. We did not know what that meant, for we\nhad only heard of turkeys which the Queres raised for their feathers,\nand he was not in the least like one of these. But he knew that the\nSpaniards were men, and was almost a match for them. He had the\nInknowing Thought.\"\n\nThe Road-Runner cocked his head on one side and observed the children,\nto see if they knew what this meant.\n\n\"Is it anything like far-looking?\" asked Dorcas.\n\n\"It is something none of my people ever had,\" said the Road-Runner. \"The\nIndian who was called the Turk could look in a bowl of water in the sun,\nor in the water of the Stone Pond, and he could see things that happened\nat a distance, or in times past. He proved to the Spaniards that he\ncould do this, but their priests said it was the Devil and would have\nnothing to do with it, which was a great pity. He could have saved them\na great deal.\"\n\n\"_Hoo, hoo_!\" said the Burrowing Owl; \"he could not even save himself;\nand none of the things he told to the Spaniards were true.\"\n\n\"He was not thinking for himself,\" said the Road-Runner, \"but for his\npeople. The longer he was away from them the more he thought, and his\nthoughts were good, even though he did not tell the truth to the Iron\nShirts. They, at least, did not deserve it. For when the people of Zuni\nand Cicuye and Tiguex would not tell them where the sacred gold was hid,\nthere were terrible things done. That winter when the days were cold,\nthe food was low and the soldiers fretful. Many an Indian kept the\nsecret with his life.\"\n\n\"Did the Indians really know where the gold was?\" The children knew\nthat, according to the geographies, there are both gold and silver in\nNew Mexico.\n\n\"Some of them did, but gold was sacred to them. They called it the stone\nof the Sun, which they worshiped, and the places where it was found were\nholy and secret. They let themselves be burned rather than tell.\nBesides, they thought that if the Spaniards were convinced there was no\ngold, they would go away the sooner. One thing they were sure of: gods\nor men, it would be better for the people of the pueblos if they went\naway. Day and night the _tombes_ would be sounding in the kivas, and\nprayer plumes planted in all the sacred places. Then it was that the\nTurk went to the Caciques sitting in council.\n\n\"'If the strangers should hear that there is gold in my country, there\nis nothing would keep them from going there.'\n\n\"'That is so,' said the Caciques.\n\n\"'And if they went to my country,' said the Turk, 'who but I could guide\nthem?'\n\n\"'And how long,' said the Caciques, 'do you think a guide would live\nafter they discovered that he had lied?' For they knew very well there\nwas no gold in the Turk's country.\n\n\"'I should at least have seen my own land,' said the Turk, 'and here I\nam a slave to you.'\n\n\"The Caciques considered. Said they, 'It is nothing to us where and how\nyou die.'\n\n\"So the Turk caused himself to be taken prisoner by the Spaniards, and\ntalked among them, until it was finally brought to the Captain-General's\nears that in the Turk's country of Quivira, the people ate off plates of\ngold, and the Chief of that country took his afternoon nap under a tree\nhung with golden bells that rung him to sleep. Also that there was a\nriver there, two leagues wide, and that the boats carried twenty rowers\nto a side with the Chief under the awning.\" \"That at least was true,\"\nsaid the Burrowing Owl; \"there were towns on the Missi-sippu where the\nChiefs sat in balconies on high mounds and the women fanned them with\ngreat fans.\"\n\n\"Not in Quivira, which the Turk claimed for his own country. But it all\nworked together, for when the Spaniards learned that the one thing was\ntrue, they were the more ready to believe the other. It was always easy\nto get them to believe any tale which had gold in it. They were so eager\nto set out for Quivira that they could scarcely be persuaded to take\nfood enough, saying they would have all the more room on their horses\nfor the gold.\n\n\"They forded the Rio Grande near Tiguex, traveled east to Cicuye on the\nPecos River, and turned south looking for the Turk's country, which is\nnot in that direction.\"\n\n\"But why--\" began Oliver.\n\n\"Look!\" said the Road-Runner.\n\nThe children saw the plains of Texas stretching under the heat haze,\nstark sand in wind-blown dunes, tall stakes of _sahuaro_ marching wide\napart, hot, trackless sand in which a horse's foot sinks to the fetlock,\nand here and there raw gashes in the earth for rivers that did not run,\nexcept now and then in fierce and ungovernable floods. Northward the\nplains passed out of sight in trackless, grass-covered prairies, day's\njourney upon day's journey.\n\n\"It was the Caciques' idea that the Turk was to lose the strangers\nthere, or to weaken them beyond resistance by thirst and hunger and\nhostile tribes. But the buffalo had come south that winter for the early\ngrass. They were so thick they looked like trees walking, to the\nSpaniards as they lay on the ground and saw the sky between their huge\nbodies and the flat plain. And the wandering bands of Querechos that the\nExpedition met proved friendly. They were the same who had known Cabeza\nde Vaca, and they had a high opinion of white men. They gave the\nSpaniards food and proved to them that it was much farther to the cities\nof the Missisippu than the Turk had said.\n\n\"By that time Coronado had himself begun to suspect that he should never\nfind the golden bells of Quivira, but with the King and Dona Beatris\nbehind him, there was nothing for him to do but go forward. He sent the\narmy back to Tiguex, and, with thirty men and all the best horses,\nturned north in as straight a track as the land permitted, to the Turk's\ncountry. And all that journey he kept the Turk in chains.\n\n\"Even though he had not succeeded in getting rid of the Iron Shirts, the\nTurk was not so disappointed as he might have been. The Caciques did not\nknow it, but killing the strangers or losing them had been only a part\nof his plan.\n\n\"All that winter at Tiguex the Turk had seen the horses die, or grow\nsick and well again; some of them had had colts, and he had come to the\nconclusion that they were simply animals like elk or deer, only\nmore useful.\n\n\"The Turk was a Pawnee, one of those roving bands that build grass\nhouses and follow the buffalo for food. They ran the herds into a\n_piskune_ below a bluff, over which they rushed and were killed.\nSometimes the hunters themselves were caught in the rush and trampled.\nIt came into the Turk's mind, as he watched the Spaniards going to hunt\non horseback, that the Morning Star, to whom he made sacrifices for his\nreturn from captivity, had sent him into Zuni to learn about horses, and\ntake them back to his people. Whatever happened to the Iron Shirts on\nthat journey, he had not meant to lose the horses. Even though suspected\nand in chains he might still do a great service to his people.\n\n\"When the Querechos were driving buffalo, some of the horses were caught\nup in the 'surround,' carried away with the rush of the stampeding herd,\nand never recovered. Others that broke away in a terrible hailstorm\nsucceeded in getting out of the ravine where the army had taken shelter,\nand no one noticed that it was always at the point where the Turk was\nhelping to herd them, that the horses escaped. Even after he was put in\nchains and kept under the General's eye on the way to Quivira, now and\nthen there would be a horse, usually a mare with a colt, who slipped her\nstake-rope. Little gray coyotes came in the night and gnawed them. But\ncoyotes will not gnaw a rope unless it has been well rubbed with buffalo\nfat,\" said the Road-Runner.\n\n\"I should have thought the Spaniards would have caught him at it,\" said\nOliver.\n\n\"White men, when they are thinking of gold,\" said the Road-Runner, \"are\nparticularly stupid about other things. There was a man of the Wichitas,\na painted Indian called Ysopete, who told them from the beginning that\nthe Turk lied about the gold. But the Spaniards preferred to believe\nthat the Indians were trying to keep the gold for themselves. They did\nnot see that the Turk was losing their horses one by one; no more did\nthey see, as they neared Quivira, that every day he called his people.\n\n\"There are many things an Indian can do and a white man not catch him at\nit. The Turk would sit and feed the fire at evening, now a bundle of dry\nbrush and then a handful of wet grass, smoke and smudge, such as hunters\nuse to signal the movements of the quarry. He would stand listening to\nthe captains scold him, and push small stones together with his foot for\na sign. He could slip in the trail and break twigs so that Pawnees could\nread. When strange Indians were brought into camp, though he could only\nspeak to them in the language of signs, he asked for a Pawnee called\nRunning Elk, who had been his friend before he was carried captive into\nZuni Land. They had mingled their blood after the custom of friendship\nand were more than brothers to one another. And though the Iron Shirts\nlooked at him with more suspicion every day, he was almost happy. He\nsmelled sweet-grass and the dust of his own country, and spoke face to\nface with the Morning Star.\n\n\"I do not understand about stars,\" said the Road-Runner. \"It seems that\nsome of them travel about and do not look the same from different\nplaces. In Zuni Land where there are mountains, the Turk was not always\nsure of his god, but in the Pawnee country it is easily seen that he is\nthe Captain of the Sky. You can lie on the ground there and lose sight\nof the earth altogether. Mornings the Turk would look up from his chains\nto see his Star, white against the rosy stain, and was comforted. It was\nthe Star, I suppose, that brought him his friend.\n\n\"For four or five days after Running Elk discovered that the Turk was\ncaptive to the Iron Shirts, he would lurk in the tall grass and the\nriver growth, making smoke signals. Like a coyote he would call at\nnight, and though the Turk heard him, he dared not answer. Finally he\nhit upon the idea of making songs. He would sing and nobody could\nunderstand him but Running Elk, who lay in the grass, and finally had\ncourage to come into the camp in broad day, selling buffalo meat and\nwild plums.\n\n\"There was a bay mare with twin colts that the Turk wished him to loose\nfrom her rope and drive away, but Running Elk was afraid. Cold mornings\nthe Indian could see the smoke of the horses' nostrils and thought that\nthey breathed fire. But the Turk made his friend believe at last that\nthe horse is a great gift to man, by the same means that he had made the\nSpaniards think him evil, by the In-knowing Thought.\n\n\"'It is as true,' said the Turk, 'that the horse is only another sort of\nelk, as that my wife is married again and my son died fighting the\nHo-he.' All of which was exactly as it had happened, for his wife had\nnever expected that he would come back from captivity. 'It is also\ntrue,' the Turk told him, 'that very soon I shall join my son.'\n\n\"For he was sure by this time that when the Spaniards had to give up the\nhope of gold, they would kill him. He told Running Elk all the care of\nhorses as he had learned it, and where he thought those that had been\nlost from Coronado's band might be found. Of the Iron Shirts, he said\nthat they were great Medicine, and the Pawnees were by all means to get\none or two of them.\n\n\"By this time the Expedition had reached the country of the Wichitas,\nwhich is Quivira, and there was no gold, no metal of any sort but a\ncopper gorget around the Chief's neck, and a few armbands. The night\nthat Coronada bought the Chief's gorget to send to his king, as proof\nthat he had found no gold, Running Elk heard the Turk singing. It was no\nsong of secret meaning; it was his own song, such as a man makes to sing\nwhen he sees his death facing him.\n\n\"All that night the Turk waited in his chains for the rising of his\nStar. There was something about which he must talk to it. He had made a\ngift of the horse to his people, but there was no sacrifice to wash away\nall that was evil in the giving and make it wholly blessed. All night\nthe creatures of the earth heard the Turk whisper at his praying, asking\nfor a sacrifice.\n\n\"And when the Star flared white before the morning, a voice was in the\nair saying that he himself was to be the sacrifice. It was the voice of\nthe Morning Star walking between the hills, and the Turk was happy. The\ndoves by the water-courses heard him with the first flush of the dawn\nwaking the Expedition with his death song. Loudly the Spaniards swore at\nhim, but he sang on steadily till they came to take him before the\nGeneral, whose custom it was to settle all complaints the first thing in\nthe morning. The soldiers thought that since it was evident the Turk had\npurposely misled them about the gold and other things, he ought to die\nfor it. The General was in a bad humor. One of his best mares with her\ncolts had frayed her stake-rope on a stone that night and escaped.\nNevertheless, being a just man, he asked the Turk if he had anything to\nsay. Upon which the Turk told them all that the Caciques had said, and\nwhat he himself had done, all except about the horses, and especially\nabout the bay mare and Running Elk. About that he was silent. He kept\nhis eyes upon the Star, where it burned white on the horizon. It was at\nits last wink, paling before the sun, when they killed him.\"\n\nThe children drew a long breath that could hardly be distinguished from\nthe soft whispering _whoo-hoo_ of the Burrowing Owl.\n\n\"So in spite of his in-knowing he could not save himself,\" Dorcas Jane\ninsisted, \"and his Star could not save him. If he had looked in the\nearth instead of the heavens he would have found gold and the Spaniards\nwould have given him all the horses he wanted.\"\n\n\"You forget,\" said the Road-Runner, \"that he knew no more than the Iron\nShirts did, where the gold was to be found. There were not more than two\nor three in any one of the Seven Cities that ever knew. Ho-tai of\nMatsaki was the last of those, and his own wife let him be killed rather\nthan betray the secret of the Holy Places.\"\n\n\"Oh, if you please--\" began the children.\n\n\"It is a town story,\" said the Road-Runner, \"but the Condor that has his\nnest on El Morro, he might tell you. He was captive once in a cage at\nZuni.\" The Road-Runner balanced on his slender legs and cocked his head\ntrailwise. Any kind of inactivity bored him dreadfully. The burrowing\nowls were all out at the doors of their _hogans_, their heads turning\nwith lightning swiftness from side to side; the shadows were long in the\nlow sun. \"It is directly in the trail from the Rio Grande to Acoma, the\nold trail to Zuni,\" said the Road-Runner, and without waiting to see\nwhether or not the children followed him, he set off.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nXIV\n\nHOW THE MAN OF TWO HEARTS KEPT THE SECRET OF THE HOLY PLACES; TOLD BY\nTHE CONDOR\n\n\"In the days of our Ancients,\" said the Road-Runner between short\nskimming runs, \"this was the only trail from the river to the Middle Ant\nHill of the World. The eastern end of it changed like the tip of a wild\ngourd vine as the towns moved up and down the river or the Queres\ncrossed from Katzimo to the rock of Acoma; but always Zuni was the root,\nand the end of the first day's journey was the Rock.\"\n\nEach time he took his runs afresh, like a kicking stick in a race, and\nwaited for the children to catch up. The sands as they went changed from\ngray to gleaming pearl; on either side great islands of stone thinned\nand swelled like sails and took on rosy lights and lilac shadows.\n\nThey crossed a high plateau with somber cones of extinct volcanoes,\ncrowding between rivers of block rock along its rim. Northward a\nwilderness of pines guarded the mesa; dark junipers, each one with a\nsecret look, browsed wide apart. They thickened in the canyons from which\narose the white bastions of the Rock.\n\nCloser up, El Morro showed as the wedge-shaped end of a high mesa,\nsoaring into cliffs and pinnacles, on the very tip of which they could\njust make out the hunched figure of the great Condor.\n\n\"El Morro, 'the Castle,' the Spaniards called it,\" said the Road-Runner,\ncasting himself along the laps of the trail like a feathered dart. \"But\nto our Ancients it was always 'The Rock.' On winter journeys they camped\non the south side to get the sun, and in summers they took the shade on\nthe north. They carved names and messages for those that were to come\nafter, with flint knives, with swords and Spanish daggers. Men are all\nvery much alike,\" said the Road-Runner.\n\nOn the smooth sandstone cliffs the children could make out strange,\nweathered picture-writings, and twisty inscriptions in much abbreviated\nSpanish which they could not read.\n\nThe white sand at the foot of the Rock was strewn with flakes of\ncharcoal from the fires of ancient camps. A little to the south of the\ncliff, that towered two hundred feet and more above them, shallow\nfootholds were cut into the sandstone.\n\n\"There were pueblos at the top in the old days,\" said the Road-Runner,\n\"facing across a deep divide, but nobody goes there now except owls that\nhave their nests in the ruins, and the last of the Condors, who since\nold time have made their home in the pinnacles of the Rock. He'll have\nseen us coming.\" The children looked up as a sailing shadow began to\ncircle about them on the evening-colored sands. \"You can see by the\nfrayed edges of his wing feathers that he has a long time for\nremembering,\" said the Road-Runner.\n\nThe great bird came slowly to earth, close by the lone pine that\ntasseled out against the south side of El Morro and the Road-Runner\nducked several times politely.\n\n\"My children, how is it with you these days?\" asked the Condor with\ngreat dignity.\n\n\"Happy, happy, Grandfather. And you?\"\n\nThe Condor assured them that he was very happy, and seeing that no one\nmade any other remark, he added, after an interval, looking pointedly at\nthe children, \"It is not thinking of nothing that strangers come to the\nhouse of a stranger.\"\n\n\"True, Grandfather,\" said the Road-Runner; \"we are thinking of the gold,\nthe seed of the Sun, that the Spaniards did not find. Is there left to\nyou any of the remembrance of these things?\"\n\n\"_Hai, hai_!\" The Condor stretched his broad wings and settled himself\ncomfortably on a nubbin of sandstone. \"Of which of these who passed will\nyou hear?\" He indicated the inscriptions on the rock, and then by way of\nexplanation he said to the children, \"I am town-hatched myself. Lads of\nZuni took my egg and hatched it under a turkey hen, at the Ant Hill.\nThey kept my wings clipped, but once they forgot, so I came away to the\nancient home of my people. But in the days of my captivity I learned\nmany tales and the best manner of telling them. Also the Tellings of my\nown people who kept the Rock. They fit into one another like the arrow\npoint to the shaft. Look!\"--he pointed to an inscription protected by a\nlittle brow of sandstone, near the lone pine. \"Juan de Onate did that\nwhen he passed to the discovery of the Sea of the South. He it was who\nbuilt the towns, even the chief town of Santa Fe.\n\n\"There signed with his sword, Vargas, who reconquered the pueblos after\nthe rebellion--yes, they rebelled again and again. On the other side of\nthe Rock you can read how Governor Nieto carried the faith to them. They\ncame and went, the Iron Shirts, through two hundred years. You can see\nthe marks of their iron hats on some of the rafters of Zuni town to this\nday, but small was the mark they left on the hearts of the Zunis.\"\n\n\"Is that so!\" said the Road-Runner, which is a polite way of saying that\nyou think the story worth going on with; and then cocking his eye at the\ninscription, he hinted, \"I have heard that the Long Gowns, the Padres\nwho came with them, were master-workers in hearts.\"\n\n\"It is so,\" said the Condor. \"I remember the first of them who managed\nto build a church here, Padre Francisco Letrado. Here!\" He drew their\nattention to an inscription almost weathered away, and looking more like\nthe native picture-writings than the signature of a Spanish gentleman.\nHe read:--\n\n\"They passed on the 23d of March of 1832 years to the avenging of the\ndeath of Father Letrado.\" It was signed simply \"Lujan.\"\n\n\"There is a Telling of that passing and of that soldier which has to do\nwith the gold that was never found.\"\n\n_\"Sons eso,\"_ said the Road-Runner, and they settled themselves to\nlisten.\n\n\"About the third of a man's life would have passed between the time when\nOnate came to the founding of Santa Fe, and the building of the first\nchurch by Father Letrado. There were Padres before that, and many\nbaptizings. The Zunis were always glad to learn new ways of persuading\nthe gods to be on their side, and they thought the prayers and\nceremonies of the Padres very good Medicine indeed. They thought the\nIron Shirts were gods themselves, and when they came received them with\nsprinklings of sacred meal. But it was not until Father Letrado's time\nthat it began to be understood that the new religion was to take the\nplace of their own, for to the Indians there is but one spirit in\nthings, as there is one life in man. They thought their own prayers as\ngood as any that were taught them.\n\n\"But Father Letrado was zealous and he was old. He made a rule that all\nshould come to the service of his church and that they should obey him\nand reverence him when they met, with bowings and kissings of his robe.\nIt is not easy to teach reverence to a free people, and the men of the\nAnt Hill had been always free. But the worst of Father Letrado's rulings\nwas that there were to be no more prayers in the kivas, no dancings to\nthe gods nor scatterings of sacred pollen and planting of plumes.\nAlso--this is not known, I think--that the sacred places where the Sun\nhad planted the seed of itself should be told to the Padres.\"\n\n\"He means the places where the gold is found mixed with the earth and\nthe sand,\" explained the Road-Runner to Dorcas Jane and Oliver.\n\n\"In the days of the Ancients,\" said the Condor, \"when such a place was\nfound, it was told to the Priests of the Bow, and kept in reverence by\nthe whole people. But since the Zunis had discovered what things white\nmen will do for gold, there had been fewer and fewer who held the\nsecret. The Spaniards had burnt too many of those who were suspected of\nknowing, for one thing, and they had a drink which, when they gave to\nthe Indians, let the truth out of their mouths as it would not have gone\nwhen they were sober.\n\n\"At the time Father Letrado built his first chapel there was but one man\nin Hawikuh who knew.\n\n\"He was a man of two natures. His mother had been a woman of the\nMatsaki, and his father one of the Onate's men, so that he was half of\nthe Sun and half of the Moon, as we say,--for the Zunis called the first\nhalf-white children, Moon-children,--and his heart was pulled two ways,\nas I have heard the World Encompassing Water is pulled two ways by the\nSun and the Moon. Therefore, he was called Ho-tai the Two-Hearted.\n\n\"What finally pulled his heart out of his bosom was the love he had for\nhis wife. Flower-of-the-Maguey, she was called, and she was beautiful\nbeyond all naming. She was daughter to the Chief Priest of the Bow, and\nyoung men from all the seven towns courted her. But though she was\nlovely and quiet she was not as she seemed to be. She was a Passing\nBeing.\" The Condor thoughtfully stretched his wings as he considered how\nto explain this to the children.\n\n\"Such there are,\" he said. \"They are shaped from within outward by their\nown wills. They have the power to take the human form and leave it. But\nit was not until she had been with her mother to To-yalanne, the sacred\nThunder Mountain, as is the custom when maidens reach the marriageable\nage, that her power came to her. She was weary with gathering the sacred\nflower pollen; she lay under a maguey in the warm sun and felt the light\nairs play over her. Her breath came evenly and the wind lifted her long\nhair as it lay along her sides.\n\n\"Strangely she felt the pull of the wind on her hair, all along her\nbody. She looked and saw it turn short and tawny in the sun, and the\nshape of her limbs fitted to the sandy hollows. Thus she understood that\nshe was become another being, Moke-iche, the puma. She bounded about in\nthe sun and chased the blue and yellow butterflies. After a time she\nheard the voice of her mother calling, and it pulled at her heart. She\nlet her heart have way and became a maid again. But often she would\nsteal out after that, when the wind brought her the smell of the maguey,\nor at night when the moon walked low over To-yalanne, and play as puma.\nHer parents saw that she had power more than is common to maidens, but\nshe was wise and modest, and they loved her and said nothing.\n\n\"'Let her have a husband and children,' they said, 'and her strangeness\nwill pass.' But they were very much disappointed at what happened to all\nthe young men who came a-courting.\n\n\"This is the fashion of a Zuni courting: The young man says to his Old\nOnes, 'I have seen the daughter of the Priest of the Bow at the Middle\nAnt Hill, what think ye?' And if they said, 'Be it well!' he gathered\nhis presents into a bundle and went to knock at the sky-hole of her\nfather's house.\n\n\"'_She_!' he said, and '_Hai_!' they answered from within. 'Help me\ndown,' he would say, which was to tell them that he had a bundle with\nhim and it was a large one. Then the mother of the girl would know what\nwas afoot. She would rise and pull the bundle down through the\nsky-hole--all pueblo houses are entered from the top, did you not know?\"\nasked the Condor.\n\nThe children nodded, not to interrupt; they had seen as they came along\nthe trail the high terraced houses with the ladders sticking out of the\ndoor-holes.\n\n\"Then there was much politeness on both sides, politeness of food\noffered and eaten and questions asked, until the girl's parents were\nsatisfied that the match would be a good one. Finally, the Old Ones\nwould stretch themselves out in their corners and begin to scrape their\nnostrils with their breath--thus,\" said the Condor, making a gentle\nsound of snoring; \"for it was thought proper for the young people to\nhave a word or two together. The girl would set the young man a task, so\nas not to seem too easily won, and to prove if he were the sort of man\nshe wished for a husband.\n\n\"'Only possibly you love me,' said the daughter of the Chief Priest of\nthe Bow. 'Go out with the light to-morrow to hunt and return with it,\nbringing your kill, that I may see how much you can do for my sake.'\n\n\"But long before light the girl would go out herself as a puma and scare\nthe game away. Thus it happened every time that the young man would\nreturn at evening empty-handed, or he would be so mortified that he did\nnot return at all, and the girl's parents would send the bundle back to\nhim. The Chief Priest and his wife began to be uneasy lest their\ndaughter should never marry at all.\n\n\"Finally Ho-tai of the pueblo of Matsaki heard of her, and said to his\nmother, 'That is the wife for me.'\n\n\"'_Shoom_!' said his mother; 'what have you to offer her?' for they were\nvery poor.\n\n\"'_Shoom_ yourself!' said Ho-tai. 'He that is poor in spirit as well as\nin appearance, is poor indeed. It is plain she is not looking for a\nbundle, but for a man.' So he took what presents he had to the house of\nthe Chief Priest of the Bow, and everything went as usual; except that\nwhen Ho-tai asked them to help him in, the Chief Priest said, 'Be\nyourself within,' for he was growing tired of courtings that came to\nnothing. But when Ho-tai came cheerfully down the ladder with his gift,\nthe girl's heart was touched, for he was a fine gold color like a full\nmoon, and his high heart gave him a proud way of walking. So when she\nhad said, 'Only possibly you love me, but that I may know what manner of\nhusband I am getting, I pray you hunt for me one day,' and when they had\nbidden each other 'wait happily until the morning,' she went out as a\npuma and searched the hills for game that she might drive toward the\nyoung man, instead of away from him. But because she could not take her\neyes off of him, she was not so careful as she should be not to let him\nsee her. Then she went home and put on all her best clothes, the white\nbuckskins, the turquoises and silver bracelets, and waited. At evening,\nHo-tai, the Two-Hearted, came with a fine buck on his shoulders, and a\nstiff face. Without a word he gave the buck to the Priest's wife and\nturned away, '_Hai_',' said the mother, 'when a young man wins a girl he\nis permitted to say a few words to her!'--for she was pleased to think\nthat her daughter had got a husband at last.\n\n\"'I did not kill the buck by myself,' said Ho-tai; and he went off to\nfind the Chief Priest and tell him that he could not marry his daughter.\nFlower-of-the-Maguey, who was in her room all this time peeking through\nthe curtain, took a water jar and went down to the spring where Ho-tai\ncould not help but pass her on his way back to his own village.\n\n\"'I did not bring back your bundle,' she said when she saw him; 'what is\na bundle to a woman when she has found a man?'\n\n\"Then his two hearts were sore in him, for she was lovely past all\nnaming. 'I do not take what I cannot win by my own labor,' said he;\n'there was a puma drove up the game for me.'\n\n\"'Who knows,' said she, 'but Those Above sent it to try if you were\nhonest or a braggart?' After which he began to feel differently. And in\ndue course they were married, and Ho-tai came to live in the house of\nthe Chief Priest at Hawikuh, for her parents could not think of\nparting with her,\n\n\"They were very happy,\" said the Condor, \"for she was wisely slow as\nwell as beautiful, and she eased him of the struggle of his two hearts,\none against the other, and rested in her life as a woman.\"\n\n\"Does that mean she wasn't a puma any more?\" asked Dorcas Jane.\n\nThe Condor nodded, turning over the Zuni words in his mind for just the\nright phrase. \"Understanding of all her former states came to her with\nthe years. There was nothing she dreaded so much as being forced out of\nthis life into the dust and whirl of Becoming. That is one reason why\nshe feared and distrusted the Spanish missionaries when they came, as\nthey did about that time.\n\n\"One of her husband's two hearts pulled very strongly toward the\nreligion of the Spanish Padres. He was of the first that were baptized\nby Father Letrado, and served the altar. He was also the first of those\nupon whose mind the Padre began to work to persuade him that in taking\nthe new religion he must wholly give up the old.\n\n\"At the end of that trail, a day's journey,\" said the Condor, indicating\nthe narrow foot-tread in the sand, which showed from tree to tree of the\ndark junipers, and seemed to turn and disappear at every one, \"lies the\nvalley of Shiwina, which is Zuni.\n\n\"It is a narrow valley, watered by a muddy river. Red walls of mesas\nshut it in above the dark wood. To the north lies Thunder Mountain,\nwall-sided and menacing. Dust devils rise up from the plains and veil\nthe crags. In the winter there are snows. In the summer great clouds\ngather over Shiwina and grow dark with rain. White corn tassels are\nwaving, blue butterfly maidens flit among the blossoming beans.\n\n\"Day and night at midsummer, hardly the priests have their rattles out\nof their hands. You hear them calling from the house-tops, and the beat\nof bare feet on the dancing places. But the summer after Father Letrado\nbuilt his chapel of the Immaculate Virgin at Halona and the chapel and\nparish house of the Immaculate Conception at Hawikuh, he set his face\nagainst the Rain Dance, and especially against the Priests of the Rain.\nWitchcraft and sorcery he called it, and in Zuni to be accused of\nwitchcraft is death.\n\n\"The people did not know what to do. They prayed secretly where they\ncould. The Priests of the Rain went on with their preparations, and the\nsoldiers of Father Letrado--for he had a small detachment with\nhim--broke up the dance and profaned the sacred places. Those were hard\ndays for Ho-tai the Two-Hearted. The gods of the strangers were strong\ngods, he said, let the people wait and see what they could do. The white\nmen had strong Medicine in their guns and their iron shirts and their\nlong-tailed, smoke-breathing beasts. They did not work as other gods.\nEven if there was no rain, the white gods might have another way to save\nthe people.\n\n\"These were the things Father Letrado taught him to say, and the\ndaughter of the Chief Priest of the Bow feared that his heart would be\nquite pulled away from the people of Zuni. Then she went to her father\nthe Chief Priest, who was also the keeper of the secret of the Holy\nPlaces of the Sun, and neared the dividing of the ways of life.\n\n\"'Let Ho-tai be chosen Keeper in your place,' she said, 'so all shall be\nbound together, the Medicine of the white man and the brown.'\n\n\"'Be it well,' said the Priest of the Bow, for he was old, and had\nrespect for his daughter's wisdom. Feeling his feet go from him toward\nthe Spirit Road, he called together the Priests of the Bow, and\nannounced to them that Ho-tai would be Keeper in his stead.\n\n\"Though Two-Hearted was young for the honor, they did not question it,\nfor, like his wife, they were jealous of the part of him that was\nwhite--which, for her, there was no becoming--and they thought of this\nas a binding together. They were not altogether sure yet that the\nSpaniards were not gods, or at the least Surpassing Beings.\n\n\"But as the rain did not come and the winter set in cold with a shortage\nof corn, more and more they neglected the bowings and the reverences and\nthe service of the mass. Nights Father Letrado would hear the muffled\nbeat of the drums in the kivas where the old religion was being\nobserved, and because it was the only heart open to him, he twisted the\nheart of Ho-tai to see if there was not some secret evil, some seed of\nwitchcraft at the bottom of it which he could pluck out.\"\n\n\"That was great foolishness,\" said the Road-Runner; \"no white man yet\never got to the bottom of the heart of an Indian.\"\n\n\"True,\" said the Condor, \"but Ho-tai was half white, and the white part\nof him answered to the Padre's hand. He was very miserable, and in fact,\nnobody was very happy in those days in Hawikuh. Father Martin who passed\nthere in the moon of the Sun Returning, on his way to establish a\nmission among the People of the Coarse Hanging Hair, reported to his\nsuperior that Father Letrado was ripe for martyrdom.\n\n\"It came the following Sunday, when only Ho-tai and a few old women came\nto mass. Sick at the sound of his own voice echoing in the empty chapel,\nthe Padre went out to the plaza of the town to scold the people into\nservices. He was met by the Priests of the Rain with their bows. Being\nneither a coward nor a fool, he saw what was before him. Kneeling, he\nclasped his arms, still holding the crucifix across his bosom, and they\ntransfixed him with their arrows.\n\n\"They went into the church after that and broke up the altar, and burned\nthe chapel. A party of bowmen followed the trail of Father Martin,\ncoming up with him after five days. That night with the help of some of\nhis own converts, they fell upon and killed him. There was a half-breed\namong them, both whose hearts were black. He cut off the good Padre's\nhand and scalped him.\"\n\n\"Oh,\" said Oliver, \"I think he ought not to have done that!\"\n\nThe Condor was thoughtful.\n\n\"The hand, no. It had been stretched forth only in kindness. But I think\nwhite men do not understand about scalping. I have heard them talk\nsometimes, and I know they do not understand. The scalp was taken in\norder that they might have the scalp dance. The dance is to pacify the\nspirit of the slain. It adopts and initiates him into the tribe of the\ndead, and makes him one with them, so that he will not return as a\nspirit and work harm on his slayers. Also it is a notice to the gods of\nthe enemy that theirs is the stronger god, and to beware. The scalp\ndance is a protection to the tribe of the slayer; to omit one of its\nobservances is to put the tribe in peril of the dead. Thus I have heard;\nthus the Old Ones have said. Even Two-Hearted, though he was sad for the\nkilling, danced for the scalp of Father Martin.\n\n\"Immediately it was all over, the Hawikuhkwe began to be afraid. They\ngathered up their goods and fled to K'iakime, the Place of the Eagles,\non Thunder Mountain, where they had a stronghold. There were Iron Shirts\nat Santa Fe and whole cities of them in the direction of the Salt\nContaining Waters. Who knew what vengeance they might take for the\nkilling of the Padres? The Hawikuhkwe intrenched themselves, and for\nnearly two years they waited and practiced their own religion in\ntheir own way.\n\n\"Only two of them were unhappy. These were Ho-tai of the two hearts, and\nhis wife, who had been called Flower-of-the-Maguey. But her unhappiness\nwas not because the Padres had been killed. She had had her hand in that\nbusiness, though only among the women, dropping a word here and there\nquietly, as one drops a stone into a deep well. She was unhappy because\nshe saw that the dead hand of Father Letrado was still heavy on her\nhusband's heart.\n\n\"Not that Ho-tai feared what the soldiers from Santa Fe might do to the\nslayer, but what the god of the Padre might do to the whole people. For\nPadre Letrado had taught him to read in the Sacred Books, and he knew\nthat whole cities were burned with fire for their sins. He saw doom\nhanging over K'iakime, and his wife could not comfort him. After awhile\nit came into his mind that it was his own sin for which the people would\nbe punished, for the one thing he had kept from the Padre was the secret\nof the gold.\n\n\"It is true,\" said the Condor, \"that after the Indians had forgotten\nthem, white men rediscovered many of their sacred places, and many\nothers that were not known even to the Zunis. But there is one place on\nThunder Mountain still where gold lies in the ground in lumps like pine\nnuts. If Father Letrado could have found it, he would have hammered it\ninto cups for his altar, and immediately the land would have been\noverrun with the Spaniards. And the more Ho-tai thought of it, the more\nconvinced he was that he should have told him.\n\n\"Toward the end of two years when it began to be rumored that soldiers\nand new Padres were coming to K'iakime to deal with the killing of\nFather Letrado, Ho-tai began to sleep more quietly at night. Then his\nwife knew that he had made up his mind to tell, if it seemed necessary\nto reconcile the Spaniards to his people, and it was a knife in\nher heart.\n\n\"It was her husband's honor, and the honor of her father, Chief Priest\nof the Bow; and besides, she knew very well that if Ho-tai told, the\nPriests of the Bow would kill him. She said to herself that her husband\nwas sick with the enchantments of the Padres, and she must do what she\ncould for him. She gave him seeds of forgetfulness.\"\n\n\"Was that a secret too?\" asked Dorcas, for the Condor seemed not to\nremember that the children were new to that country.\n\n\"It was _peyote_. Many know of it now, but in the days of Our Ancients\nit was known only to a few Medicine men and women. It is a seed that\nwhen eaten wipes out the past from a man's mind and gives him visions.\nIn time its influence will wear away, and it must be eaten anew, but if\neaten too often it steals a man's courage and his strength as well as\nhis memory.\n\n\"When she had given her husband a little in his food,\nFlower-of-the-Maguey found that he was like a child in her hands.\n\n\"'Sleep,' she would say, 'and dream thus, and so,' and that is the way\nit would be with him. She wished him to forget both the secret of the\ngold in the ground and the fear of the Padres.\n\n\"From the time that she heard that the Spaniards were on their way to\nK'iakime, she fed him a little _peyote_ every day. To the others it\nseemed that his mind walked with Those Above, and they were respectful\nof him. That is how Zunis think of any kind of madness. They were not\nsure that the madness had not been sent for just this occasion when they\nhad need of the gods, and so, as it seemed to them, it proved.\n\n\"The Spaniards asked for parley, and the Caciques permitted the Padres\nto come up into the council chambers, for they knew that the long gowns\ncovered no weapons. The Spaniards had learned wisdom, perhaps, and\nperhaps they thought Father Letrado somewhat to blame. They asked\nnothing but permission to reestablish their missions, and to have the\nman who had scalped Father Martin handed over to them for\nSpanish justice.\n\n\"They sat around the wall of the kiva, with Ho-tai in his place, hearing\nand seeing very little. But the parley was long, and, little by little,\nthe vision of his own gods which the _peyote_ had given him began to\nwear away. One of the Padres rose in his place and began a long speech\nabout the sin of killing, and especially of killing priests. He quoted\nhis Sacred Books and talked of the sin in their hearts, and, little by\nlittle, the talk laid hold on the wandering mind of Ho-tai. 'Thus, in\nthis killing, has the secret evil of your hearts come forth,' said the\nPadre, and 'True, He speaks true,' said Ho-tai, upon which the Priests\nof the Hawikuhkwe were astonished. They thought their gods spoke through\nhis madness.\n\n\"Then the Padre began to exhort them to give up this evil man in their\nmidst and rid themselves of the consequences of sin, which he assured\nthem were most certain and as terrible as they were sure. Then the white\nheart of Ho-tai remembered his own anguish, and spoke thickly, as a man\ndrunk with _peyote_ speaks.\n\n\"'He must be given up,' he said. It seemed to them that his voice came\nfrom the under world.\n\n\"But there was a great difficulty. The half-breed who had done the\nscalping had, at the first rumor of the soldiers coming, taken himself\naway. If the Hawikuhkwe said this to the Spaniards, they knew very well\nthey would not be believed. But the mind of Ho-tai had begun to come\nback to him, feebly as from a far journey.\n\n\"He remembered that he had done something displeasing to the Padre,\nthough he did not remember what, and on account of it there was doom\nover the valley of the Shiwina. He rose staggering in his place.\n\n\"'Evil has been done, and the evil man must be cast out,' he said, and\nfor the first time the Padres noticed that he was half white. Not one of\nthem had ever seen the man who scalped Father Letrado, but it was known\nthat his father had been a soldier. This man was altogether such a one\nas they expected. His cheeks were drawn, his hair hung matted over his\nreddened eyes, as a man's might, tormented of the spirit. 'I am that\nman,' said Ho-tai of the Two Hearts, and the Caciques put their hands\nover their mouths with astonishment.\"\n\n\"But they never,\" cried Oliver,--\"they never let him be taken?\"\n\n\"A life for a life,\" said the Condor, \"that is the law. It was necessary\nthat the Spaniards be pacified, and the slayer could not be found.\nBesides, the people of Hawikuh thought Ho-tai's offer to go in his place\nwas from the gods. It agrees with all religions that a man may lay down\nhis life for his people.\"\n\n\"Couldn't his wife do anything?\"\n\n\"What could she? He went of his own will and by consent of the Caciques.\nBut she tried what she could. She could give him _peyote_ enough so that\nhe should remember nothing and feel nothing of what the Spaniards should\ndo to him. But to do that she had to make friends with one of the\nsoldiers. She chose one Lujan, who had written his name on the Rock on\nthe way to K'iakime. By him she sent a cake to Ho-tai, and promised to\nmeet Lujan when she could slip away from the village unnoticed.\n\n\"Between here and Acoma,\" said the Condor, \"is a short cut which may be\ntraveled on foot, but not on horseback. Returning with Ho-tai, manacled\nand fast between two soldiers, the Spaniards meant to take that trail,\nand it was there the wife of Ho-tai promised to meet Lujan at the end of\nthe second day's travel.\n\n\"She came in the twilight, hurrying as a puma, for her woman's heart was\ntoo sore to endure her woman's body. Lujan had walked apart from the\ncamp to wait for her; smiling, he waited. She was still very beautiful,\nand he thought she was in love with him. Therefore, when he saw the\nlong, hurrying stride of a puma in the trail, he thought it a pity so\nbeautiful a woman should be frightened. The arrow that he sped from his\ncross-bow struck in the yellow flanks. 'Well shot,' said Lujan\ncheerfully, but his voice was drowned by a scream that was strangely\nlike a woman's. He remembered it afterward in telling of the\nextraordinary thing that had happened to him, for when he went to look,\nwhere the great beast had leaped in air and fallen, there was nothing to\nbe found there. Nothing.\n\n\"If she had been in her form as a woman when he shot her,\" said the\nCondor, \"that is what he would have found. But she was a Passing Being,\nnot taking form from without as we do, of the outward touchings of\nthings, and her shape of a puma was as mist which vanishes in death as\nmist does in the sun. Thus shortens my story.\"\n\n\"Come,\" said the Road-Runner, understanding that there would be no more\nto the Telling. \"The Seven Persons are out, and the trail is darkling.\"\n\nThe children looked up and saw the constellation which they knew as the\nDipper, shining in a deep blue heaven. The glow was gone from the high\ncliffs of El Morro, and the junipers seemed to draw secretly together.\nWithout a word they took hands and began to run along the trail after\nthe Road-Runner.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nXV\n\nHOW THE MEDICINE OF THE ARROWS WAS BROKEN AT REPUBLICAN RIVER; TOLD BY\nTHE CHIEF OFFICER OF THE DOG SOLDIERS\n\nThis is the story the Dog Soldier told Oliver one evening in April, just\nafter school let out, while the sun was still warm and bright on the\nyoung grass, and yet one somehow did not care about playing. Oliver had\nslipped into the Indian room by the west entrance to look at the Dog\nDancers, for the teacher had just told them that our country was to join\nthe big war which had been going on so long on the other side of the\nAtlantic, and the boy was feeling rather excited about it, and\nyet solemn.\n\nThe teacher had told them about the brave Frenchmen, who had stood up in\nthe way of the enemy saying, \"They shall not pass,\" and they hadn't. It\nmade Oliver think of what he had read on the Dog Dancer's card--how in a\ndesperate fight the officer would stick an arrow or a lance through his\nlong scarf, where it trailed upon the ground, pinning himself to the\nearth until he was dead or his side had won the victory.\n\nOliver thought that that was exactly the sort of thing that he would do\nhimself if he were a soldier, and when he read the card over again, he\nsat on a bench with his back to the light looking at the Dog Dancers,\nand feeling very friendly toward them. It had just occurred to him that\nthey, too, were Americans, and he liked to think of them as brave and\nfirst-class fighters.\n\nFrom where he sat he could see quite to the end of the east corridor\nwhich was all of a quarter of a mile away. Nobody moved in it but a\nsolitary guard, looking small and flat like a toy man at that distance,\nand the low sun made black and yellow bars across the floor. In a moment\nmore, while Oliver was wondering where that woodsy, smoky smell came\nfrom, they were all around him, all the Dog Warriors, of the four\ndegrees, with their skin-covered lances curved like the beak of the\nThunder Bird, and the rattles of dew-claws that clashed pleasantly\ntogether. Some of them were painted red all over, and some wore tall\nheaddresses of eagle feathers, and every officer had his trailing scarf\nof buckskin worked in patterns of the Sacred Four. Around every neck was\nthe whistle made of the wing-bone of a turkey, and every man's forehead\nglistened with the sweat of his dancing. The smell that Oliver had\nnoticed was the smoke of their fire and the spring scent of the young\nsage. It grew knee-high, pale green along the level tops, stretching\naway west to the Backbone-of-the-World, whose snowy tops seemed to float\nupon the evening air. Off to the right there was a river dark with\ncottonwoods and willows.\n\n\"But where are we?\" Oliver wished to know, seeing them all pause in\ntheir dancing to notice him in a friendly fashion.\n\n\"Cheyenne Country,\" said one of the oldest Indians. \"Over there\"--he\npointed to a white thread that dipped and sidled along the easy roll of\nthe hills--\"is the Taos Trail. It joins the Santa Fe at the Rio Grande\nand goes north to the Big Muddy. It crosses all the east-flowing rivers\nnear their source and skirts the Pawnee Country.\"\n\n\"And who are you--Cheyennes or Arapahoes?\" Oliver could not be sure,\nthough their faces and their costumes were familiar.\n\n\"Cheyennes _and_ Arapahoes,\" said the oldest Dog Dancer, easing himself\ndown to the buffalo robe which one of the rank and file of the warriors\nhad spread for him. \"Camp-mates and allies, though we do not call\nourselves Cheyennes, you know. That is a Sioux name for us,--Red Words,\nit means;--what you call foreign-speaking, for the Sioux cannot speak\nany language but their own. We call ourselves Tsis-tsis-tas, Our Folk.\"\nHe reached back for his pipe which a young man brought him and loosened\nhis tobacco pouch from his belt, smiling across at Oliver, \"Have you\nearned your smoke, my son?\"\n\n\"I'm not allowed,\" said Oliver, eyeing the great pipe which he was\ncertain he had seen a few moments before in the Museum case.\n\n\"Good, good,\" said the old Cheyenne; \"a youth should not smoke until he\nhas gathered the bark of the oak.\"\n\nOliver looked puzzled and the Dog Warrior smiled broadly, for gathering\noak bark is a poetic Indian way of speaking of a young warrior's\nfirst scalping.\n\n\"He means you must not smoke until you have done something to prove you\nare a man,\" explained one of the Arapahoes, who was painted bright red\nall over and wore a fringe of scalps under his ceremonial belt. Pipes\ncame out all around the circle and some one threw a handful of\nsweet-grass on the fire.\n\n\"What I should like to know,\" said Oliver, \"is why you are called Dog\nDancer?\"\n\nThe painted man shook his head.\n\n\"All I know is that we are picked men, ripe with battles, and the Dog is\nour totem. So it has been since the Fathers' Fathers.\" He blew two puffs\nfrom his pipe straight up, murmuring, \"O God, remember us on earth,\"\nafter the fashion of ceremonial smoking.\n\n\"God and us,\" said the Cheyenne, pointing up with his pipe-stem; and\nthen to Oliver, \"The Tsis-tsis-tas were saved by a dog once in the\ncountry of the Ho-He. That is Assiniboine,\" he explained, following it\nwith a strong grunt of disgust which ran all around the circle as the\nDog Chief struck out with his foot and started a little spurt of dust\nwith his toe, throwing dirt on the name of his enemy. \"They are called\nAssiniboine, stone cookers, because they cook in holes in the ground\nwith hot stones, but to us they were the Ho-He. The first time we met we\nfought them. That was in the old time, before we had guns or bows\neither, but clubs and pointed sticks. That was by the Lake of the Woods\nwhere we first met them.\"\n\n\"Lake of the Woods,\" said Oliver; \"that's farther north than the\nheadwater of the Mississippi.\"\n\n\"We came from farther and from older time,\" said the Dog Soldier. \"We\nthought the guns were magic at first and fell upon our faces.\nNevertheless, we fought the Ho-He and took their guns away from them.\"\n\n\"So,\" said the officer of the Yellow Rope, as the long buckskin badge of\nrank was called. \"We fought with Blackfoot and Sioux. We fought with\nComanches and Crows, and expelled them from the Land. With Kiowas we\nfought; we crossed the Big Muddy and long and bitter wars we had with\nShoshones and Pawnees. Later we fought the Utes. We are the Fighting\nCheyennes.\n\n\"That is how it is when a peaceful people are turned fighters. For we\nare peaceful. We came from the East, for one of our wise men had\nforetold that one day we should meet White Men and be conquered by them.\nTherefore, we came away, seeking peace, and we did not know what to do\nwhen the Ho-He fell upon us. At last we said, 'Evidently it is the\nfashion of this country to fight. Now, let us fight everybody we meet,\nso we shall become great.' That is what has happened. Is it not so?\"\n\n\"It is so!\" said the Dog Dancers. \"Hi-hi-yi,\" breaking out all at once\nin the long-drawn wolf howl which is the war-cry of the Cheyennes.\nOliver would have been frightened by it, but quite as suddenly they\nreturned to their pipes, and he saw the old Dog Chief looking at him\nwith a kindly twinkle.\n\n\"You were going to tell me why you are called Dog Soldiers,\" Oliver\nreminded him.\n\n\"Dog is a good name among us,\" said the old Cheyenne, \"but it is\nforbidden to speak of the Mysteries. Perhaps when you have been admitted\nto the Kit Foxes and have seen fighting--\"\n\n\"We've got a war of our own, now,\" said Oliver hopefully.\n\nThe Indians were all greatly interested. The painted Arapahoe blew him a\npuff from his pipe. \"Send you good enemies,\" he said, trailing the smoke\nabout in whatever direction enemies might come from. \"And a good fight!\"\nsaid the Yellow Rope Officer; \"for men grow soft where there is no\nfighting.\"\n\n\"And in all cases,\" said the Dog Chief, \"respect the Mysteries.\nOtherwise, though you come safely through yourself, you may bring evil\non the Tribe. ... I remember a Telling ... No,\" he said, following the\nlittle pause that always precedes a story; \"since you are truly at war I\nwill tell a true tale. A tale of my own youth and the failure that came\non Our Folks because certain of our young men forgot that they were\nfighting for the Tribe and thought only of themselves and their\nown glory.\"\n\nHe stuffed his pipe again with fine tobacco and bark of red willow and\nbegan.\n\n\"Of one mystery of the Cheyennes every man may speak a little--of the\nMystery of the Sacred Medicine Arrows. Four arrows there are with stone\nheads painted in the four colors, four feathered with eagle plumes. They\ngive power to men and victory in battle. It is a man mystery; no woman\nmay so much as look at it. When we go out as a Tribe to war, the Arrows\ngo with us tied to the lance of the Arrow-Keeper.\n\n\"The Medicine of the Arrows depended on the Mysteries which are made in\nthe camp before the Arrows go out. But if any one goes out from the camp\ntoward the enemy before the Mysteries are completed, the protection of\nthe Arrows is destroyed. Thus it happened when the Potawatami helped the\nKitkahhahki, and the Cheyennes were defeated. This was my doing, mine\nand Red Morning and a boy of the Suh-tai who had nobody belonging\nto him.\n\n\"We three were like brothers, but I was the elder and leader. I waited\non War Bonnet when he went to the hunt, and learned war-craft from him.\nThat was how it was with us as we grew up,--we attached ourselves to\nsome warrior we admired; we brought back his arrows and rounded up his\nponies for him, or washed off the Medicine paint after battle, or\ncarried his pipe.\n\n\"War Bonnet I loved for the risks he would take. Red Morning followed\nMad Wolf, who was the best of the scouts; and where we two went the\nSuh-tai was not missing. This was long after we had learned all the\ntricks of the Ho-He by fighting them, after the Iron Shirts brought the\nhorse to us, and we had crossed the Big Muddy into this country.\n\n\"We were at war with the Pawnees that year. Not,\" said the Dog Chief\nwith a grin, \"that we were ever at peace with them, but the year before\nthey had killed our man Alights-on-the-Cloud and taken our iron shirt.\"\n\n\"Had the Cheyennes iron shirts?\" Oliver was astonished.\n\n\"Alights-on-the-Cloud had one. When he rode up and down in front of the\nenemy with it under his blanket, they thought it great Medicine. There\nwere others I have heard of; they came into the country with the men who\nhad the first horses, but this was ours. It was all fine rings of iron\nthat came down to the knees and covered the arms and the head so that\nhis long hair was inside.\n\n\"It was the summer before we broke the Medicine of the Arrows that the\nTsis-tsis-tas had gone out against the Pawnees. Arapahoes, Sioux,\nKiowas, and Apaches, they went out with us.\n\n\"Twice in the year the Pawnees hunted the buffaloes, once in the winter\nwhen the robes were good and the buffaloes fat, and once in the summer\nfor food. All the day before we had seen a great dust rising and all\nnight the ground shook with the buffaloes running. There was a mist on\nthe prairie, and when it rose our scouts found themselves almost in the\nmidst of the Pawnees who were riding about killing buffaloes.\n\n\"It was a running fight; from noon till level sun they fought, and in\nthe middle of it, Alights-on-the-Cloud came riding on a roan horse along\nthe enemy line, flashing a saber. As he rode the Pawnees gave back, for\nthe iron shirt came up over his head and their arrows did him no harm.\nSo he rode down our own line, and returning charged the Pawnees, but\nthis time there was one man who did not give back.\n\n\"Carrying-the-Shield-in-Front said to those around him: 'Let him come on,\nand do you move away from me so he can come close. If he possesses great\nMedicine, I shall not be able to kill him; but if he does not possess\nit, perhaps I shall kill him.'\n\n\"So the others fell back, and when Alights-on-the-Cloud rode near enough\nso that Carrying-the-Shield-in-Front could hear the clinking of the iron\nrings, he loosed his arrow and struck Alights-on-the-Cloud in the eye.\n\n\"Our men charged the Pawnees, trying to get the body back, but in the\nend they succeeded in cutting the iron shirt into little pieces, and\ncarrying it away. This was a shame to us, for Alights-on-the-Cloud was\nwell liked, and for a year there was very little talked of but how he\nmight be avenged.\n\n\"Early the next spring a pipe was carried. Little Robe carried it along\nthe Old North Trail to Crows and the Burnt Thigh Sioux and the Northern\nCheyennes. South also it went to Apaches and Arapahoes. And when the\ngrape was in leaf we came together at Republican River and swore that we\nwould drive out the Pawnees.\n\n\"As it turned out both Mad Wolf and War Bonnet were among the first\nscouts chosen to go and locate the enemy, and though we had no business\nthere, we three, and two other young men of the Kiowas, slipped out of\nthe camp and followed. They should have turned us back as soon as we\nwere discovered, but Mad Wolf was good-natured, and they were pleased to\nsee us so keen for war.\n\n\"There was a young moon, and the buffalo bulls were running and fighting\nin the brush. I remember one old bull with long streamers of grapevines\ndragging from his horns who charged and scattered us. We killed a young\ncow for meat, and along the next morning we saw wolves running away from\na freshly killed carcass. So we knew the Pawnees were out.\n\n\"Yellow Bear, an Arapahoe Dog Soldier, who was one of the scouts, began\nto ride about in circles and sing his war-song, saying that we ought not\nto go back without taking some scalps, or counting coup, and we\nyoungsters agreed with him. We were disappointed when the others decided\nto go back at once and report. I remember how Mad Wolf, who was the\nscout leader, sent the others all in to notify the camp, and how, as\nthey rode, from time to time they howled like wolves, then stopped and\nturned their heads from side to side.\n\n\"There was a great ceremonial march when we came in, the Dog Soldiers,\nthe Crooked Lances, the Fox Soldiers, and all the societies. First there\nwere two men--the most brave in the society leading, and then all the\nothers in single file and two to close. The women, too--all the bright\nblankets and the tall war bonnets--the war-cries and the songs and the\ndrums going like a man's heart in battle.\n\n\"Three days,\" said the Dog Chief, \"the preparation lasted. Wolf Face and\nTall Bull were sent off to keep in touch with the enemy, and the women\nand children dropped behind while the men unwrapped their Medicine\nbundles and began the Mysteries of the _Issiwun_, the Buffalo Hat, and\n_Mahuts_, the Arrows. It was a long ceremony, and we three, Red Morning,\nthe Suh-tai boy, and I, were on fire with the love of fighting. You may\nbelieve that we made the other boys treat us handsomely because we had\nbeen with the scouts, but after a while even that grew tame and we\nwandered off toward the river. Who cared what three half-grown boys did,\nwhile the elders were busy with their Mysteries.\n\n\"By and by, though we knew very well that no one should move toward the\nenemy while the Arrows were uncovered, it came into our heads what a\nfine thing it would be if we could go out after Wolf Face and Tall Bull,\nand perhaps count coup on the Pawnees before our men came up with them.\nI do not think we thought of any harm, and perhaps we thought the\nMedicine of the Arrows was only for the members of the societies. But we\nsaw afterward that it was for the Tribe, and for our wrong the\nTribe suffered.\n\n\"For a while we followed the trail of Tall Bull, toward the camp of\nPawnees. But we took to playing that the buffaloes were Pawnees and wore\nout our horses charging them. Then we lost the trail, and when at last\nwe found a village the enemy had moved on following the hunt, leaving\nonly bones and ashes. I do not know what we should have done,\" said the\nDog Chief, \"if we had come up with them: three boys armed with\nhunting-knives and bows, and a lance which War Bonnet had thrown away\nbecause it was too light for him. Red Morning had a club he had made,\nwith a flint set into the side. He kept throwing it up and catching it\nas he rode, making a song about it.\n\n\"After leaving the deserted camp of the Pawnees, we rode about looking\nfor a trail, thinking we might come upon some small party. We had left\nour own camp before finding out what Wolf Face and Tall Bull had come\nback to tell them, that the enemy, instead of being the whole Nation of\nPawnees as we supposed, was really only the tribe of the Kitkahhahki,\nhelped out by a band of the Potawatami. The day before our men attacked\nthe Kitkahhahki, the Potawatami had separated from them and started up\none of the creeks, while the Pawnees kept on up the river. We boys\nstumbled on the trail of the Potawatami and followed it.\n\n\"Now these Potawatami,\" said the Dog Chief, \"had had guns a long time,\nand better guns than ours. But being boys we did not know enough to turn\nback. About midday we came to level country around the headwaters of the\ncreek, and there were four Potawatami skinning buffaloes. They had\nbunched up their horses and tied them to a tree while they cut up the\nkill. Red Morning said for us to run off the horses, and that would be\nalmost as good as a scalp-taking. We left our ponies in the ravine and\nwriggled through the long grass. We had cut the horses loose and were\nrunning them, before the Potawatami discovered it. One of them called\nhis own horse and it broke out of the bunch and ran toward him. In a\nmoment he was on his back, so we three each jumped on a horse and began\nto whip them to a gallop. The Potawatami made for the Suh-tai, and rode\neven with him. I think he saw it was only a boy, and neither of them had\na gun. But suddenly as their horses came neck and neck Suh-tai gave a\nleap and landed on the Potawatami's horse behind the rider. It was a\ntrick of his with which he used to scare us. He would leap on and off\nbefore you had time to think. As he clapped his legs to the horse's back\nhe stuck his knife into the Potawatami. The man threw up his arms and\nSuh-tai tumbled him off the horse in an instant.\n\n\"This I saw because Red Morning's horse had been shot under him, and I\nhad stopped to take him up. By this time another man had caught a horse\nand I had got my lance again which I had left leaning against a tree. I\nfaced him with it as he came on at a dead run, and for a moment I\nthought it had gone clean through him, but really it had passed between\nhis arm and his body and he had twisted it out of my hand.\n\n\"Our horses were going too fast to stop, but Red Morning, from behind\nme, struck at the head of the man's horse as it passed with his\nknife-edged club, and we heard the man shout as he went down. I managed\nto get my horse about in time to see Suh-tai, who had caught up with us,\ntrying to snatch the Potawatami's scalp, but his knife turned on one of\nthe silver plates through which his scalp-lock was pulled, and all the\nSuh-tai got was a lock of the hair. In his excitement he thought it was\nthe scalp and went shaking it and shouting like a wild man.\n\n\"The Potawatami pulled himself free of his fallen horse as I came up,\nand it did me good to see the blood flowing from under his arm where my\nlance had scraped him. I rode straight at him, meaning to ride him down,\nbut the horse swerved a little and got a long wiping stroke from the\nPotawatami's knife, from which, in a minute more, he began to stagger.\nBy this time the other men had got their guns and begun shooting.\nSuh-tai's bow had been shot in two, and Red Morning had a graze that\nlaid his cheek open. So we got on our own ponies and rode away.\n\n\"We saw other men riding into the open, but they had all been chasing\nbuffaloes, and our ponies were fresh. It was not long before we left the\nshooting behind. Once we thought we heard it break out again in a\ndifferent direction, but we were full of our own affairs, and anxious to\nget back to the camp and brag about them. As we crossed the creek\nSuh-tai made a line and said the words that made it Medicine. We felt\nperfectly safe.\n\n\"It was our first fight, and each of us had counted coup. Suh-tai was\nnot sure but he had killed his man. Not for worlds would he have wiped\nthe blood from his knife until he had shown it to the camp. Two of us\nhad wounds, for my man had struck at me as he passed, though I had been\ntoo excited to notice it at the time ... '_Eyah!_' said the Dog\nChief,--'a man's first scar ...!' We were very happy, and Red Morning\ntaught us his song as we rode home beside the Republican River.\n\n\"As we neared our own camp we were checked in our rejoicing; we heard\nthe wails of the women, and then we saw the warriors sitting around with\ntheir heads in their blankets--as many as were left of them. My father\nwas gone, he was one of the first who was killed by the Potawatami.\"\n\nThe Dog Chief was silent a long time, puffing gently on his pipe, and\nthe Officer of the Yellow Rope began to sing to himself a strange,\nstirring song.\n\nLooking at him attentively Oliver saw an old faint scar running across\nhis face from nose to ear.\n\n\"Is your name Red Morning?\" Oliver wished to know.\n\nThe man nodded, but he did not smile; they were all of them smoking\nsilently with their eyes upon the ground. Oliver understood that there\nwas more and turned back to the Dog Chief.\n\n\"Weren't they pleased with what you had done?\" he asked.\n\n\"They were pleased when they had time to notice us,\" he said, \"but they\ndidn't know--they didn't know that we had broken the Medicine of the\nArrows. It didn't occur to us to say anything about the time we had left\nthe camp, and nobody asked us. A young warrior, Big Head he was called,\nhad also gone out toward the enemy before the Mystery was over. They\nlaid it all to him.\n\n\"And at that time we didn't know ourselves, not till long afterward. You\nsee, we thought we had got away from the Potawatami because our ponies\nwere fresh and theirs had been running buffaloes. Rut the truth was they\nhad followed us until they heard the noise of the shooting where Our\nFolks attacked the Kitkahhahki. It was the first they knew of the attack\nand they went to the help of their friends. Until they came Our Folks\nhad all the advantage. But the Potawatami shoot to kill. They carry\nsticks on which to rest the guns, and their horses are trained to stand\nstill. Our men charged them as they came, but the Potawatami came\nforward by tens to shoot, and loaded while other tens took their places\n... and the Medicine of the Arrows had been broken. The men of the\nPotawatami took the hearts of our slain to make strong Medicine for\ntheir bullets and when the Cheyennes saw what they were doing they\nran away.\n\n\"But if we three had not broken the Medicine, the Potawatami would never\nhave been in that battle.\n\n\"Thus it is,\" said the Dog Soldier, putting his pipe in his belt and\ngathering his robes about him, \"that wars are lost and won, not only in\nbattle, but in the minds and the hearts of the people, and by the\nkeeping of those things that are sacred to the people, rather than by\nseeking those things that are pleasing to one's self. Do you understand\nthis, my son?\"\n\n\"I think so,\" said Oliver, remembering what he had heard at school. He\nfelt the hand of the Dog Chief on his shoulder, but when he looked up it\nwas only the Museum attendant come to tell him it was closing time.\n\n\n\n\nTHE END\n\n\n\n\nAPPENDIX\n\nGLOSSARY OF INDIAN AND SPANISH NAMES\n\nTHE BEGINNING OF THE TRAIL\n\nThe appendix is that part of a book in which you find the really\nimportant things, put there to keep them from interfering with the\nstory. Without an appendix you might not discover that all of the\nimportant things in this book really _are_ true.\n\nAll the main traveled roads in the United States began as animal or\nIndian trails. There is no map that shows these roads as they originally\nwere, but the changes are not so many as you might think. Railways have\ntunneled under passes where the buffalo went over, hills have been cut\naway and swamps filled in, but the general direction and in many places\nthe actual grades covered by the great continental highways remain\nthe same.\n\n\n\nTHE BUFFALO COUNTRY\n\n_Licks_ are places where deer and buffaloes went to lick the salt they\nneeded out of the ground. They were once salt springs or lakes\nlong dried up.\n\n_Wallows_ were mudholes where the buffaloes covered themselves with mud\nas a protection from mosquitoes and flies. They would lie down and work\nthemselves into the muddy water up to their eyes. Crossing the Great\nPlains, you can still see round green places that were wallows in the\ndays of the buffalo.\n\nThe Pawnees are a roving tribe, in the region of the Platte and Kansas\nRivers. If they were just setting out on their journey when the children\nheard them they would sing:--\n\n\"Dark against the sky, yonder distant line\n  Runs before us.\nTrees we see, long the line of trees\n  Bending, swaying in the wind.\n\n\"Bright with flashing light, yonder distant line\n  Runs before us.\nSwiftly runs, swift the river runs,\n  Winding, flowing through the land.\"\n\nBut if they happened to be crossing the river at the time they would be\nsinging to _Kawas_, their eagle god, to help them. They had a song for\ncoming up on the other side, and one for the mesas, with long,\nflat-sounding lines, and a climbing song for the mountains.\n\nYou will find all these songs and some others in a book by Miss Fletcher\nin the public library.\n\n\nTRAIL TALK\n\nYou will find the story of the Coyote and the Burning Mountain in my\nbook _The Basket Woman_.\n\nThe Tenasas were the Tennessee Mountains. Little River is on the map.\n\nFlint Ridge is a great outcrop of flint stone in Ohio, near the town of\nZanesville. Sky-Blue-Water is Lake Superior.\n\nCahokia is the great mound near St. Louis, on the Illinois side of the\nriver.\n\nWhen the Lenni-Lenape speaks of a Telling of his Fathers about the\nmastodon or the mammoth, he was probably thinking of the story that is\npictured on the Lenape stone, which seems to me to be the one told by\nArrumpa. Several Indian tribes had stories of a large extinct animal\nwhich they called the Big Moose, or the Big Elk, because moose and elk\nwere the largest animals they knew.\n\n\nARRUMPA'S STORY\n\nI am not quite certain of the places mentioned in this story, because\nthe country has so greatly changed, but it must have been in Florida or\nGeorgia, probably about where the Savannah River is now. It is in that\npart of the country we have the proof that man was here in America at\nthe same time as the mammoth.\n\nShell mounds occur all along the coast. No doubt the first permanent\ntrails led to them from the hunting-grounds. Every year the tribe went\ndown to gather sea-food, and left great piles of shells many feet deep,\nsometimes covering several acres. It is from these mounds that we\ndiscover the most that we know about early man in the United States.\n\nThere are three different opinions as to where the first men in America\ncame from. First, that they came from some place in the North that is\nnow covered with Arctic ice; second, that they came from Europe and\nAfrica by way of some islands that are now sunk beneath the Atlantic\nOcean; third, that they came from Asia across Behring Strait and the\nAleutian Islands.\n\nThe third theory seems the most reasonable. But also it is very likely\nthat some people did come from the lost islands in the Atlantic, and\nleft traces in South America and the West Indies. It may be that Dorcas\nJane and Oliver will yet meet somebody in the Museum country who can\ntell them about it.\n\nThe Great Cold that Arrumpa speaks about must have been the Ice Age,\nthat geologists tell us once covered the continent of North America,\nalmost down to the Ohio River. It came and went slowly, and probably so\nchanged the climate that the elephants, tigers, camels, and other\nanimals that used to be found in the United States could no longer\nlive in it.\n\n\nTHE COYOTE'S STORY\n\n_Tamal-Pyweack_--Wall-of-Shining-Rocks--is an Indian name for the Rocky\nMountains. _Backbone-of-the-World_ is another.\n\nThe Country of the Dry Washes is between the Rockies and the Sierra\nNevadas, toward the south. A dry wash is the bed of a river that runs\nonly in the rainy season. As such rivers usually run very swiftly, they\nmake great ragged gashes across a country.\n\nThere are several places in the Rockies called _Wind Trap_. The Crooked\nHorn might have been Pike's Peak, as you can see by the pictures. The\nwhite men had to rediscover this trail for themselves, for the Indians\nseemed to have forgotten it, but the railroad that passes through the\nRockies, near Pike's Peak, follows the old trail of the Bighorn.\n\nIt is very likely that the Indian in America had the dog for his friend\nas soon as he had fire, if not before it. Most of the Indian stories of\nthe origin of fire make the coyote the first discoverer and bringer of\nfire to man. The words that Howkawanda said before he killed the Bighorn\nwere probably the same that every Indian hunter uses when he goes\nhunting big game: \"O brother, we are about to kill you, we hope that you\nwill understand and forgive us.\" Unless they say something like that the\nspirit of the animal killed might do them some mischief.\n\n\nTHE CORN WOMAN'S STORY\n\nIndian corn, _mahiz_, or maize, is supposed to have come originally from\nCentral America. But the strange thing about it is that no specimen of\nthe wild plant from which it might have developed has ever been found.\nThis would indicate that the development must have taken place a very\nlong time ago, and the parent corn may have belonged to the age of the\nmastodon and other extinct creatures.\n\nDifferent tribes probably brought it into the United States at different\ntimes. Some of it came up the Atlantic Coast, across the West Indies.\nThe fragments of legend from which I made the story of the Corn Woman\nwere found among the Indians that were living in Virginia, Kentucky, and\nTennessee at the time the white men came.\n\nChihuahua is a province and city in Old Mexico, the trail that leads to\nit one of the oldest lines of tribal migration on the continent.\n\nTo be given to the Sun meant to have your heart cut out on a sacrificial\nstone, usually on the top of a hill, or other high place. The Aztecs\nwere an ancient Mexican people who practiced this kind of sacrifice as a\npart of their religion. If it was from them the Corn Woman obtained the\nseed, it must have been before they moved south to Mexico City, where\nthe Spaniards found them in the sixteenth century.\n\nA _teocali_ was an Aztec temple.\n\n\nMOKE-ICHA'S STORY\n\nA _tipi_ is the sort of tent used by the Plains Indians, made of tanned\nskins. It is sometimes called a _lodge_, and the poles on which the\nskins are hung are usually cut from the tree which for this reason is\ncalled the lodge-pole pine. It is important to remember things like\nthis. By knowing the type of house used, you can tell more about the\nkind of life lived by that tribe than by any other one thing. When the\npoles were banked up with earth the house was called an _earth lodge_.\nIf thatched with brush and grass, a _wickiup_. In the eastern United\nStates, where huts were covered with bark, they were generally called\n_wigwams_. In the desert, if the house was built of sticks and earth or\nbrush, it was called a _hogan_, and if of earth made into rude bricks,\na _pueblo_.\n\nThe Queres Indians live all along the Rio Grande in pueblos, since there\nis no need of their living now in the cliffs. You can read about them at\nTy-uonyi in \"The Delight-Makers.\"\n\nA _kiva_ is the underground chamber of the house, or if not underground,\nat least without doors, entered from the top by means of a ladder.\n\n_Shipapu_, the place from which the Queres and other pueblo Indians\ncame, means, in the Queres language, \"Black Lake of Tears,\" and\naccording to the Zuni, \"Place of Encompassing Mist,\" neither of which\nsounds like a pleasant place to live. Nevertheless, all the Queres\nexpect to go there when they die. It is the Underworld from which the\nTwin Brothers led them when the mud of the earliest world was scarcely\ndried, and they seem to have gone wandering about until they found\nTy-uonyi, where they settled.\n\nThe stone puma, which Moke-icha thought was carved in her honor, can\nstill be seen on the mesa back from the river, south of Tyuonyi. But the\nNavajo need not have made fun of the Cliff-Dwellers for praying to a\npuma, since the Navajos of to-day still say their prayers to the bear.\nThe Navajos are a wandering tribe, and pretend to despise all people who\nlive in fixed dwellings.\n\nThe \"ghosts of prayer plumes,\" which Moke-icha saw in the sky, is the\nMilky Way. The Queres pray by the use of small feathered sticks planted\nin the ground or in crevices of the rocks in high and lonely places. As\nthe best feathers for this purpose are white, and as everything is\nthought of by Indians as having a spirit, it was easy for them to think\nof that wonderful drift of stars across the sky as the spirits of\nprayers, traveling to Those Above. If ever you should think of making a\nprayer plume for yourself, do not on any account use the feathers of owl\nor crow, as these are black prayers and might get you accused of\nwitchcraft.\n\nThe _Uakanyi_, to which Tse-tse wished to belong, were the Shamans of\nWar; they had all the secrets of strategy and spells to protect a man\nfrom his enemies. There were also Shamans of hunting, of medicine and\npriestcraft.\n\nIt was while the Queres were on their way from Shipapu that the\nDelight-Makers were sent to keep the people cheerful. The white mud with\nwhich they daubed themselves is a symbol of light, and the corn leaves\ntied in their hair signify fruitfulness, for the corn needs cheering up\nalso. There must be something in it, for you notice that clowns, whose\nbusiness it is to make people laugh, always daub themselves with white.\n\n\nTHE MOUND-BUILDER'S STORY\n\nThe Mound-Builders lived in the Mississippi Valley about a thousand\nyears ago. They built chiefly north of the Ohio River, until they were\ndriven out by the Lenni-Lenape about five hundred years before the\nEnglish and French began to settle that country. They went south and are\nprobably the same people we know as Creeks and Cherokees.\n\n_Tallegewi_ is the only name for the Mound-Builders that has come down\nto us, though some people insist that it ought to be _Allegewi_, and the\nsingular instead of being _Tallega_ should be _Allega_.\n\nThe _Lenni-Lenape_ are the tribes we know as Delawares. The name means\n\"Real People.\"\n\nThe _Mingwe_ or _Mingoes_ are the tribes that the French called\nIroquois, and the English, Five Nations. They called themselves \"People\nof the Long House.\" _Mingwe_ was the name by which they were known to\nother tribes, and means \"stealthy,\" \"treacherous.\" All Indian tribes\nhave several names.\n\nThe _Onondaga_ were one of the five nations of the Iroquois. They lived\nin western New York.\n\n_Shinaki_ was somewhere in the great forest of Canada. _Namaesippu_\nmeans \"Fish River,\" and must have been that part of the St. Lawrence\nbetween Lakes Erie and Huron.\n\nThe _Peace Mark_ was only one of the significant ways in which Indians\npainted their faces. The marks always meant as much to other Indians as\nthe device on a knight's shield meant in the Middle Ages.\n\n_Scioto_ means \"long legs,\" in reference to the river's many branches.\n\n_Wabashiki_ means \"gleaming white,\" on account of the white limestone\nalong its upper course. _Maumee_ and _Miami_ are forms of the same word,\nthe name of the tribe that once lived along those waters.\n\n_Kaskaskia_ is also the name of a tribe and means, \"They scrape them\noff,\" or something of that kind, referring to the manner in which they\nget rid of their enemies, the Peorias.\n\nThe Indian word from which we take _Sandusky_ means \"cold springs,\" or\n\"good water, here,\" or \"water pools,\" according to the person who\nuses it.\n\nYou will find all these places on the map.\n\n\"_G'we_!\" or \"_Gowe_!\" as it is sometimes written, was the war cry of\nthe Lenape and the Mingwe on their joint wars. At least that was the way\nit sounded to the people who heard it. Along the eastern front of these\nnations it was softened to \"_Zowie_!\" and in that form you can hear the\npeople of eastern New York and Vermont still using it as slang.\n\n\nTHE ONONDAGA'S STORY\n\nThe _Red Score_ of the Lenni-Lenape was a picture writing made in red\nchalk on birch bark, telling how the tribe came down out of Shinaki and\ndrove out the Tallegewi in a hundred years' war. Several imperfect\ncopies of it are still in existence and one nearly perfect\ninterpretation made for the English colonists. It was in the nature of\nshort-hand memoranda of the most interesting items of their tribal\nhistory, but unless Oliver and Dorcas Jane meet somebody in the Museum\ncountry who knew the Tellings that went with the Red Score, it is\nunlikely we shall ever know just what did happen.\n\nAny early map of the Ohio Valley, or any good automobile map of the\ncountry south and east of the Great Lakes, will give the\n_Muskingham-Mahoning Trail_, which was much used by the first white\nsettlers in that country. The same is true of the old Iroquois Trade\nTrail, as it is still a well-traveled country road through the heart of\nNew York State. _Muskingham_ means \"Elk's Eye,\" and referred to the\nclear brown color of the water. _Mahoning_ means \"Salt Lick,\" or, more\nliterally, \"There a Lick.\"\n\n_Mohican-ittuck_, the old name for the Hudson River, means the river of\nthe Mohicans, whose hunting-grounds were along its upper reaches.\n\n_Niagara_ probably means something in connection with the river at that\npoint, the narrows, or the neck. According to the old spelling it should\nhave been pronounced Nee-ae-gaer'-ae, but it isn't.\n\n_Adirondack_ means \"Bark-Eaters,\" a local name for the tribe that once\nlived there and in seasons of scarcity ate the inner bark of the\nbirch tree.\n\n_Algonquian_ is a name for one of the great tribal groups, several\nmembers of which occupied the New England country at the beginning of\nour history. The name probably means \"Place of the Fish-Spearing,\" in\nreference to the prow of the canoe, which was occupied by the man with\nthe fish spear. The Eastern Algonquians were all canoers.\n\n_Wabaniki_ means \"Eastlanders,\" people living toward the East.\n\nThe American Indians, like all other people in the world, believed in\nsupernatural beings of many sorts, spirits of woods and rocks,\nUnderwater People and an Underworld. They had stories of ghosts and\nflying heads and giants. Most of the tribes believed in animals that,\nwhen they were alone, laid off their animal skins and thought and\nbehaved as men. Some of them thought of the moon and stars as other\nworlds like ours, inhabited by people like us who occasionally came to\nearth and took away with them mortals whom they loved. In the various\ntribal legends can be found the elements of almost every sort of\nEuropean fairy tale.\n\n_Shaman_ is not an Indian word at all, but has been generally adopted as\na term of respect to indicate men or women who became wise in the things\nof the spirit. Sometimes a knowledge of healing herbs was included in\nthe Shaman's education, and often he gave advice on personal matters.\nBut the chief business of the Shaman was to keep man reconciled with the\nspirit world, to persuade it to be on his side, or to prevent the\nspirits from doing him harm. A Shaman was not a priest, nor was he\nelected to office, and in some tribes he did not even go to war, but\nstayed at home to protect the women and children. Any one could be a\nShaman who thought himself equal to it and could persuade people to\nbelieve in him.\n\n_Taryenya-wagon_ was the Great Spirit of the Five Nations, who was also\ncalled \"Holder of the Heavens.\"\n\nIndian children always belong to the mother's side of the house. The\nonly way in which the Shaman's son could be born an Onondaga was for the\nmother to be adopted into the tribe before the son was born. Adoptions\nwere very common, orphans, prisoners of war, and even white people being\nmade members of the tribe in this way.\n\n\nTHE SNOWY EGRET'S STORY\n\nThe Great Admiral was, of course, Christopher Columbus. You will find\nall about him and the other Spanish gentlemen in the school history.\n\nSomething special deserves to be said about Panfilo de Narvaez, since it\nwas he who set the Spanish exploration of the territory of the United\nStates in motion. He landed on the west coast of Florida in 1548, and\nafter penetrating only a little way into the interior was driven out by\nthe Indians. But he left Juan Ortiz, one of his men, a prisoner among\nthem, who was afterward discovered by Soto and became his interpreter\nand guide.\n\nThere is no good English equivalent for Soto's title of _Adelantado_. It\nmeans the officer in charge of a newly discovered country. _Cay_ is an\nold Spanish word for islet. \"Key\" is an English version of the same\nword. _Cay Verde_ is \"Green Islet.\"\n\nThe pearls of _Cofachique_ were fresh-water pearls, very good ones, too,\nsuch as are still found in many American rivers and creeks.\n\nThe Indians that Soto found were very likely descended from the earlier\nMound-Builders of the Ohio Valley. They showed a more advanced\ncivilization, which was natural, since it was four or five hundred years\nafter the Lenni-Lenape drove them south. Later they were called \"Creeks\"\nby the English, on account of the great number of streams in\ntheir country.\n\n_Cacique_ and _Cacica_ were titles brought up by the Spaniards from\nMexico and applied to any sort of tribal rulers. They are used in all\nthe old manuscripts and have been adopted generally by modern writers,\nsince no one knows just what were the native words.\n\nThe reason the Egret gives for the bird dances--that it makes the world\nwork together better--she must have learned from an Indian, since there\nis always some such reason back of every primitive dance. It makes the\ncorn grow or the rain fall or the heart of the enemy to weaken. The\nCofachiquans were not the only people who learned their dances from the\nwater birds, as the ancient Greeks had a very beautiful one which they\ntook from the cranes and another from goats leaping on the hills.\n\n\nTHE PRINCESS'S STORY\n\nHernando de Soto landed first at Tampa Bay in Florida, and after a short\nexcursion into the country, wintered at Ana-ica Apalache, an Indian town\non Apalachee Bay, the same at which Panfilo de Narvaez had beaten his\nspurs into nails to make the boats in which he and most of his men\nperished. It was between Tampa and Anaica Apalache that Soto met and\nrescued Juan Ortiz, who had been all that time a prisoner and slave to\nthe Indians.\n\nWhen the Princess says that Talimeco was a White Town, she means that it\nwas a Town of Refuge, a Peace Town, in which no killing could be done.\nSeveral Indian tribes had these sanctuaries.\n\nIn an account of Soto's expedition, which was written sometime afterward\nfrom the stories of survivors, it is said by one that the Princess went\nwith him of her own accord, and by another that she was a prisoner. The\ntruth probably is that if she had not gone willingly, she would have\nbeen compelled. There is also mention of the man to whom she gave the\npearls for assisting at her escape, six pounds of them, as large as\nhazel nuts, though the man himself would never tell where he got them.\n\nThe story of Soto's death, together with many other interesting things,\ncan be read in the translation of the original account made by Frederick\nWebb Hodge.\n\n\nTHE ROAD-RUNNER'S STORY\n\nCabeza de Vaca was one of Narvaez's men who was cast ashore in one of\nthe two boats ever heard from, on the coast of Texas. He wandered for\nsix years in that country before reaching the Spanish settlements in Old\nMexico, and it was his account of what he saw there and in Florida that\nled to the later expeditions of both Soto and Coronado.\n\nFrancisco de Coronado brought his expedition up from Old Mexico in 1540,\nand reached Wichita in the summer of 1541. His party was the first to\nsee and describe the buffalo. There is an account of the expedition\nwritten by Castenada, one of his men, translated by Frederick Webb\nHodge, which is easy and interesting reading.\n\nThe Seven Cities were the pueblos of Old Zuni, some of which are still\ninhabited. Ruins of the others may be seen in the Valley of Zuni in New\nMexico. The name is a Spanish corruption of _Ashiwi_, their own name for\nthemselves. We do not know why the early explorers called the\ncountry \"Cibola.\"\n\nThe Colorado River was first called _Rio del Tizon_, \"River of the\nBrand,\" by the Spaniards, on account of the local custom of carrying\nfire in rolls of cedar bark. Coronado's men were the first to discover\nthe Grand Canyon.\n\n_Pueblo_, the Spanish word for \"town,\" is applied to all Indians living\nin the terraced houses of the southwest. The Zunis, Hopis, and Queres\nare the principal pueblo tribes.\n\nYou will find _Tiguex_ on the map, somewhere between the Ty-uonyi and\nthe place where the Corn Woman crossed the Rio Grande. _Cicuye_ is on\nthe map as Pecos, in Texas.\n\nThe Pawnees at this time occupied the country around the Platte River.\nTheir name is derived from a word meaning \"horn,\" and refers to their\nmethod of dressing the scalplock with grease and paint so that it stood\nup stiffly, ready to the enemy's hand. Their name for themselves is\nChahiksichi-hiks, \"Men of men.\"\n\n\nTHE CONDOR'S STORY\n\nThe _Old Zuni Trail_ may still be followed from the Rio Grande to the\nValley of Zuni. _El Morro_, or \"Inscription Rock,\" as it is called, is\nbetween Acoma and the city of Old Zuni which still goes by the name of\n\"Middle Ant Hill of the World.\"\n\nIn a book by Charles Lummis, entitled _Strange Corners of Our Country_,\nthere is an excellent description of the Rock and copies of the most\ninteresting inscriptions, with translations.\n\nThe Padres of Southwestern United States were Franciscan Friars who came\nas missionaries to the Indians. They were not all of them so unwise as\nFather Letrado.\n\n_Peyote_, the dried fruit of a small cactus, the use of which was only\nknown in the old days to a few of the Medicine Men. The effect was like\nthat of opium, and gave the user visions.\n\n\nTHE DOG SOLDIER'S STORY\n\nThe Cheyenne Country, at the time of this story, was south of the\nPawnees, along the Taos Trail. All Plains Indians move about a great\ndeal, so that you will not always hear of them in the same neighborhood.\n\nYou can read how the Cheyennes were saved from the Hoh by a dog, in a\nbook by George Bird Grinnell, called the _Fighting Cheyennes_. There is\nalso an account in that book of how their Medicine Bundle was taken from\nthem by the Pawnees, and how, partly by force and partly by trickery,\nthree of the arrows were recovered.\n\nThe Medicine Bundle of the tribe is as sacred to them as our flag is to\nus. It stands for something that cannot be expressed in any other way.\nThey feel sure of victory when it goes out with them, and think that if\nanything is done by a member of the tribe that is contrary to the\nMedicine of the Tribe, the whole tribe will suffer for it. This very\nlikely is the case with all national emblems; at any rate, it would\nprobably be safer while our tribe is at war not to do anything contrary\nto what our flag stands for. All that is left of the Cheyenne Bundle is\nnow with the remnant of the tribe in Oklahoma. The fourth arrow is still\nattached to the Morning Star Bundle of the Pawnees, where it may be seen\neach year in the spring when the Medicine of the Bundle is renewed.\n\nThis is the song the Suh-tai boy--the Suh-tai are a sub-tribe of the\nCheyenne--made for his war club:--\n\n\"Hickory bough that the wind makes strong,--\n   I made it--\nBones of the earth, the granite stone,--\n   I made it--\nHide of the bull to bind them both,--\n   I made it--\nDeath to the foe who destroys our land,--\n   We make it!\"\n\nThe line that the Suh-tai boy drew between himself and the pursuing\nPotawatomi was probably a line of sacred meal, or tobacco dust, drawn\nacross the trail while saying, \"Give me protection from my enemies; let\nnone of them pass this line. Shield my heart from them. Let not my life\nbe threatened.\" Unless the enemy possesses a stronger Medicine, this makes\none safe.\n\n\n\n\nGLOSSARY OF INDIAN AND SPANISH NAMES\n\n\n[Transcribers Note: ASCII just doesn't contain all the characters\nrequired for the Glossary. This is an _attempt_ at rendering the Glossary.]\n\n\nae sounds like a in father\n\na   \"     \"  a  \" bay\n\na   \"     \"  a  \" fat\n\na   \"     \"  a  \" sofa\n\n_e_  \"     \"  a  \" ace\n\ne   \"     \"  e  \" met\n\ne   \"     \"  e  \" me\n\ne   \"     \"  e  \" her\n\n_i_  \"     \"  e  \" eve\n\ni   \"     \"  i  \" pin\n\ni   \"     \"  i  \" pine\n\no   \"     \"  o  \" note\n\no   \"     \"  o  \" not\n\nu   \"     \"  oo \" food\n\nu   \"     \"  u  \" nut\n\n\nAe'-co-mae\n\nA-ch_e_'-s_e_\n\nAe-d_e_-laen-tae-do\n\nAel-tae-pae'-hae\n\nAel'-vaer Nunez (noon'-yath) Cae-b_e_'-zae (thae) d_e_ Vae'-cae\n\nAen-ae-_i_'-cae\n\nAe-pach'-e\n\nAe-pae-lae'-ch_e_\n\nAe-pun-ke'-wis\n\nAer-aep'-ae-hoes\n\nAer-rum'-pae\n\n\nBael-bo'-ae\n\nB_i_'s-cay'-n_e_\n\nCabeza de Vaca (cae-b_e_'-thae d_e_ Vae'-cae)\n\nC-c_i_'-cae\n\nCae-c_i_que'\n\nCae-ho'-ki-a\n\nCay Verd'-e\n\nCen-t_e_-o'-tl_i_\n\nChae-hik-s_i_-ch_i_'-hiks\n\nCheyenne (shi-en')\n\nCh_i_-ae'\n\nChihuahua (ch_i_-wae'-wa)\n\nC_i_'-bo-lae\n\nC_i_'-cu-y_e_\n\nC_i_'-no-aeve\n\nCo-ch_i_'-t_i_\n\nCo-fae-vh_i_'qu_e_\n\nCo-faeque'\n\nCo-man'ch_e_\n\nCor-t_e_z'\n\nD_i_-n_e_'\n\n_E_l Mor'-ro\n\n_E_s'-t_e_-vaen\n\nFraen-c_i_s'-co d_e_ Co-ro-nae'-do\n\nFraen-c_e_s'-co L_e_-trae'-do\n\nGae-hon'-gae\n\nGaen-dae'-yaeh\n\nHae-lo'-nae\n\nHae'-w_i_-kuh\n\nHer-naen'-do d_e_ So'-to\n\nH_i_s-pae-n_i_-o'-lae\n\nHo'-gan\n\nHo-h_e_'\n\nHo'-p_i_\n\nHo-tai' (ti)\n\nHow-ka-waen'-dae\n\n_I_'-ro-quois\n\n_I_s'-lay\n\n_I_s-s_i_-wuen'\n\nJuan de Onate (hwaen d_e_ on-yae'-t_e_)\n\nJuan Ortiz (hwaen or'-t_i_z)\n\nKae-b_e_y'-d_e_\n\nKae-nae'-w_a_h\n\nKas-kas'-kl-_a_\n\nKaet'-zi-mo\n\nK'ia-k_i_'-mae\n\nKi'-o-was\n\nKit-kaeh-haeh'-k_i_\n\nK_i_'-vae\n\nKo-ko'-mo\n\nKoos-koos'-ki\n\nKo-shae'-r_e_\n\nLen'-n_i_-Len-ape'\n\nLue'-caes de Ayllon (Il'-yon)\n\nLujan (lue-haen')\n\nMahiz (m_ae-iz'_)\n\nMae'-huets\n\nMael-do-nae'-do\n\nMaet'-sae-k_i_\n\nMen'-gwe\n\nMesquite (m_es_-keet')\n\nMin'-go\n\nMo-h_i'_-can-it'-tueck\n\nMo-k_e_-ich'-ae\n\nM'toue'-lin\n\nMues-king'-ham\n\nNae-mae-s_i_p'-pu\n\nNarvaez (naer-vae'-_e_th)\n\nNavajo (nae'-vae-ho)\n\nN_i-e'_-to\n\nNo'-pael\n\nNue-ke'-wis\n\nOccatilla (oc-cae-t_i_l'-ya)\n\nOck-muel'-gee\n\nO'-co-n_ee_\n\nO-cuet'-_e_\n\nO\n\nO-dow'-as\n\nO-g_e'_-ch_ee_\n\nOlla (ol'-yae)\n\nOng-yae-tas'-s_e_\n\nOn-on-da'-gae\n\nO-pae'-tae\n\nO-wen-ueng'-ae\n\nPaen-f_i_'-lo de Naer-vae'-_e_z (_e_th)\n\nPaen-ue'-co\n\nPaw-nee'\n\nP_e_'-cos\n\nP_e_'-dro Mo'-ron\n\nP_e_-r_i_'-co\n\nP_e_-yo'-t_e_\n\nP_i_-rae'-guaes\n\nPitahaya (pit-ae-hi'-ae)\n\nP_i_-zaer'-ro\n\nPonce (pon'-th_e_) d_e_ L_e_-on'\n\nPot-ae-waet'-ae-m_i_\n\nPueblo (pweb'-to)\n\nQu_e_-r_e'_-chos\n\nQu_e'_-r_e_s\n\nQu_e_-r_e_-saen'\n\nQu_i_-v_i'_-rae\n\nR_i'_-to de los Frijoles (fr_i_-ho'-l_e_s)\n\nSahuaro (sae-wae'-ro)\n\nScioto (si-o'-to)\n\nShae'-m_a_n\n\nSh_i_-nak'-_i_\n\nSh_i_'p-ae-pue'\n\nSh_i_-w_i_'-nae\n\nSho-sho'-n_e_s\n\nShueng-ae-k_e'_-lae\n\nSons _e'_-so, ts_e'_-nae\n\nSueh-tai' (ti)\n\nTae'-kue-Wae'-kin\n\nTael-_i_-m_e'_-co\n\nTael-l_e'_-gae\n\nTael-l_e_-g_e'_-w_i_\n\nTae'-mael-Py-we-ack'\n\nTae'-os\n\nTaer-yen-y_a_-wag'-on\n\nTejo (ta'-ho)\n\nTen'-ae-saes\n\nT_e_-o-cael'-_e_s\n\nThlae-po-po-k_e_'-ae\n\nT_i_-ae'-kens\n\nTiguex (t_i_'-gash)\n\nT_i_'-p_i_\n\nTom'-b_e_s\n\nTo-yae-laen'-n_e_\n\nTs_e_-ts_e_-yo'-t_e_\n\nTs_i_s-ts_i_s'-taes\n\nTus-cae-loos'-ae\n\nTy-ue-on'-y_i_\n\nU-ae-kaen-y_i_'\n\nVaer'-gaes\n\nWae-bae-moo'-in\n\nWae-bae-n_i_'-k_i_\n\nWae-bae-sh_i_'-k_i_\n\nWap'-i-ti\n\nW_i_ch'-_i_-taes\n\nZuni (zun'-yee)","title":"The Trail Book","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":72882}