Softfoot of Silver Creek E-Book

Robert Leighton

• Herausgeber: Ktoczyta.pl
• Kategorie: Krimi
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Over the laughter of a nearby waterfall, over a long roar the distant herds of bison that crowded the prairie, and over the oily creak of his knife on a sharp stone on his knee, his keen ear knew the sound of her light stepped as she crawled out of the pines into a sunny glade on a bluff. He didn’t turn around, he only dropped the stone, threw back the thick locks that retreated, his long black hair, and then, with his thumb, meditatively checked the razor blade his blade Sitting very motionless, he raised his dreamy eyes to look forward through a sparkling stream and a billowing prairie to the dark sky behind the purple mountain.

Leseprobe

Contents

CHAPTER I. A PLAYMATE’S PERIL

CHAPTER II. THE SHOOTING CONTEST

CHAPTER III. THE GIFT OF COURAGE

CHAPTER IV. THE BUFFALO HUNT

CHAPTER V. THE WHITE MAN’S MEDICINE

CHAPTER VI. THE MARKED ARROWS

CHAPTER VII. RED SQUAW CAÑON

CHAPTER VIII. GHOST PINE GULCH

CHAPTER IX. KIDDIE OF BIRKENSHAW’S

CHAPTER X. IN THE TOILS

CHAPTER XI. THE CRY FROM THE CLIFFS

CHAPTER XII. ON THE TRACK

CHAPTER XIII. THE BRIDGE OF PERILOUS ADVENTURE

CHAPTER XIV. SIGNAL FIRES

CHAPTER XV. A GIFT FOR THE CREES

CHAPTER XVI. SOFTFOOT’S LONE SCOUT

CHAPTER XVII. SOFTFOOT MEETS A FRIEND

CHAPTER XVIII. LITTLE CAYUSE

CHAPTER XIX. PALEFACE AND REDSKIN

CHAPTER XX. THE PRAIRIE FIRE

CHAPTER XXI. SOFTFOOT, SOFTHEART

CHAPTER XXII. ON THE LARAMIE TRAIL

CHAPTER XXIII. WAR TO THE KNIFE

CHAPTER XXIV. MESSAGE BY BONE

CHAPTER XXV. GATHERING FIRES

CHAPTER XXVI. SOFTFOOT’S WARNING

CHAPTER XXVII. THE DISASTER OF LONG TRAIL RIDGE

CHAPTER XXVIII. AFTER THE BATTLE

CHAPTER XXIX. KOSHINEE

CHAPTER XXX. SOFTFOOT’S RESOLUTION

CHAPTER XXXI. REDSKIN RECREATION

CHAPTER XXXII. THE EAVESDROPPER

CHAPTER XXXIII. ON THE WAR-PATH

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE DAWN OF BATTLE

CHAPTER XXXV. “ALL THAT WAS LEFT OF THEM”

CHAPTER XXXVI. BLUE EYE’S SANCTUARY

CHAPTER XXXVII. SOMETHING TO BE PROUD OF

CHAPTER XXXVIII. FORE-WARNED, FORE-ARMED

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE BATTLE OF SILVER CREEK

CHAPTER XL. “GREATER LOVE HATH NO MAN”

CHAPTER I. A PLAYMATE’S PERIL

SOFTFOOT heard the girl’s stealthy approach through the long grass behind him. Above the laughing voice of the near waterfall, above the prolonged roar of the far-off buffalo herds that crowded the prairie, and above the oily rasping of his knife on the sharpening stone on his knee, his keen hearing knew the sound of her light tread as she crept out from among the pine trees into the sunlit clearing on the bluff.

He did not turn, but only dropped the stone, swept back the straying thick locks of his long, black hair, and then, with his thumb, meditatively tested the razor edge of his blade. Sitting very still, he lifted his dreamy eyes to glance forward across the glistening creek and the billowing prairie to the dark sky beyond the purple mountain peaks that were spanned by a magnificent rainbow.

A moving shadow crossed the brown tan of his fringed leggings; a ripe crimson berry dropped upon his bare arm, and on the turf at his side he saw a very small moccasin of pure white doeskin, encrusted with blue and white beads and edged with ermine.

“Wenonah has wandered far from the lodges to gather her berries,” he said, “and she has no blanket to shelter her if there is rain.”

“Softfoot did not look round,” the girl laughed. “How did he know that Wenonah was near?”

“He did not need to look round,” Softfoot explained. “He heard her walking in the forest. The birds told him that Wenonah was gathering odahmin berries.”

“Softfoot hears all things,” Wenonah responded. “I think he can hear the grass growing. He can hear the white clouds sailing across the sky.”

She propped her heavy parfleche of berries against a mossy boulder and seated herself at her playmate’s side.

“Oh, nushka–look, look!” she cried, now seeing the rainbow. “The sky god has brought out his bow! He is going on the buffalo trail. I like his bow. It is a very strong and beautiful bow–stronger than yours, Softfoot, and even more beautiful.”

“It is beautiful,” Softfoot agreed, gazing at the arched splendour. “Yes, it is beautiful.”

“Tell me, Softfoot, where does the rainbow find all his many colours?” Wenonah asked. “I want very much to know.”

Softfoot thrust his knife into the case at his belt.

“It is that when the wild flowers of the prairie die, they all go up there to live again in the rainbow,” he told her simply.

“If the sky god is not quick, the petzekee will all be gone,” said Wenonah, turning her eyes to the prairie.

On both sides of Silver Creek the plains were black with the moving shaggy monsters, all drifting westward. Great bulls were cropping the grass on the outskirts of the herd; yellow calves ran about their mothers or impatiently butted at them. The young cows and bulls were scattered all over the plain, steadily grazing, always moving in the same direction, sometimes in long, continuous lines, racing quickly down the slopes and climbing laboriously where the ground was steep. In crossing the river they swam in single file, like threaded black beads.

“They will not all be gone,” said Softfoot. “They are countless as the flowers of the prairie. For many days the herds have been crossing to their new feeding-grounds, as you see them now, moving, moving along and eating up the grass as they go. They are as a river that never stops running.”

“Why do not the Pawnees ride out and kill them?” asked Wenonah. “Every day they could kill more and more.”

“Our village is already red with meat,” Softfoot reminded her. “Our women have more buffalo robes than they can clean and dress–more beef and fat than they can make into pemmican. Why should more be killed when our buffalo runners are tired of killing?”

“Our medicine men should make the young braves and boys ride out on the buffalo hunt,” urged Wenonah. “Softfoot has never killed a buffalo.”

“No.” Softfoot shook his head sadly and drew a deep breath.

“I think the petzekee is a very stupid animal,” reflected Wenonah. “It should be easy to kill one. If I were a buffalo, I should not be so stupid as those that are crowded under the cut-bank there. Why does their medicine not tell them that it is too steep for them to climb? Why do they not swim to another place?”

She was watching a vast, writhing, bellowing mass of the hairy giants of the prairie. They had crossed the creek to a steep red wall of cliff which blocked their way. Instead of swimming back into the stream to find a good landing, they pressed all together in a panic bunch, to be trampled or gored to death by their companions, or to sink under their own weight into the silt. Many fell back and were drowned. Carcases could be seen floating down the current towards the cataract of Rising Mist.

“The fishes will eat them,” cried Wenonah. “But I am sorry that so many good buffalo robes should be spoilt.”

“We could do nothing with them,” said Softfoot.

“The Pawnees could sell them to the paleface people,” Wenonah argued. “They buy many robes and buffalo tongues.”

Softfoot shook his head.

“The paleface people would buy them, yes,” he acknowledged. “But what does the paleface give to the Indian in return for the buffalo robes and dried tongues and pemmican? We have our bows and arrows for the hunting. We do not need the white man’s guns, which only cause war. We can make our own clothing, build our own wigwams, and be happy. We have good drink from the streams. We do not need the firewater of the paleface. Why should we kill the buffalo to get things that we do not want–that only do us harm? Our fathers lived in peace; they were happy before the white man came into the land of the redskin. Eagle Speaker has said so, and he is wise.”

Wenonah displayed her two moccasined feet.

“It is from the paleface that we get our beautiful beads, our silk thread, our steel needles,” she stated. “Your knife, Softfoot, was made by the paleface. You would be proud to own a white man’s gun. And do not the Pawnees get from him the tea, the sugar, the pain-killer, and all the pretty and useful things that our braves bring home from Fort Benton in exchange for their furs and pemmican? In all our lodges, we have cooking pots that were made in the land of the paleface. We have too many buffaloes. Our braves should all have guns to kill them.”

As she spoke she bent forward, reached forth her left hand very quickly and seized a large, lustrous blue dragonfly that had alighted upon a flower beside her. She held the insect a prisoner, while with the fingers of her other hand she caught at one of the filmy wings, watching the creature’s struggle to get free.

“Stop,” cried Softfoot. “You are hurting the poor kwone-she. Let it fly away!”

Wenonah swiftly tore the wing from its socket and flung the injured insect into Softfoot’s face. The dragonfly fell into the grass and tried to take flight with awkward, lop-sided jumps.

“You make me very cross,” declared Softfoot angrily. “You are cruel, Wenonah. The beautiful kwone-she was happy drinking honey from the flower. It was doing no harm.”

“Ho, ho, ho!” laughed Wenonah, rising to her feet. “You call me cruel for hurting a useless fly? It is because Softfoot thinks it cruel that he will not go out on the buffalo trail? Poor buffalo! It would hurt so very much to be killed!”

Softfoot had risen also. The girl’s ridicule pained him. But he smiled.

“When Softfoot is no longer a boy he will go to the buffalo hunt,” he told her. “But the animals are his brothers. He loves them. He does not want to take life.”

“No,” retorted Wenonah, standing confronting him with her back towards the boulder, “that is why he is not as the other Pawnee boys, who set their traps and bring home many beaver tails, many ermine furs and fox skins. Softfoot is afraid to kill. When my father, the big chief Three Stars, gave him a good bow and a sheaf of arrows and told him to go hunting in the forest, he came back to the wigwams with empty hands. He had killed nothing.”

Softfoot glanced aside searchingly. He had heard something which seemed to fill him with alarm, coming from the rear of the boulder.

“He did not want to kill the pretty squirrels,” Wenonah went on, “or the rabbits at play among the leaves; the beavers at work in the pools, or the fawns with their soft eyes. He talked to them. He called them all his brothers. Pah! He is as his father before him. He is a coward! And a coward can never be a true Indian. I will tell the Pawnee warriors and squaws that Softfoot is a coward.”

She looked at him with contempt. She did not hear the ominous rattling sound at her feet, like the rustling of dry leaves in the rank grass. Softfoot leapt forward and flung the girl aside out of danger. He had seen the long brown rattlesnake sliding out from beneath the boulder, giving its harsh warning and coiling as it raised its head ready to strike at Wenonah’s bare hand as she stooped to pick up her parfleche of berries. And now as Wenonah turned to rebuke him for so roughly pushing her aside, she saw him draw his knife.

He had crouched, resting both his hands on his thighs. His moccasined feet were not two paces away from the venomous reptile’s brown, uplifted head; and again the crackling noise sounded.

The Indian boy’s knife flashed in the sun. His left hand darted forward and seized the snake in a tight grip of the thin neck behind the repulsive head. He held it pressed against the mossy surface of the boulder, and with one quick, determined slash of his blade he severed the head from the body that coiled itself, like the lash of a whip, around his bare left arm.

The severed head dropped at his feet. He drew back from it, flung the coiled snake from his arm, and then went down on his knees and with his knife dug a hole in the ground into which he thrust the still gaping head, burying it deep and stamping it down with his heel.

When he turned round from his work to pick up the parfleche of berries, Wenonah stood watching him with astonished eyes. But Wenonah was not alone. Beside her was the tall, majestic figure of Three Stars, wearing his red blanket and his medicine bonnet of many eagle plumes, ermine tails, and scalp locks.

Softfoot had known that the chief had come out from his lodge to watch the buffalo herds from the vantage-point of the high bluff; but he was not aware that Three Stars had dismounted and was walking back through the forest. Believing now that the chief must have heard Wenonah’s accusation of cowardice, he bent his head in shame as he moved to go away.

“Softfoot will carry the berries to Wenonah’s teepee,” he said in passing.

But the chief detained him.

“No!” he commanded, signing to his daughter to take the parfleche. “Wenonah will carry her own berries.” He waited, thinking deeply. Then to Softfoot he said: “Three Stars heard Wenonah call Softfoot a coward. He heard the kenabeek’s rattle in the grass. But because he did not kill the kenabeek and save his daughter from its bite, he must lose one of his feathers.”

He drew a wing of his flowing headdress over his arm and with dexterous fingers plucked out one of the white eagle plumes which he smoothed and straightened on the palm of his hand.

“The feather is for Softfoot,” he announced, holding it by the quill, where it was looped with a thong of doeskin bound with red silk threads. “Softfoot will wear it, for my medicine tells me he is not a coward. A coward flies in fear from the deadly rattlesnake; but Softfoot has slain one with his naked hands. He was not afraid.”

Softfoot obeyed the chief’s sign and went nearer to him, and, watched by Wenonah, Three Stars fastened the badge of honour in the front of the boy’s beaded head-band.

CHAPTER II. THE SHOOTING CONTEST

MISHE-MOKWA–Great Bear–was the name of the head war-chief who ruled over the tribe of Pawnees encamped under the shadows of the Porcupine Range. His village consisted of two hundred lodges, ranged in a wide circle on the open plain between Silver Creek and Grey Wolf Forest. Each teepee could accommodate a household of eighteen persons. It was a big village. There was need for much buffalo flesh to feed so great a population.

Softfoot had said that the village was red with meat, and that the squaws had more buffalo robes than they could possibly clean and dress. To him, as to most of the young Pawnees who had watched the great loads of meat and hides being brought in by the endless train of pack-horses and dogs after each day’s hunt, it seemed that it would be waste to kill any more.

There were hundreds and hundreds of buffalo tongues hanging up to dry on the scaffolds. Around the wigwams were great red stacks of choice tenderloins, ribs, and back fat, to be preserved and pounded into pemmican. The rolled-up hides, packed shoulder high, stretched in wide, level walls like a stockade round the circle of lodges. There was blood everywhere; on the horses, along the trails, on the clothing and on the hands and arms and faces of the men and women who worked at cutting up a store of meat that seemed too abundant ever to be exhausted.

But Great Bear and his mystery men knew well that the buffalo herds would soon have wandered upon distant trails beyond the Big Horn Mountains. They thought of the coming winter. They were not yet satisfied, and were already planning another hunt.

Softfoot saw the medicine chiefs seated in council round their mosquito smudge in front of Mishe-mokwa’s lodge, as he ran across the grassy plain to where the boys and girls were at play. He ran, because he had lingered at the kennel in the rear of his home teepee to give food to the wolf cubs, the kit fox, and the baby owl which he kept as pets, and he was late. He carried his bow and a quiver of new, carefully chosen arrows. For he was pitted against Weasel Moccasin in a final competition of skill in quick shooting, for on that day various contests were to be decided.

All the Pawnee boys of his own age in Great Bear’s village had dropped out of the contest, and he and Weasel Moccasin remained to decide possession of the prize–an eagle plume, to be worn for all time as a badge of skill.

As Softfoot approached the eager crowd, Weasel Moccasin saw the conspicuous white feather fluttering from his head-band, and he frowned.

“Look!” he exclaimed. “Softfoot is wearing the feather! He has not yet earned it; nor have I failed to earn it. Why should this be allowed? I will make him put it away!”

When Softfoot came abreast of him, he flung out his hand to snatch at the feather. But Softfoot’s strong left arm came like a bar of iron in the way. Weasel Moccasin staggered back, and Wenonah stepped in front of him, while the youths clamoured to know where the plume had come from.

“It is but the tail feather of a wa-wa goose that he has been chasing,” declared Red Crow, making a grab at Softfoot’s head. But Wenonah thrust him aside and turned to face the discontented throng.

“Are you all blind that you do not see it is a true eagle plume that Softfoot is wearing?” she cried. “If you would know how he earned it, go and talk to the chief Three Stars. Very soon there will be a second feather by its side. My medicine tells me that Softfoot will win in this arrow game.”

Weasel Moccasin had thrown off his buckskins and taken up his bow. There was a sheaf of arrows strapped across his naked brown back. The arrowheads were above the level of his right shoulder, within quick reach of his hand. The contest between him and Softfoot was to prove which of them could shoot the greater number of arrows from the bowstring while the first was still in the air.

Two important warriors–Long Hair and Talks-with-the-Buffalo–stood near, to act as umpires. There was great excitement among the onlookers, who were watching the two boys with appraising eyes, judging them by the movements of their clean-muscled bodies and hard-knit limbs. It was such a match as the Indians delighted to watch.

Weasel Moccasin was to shoot first. He took his stand with his left foot well forward, his right leg slightly bent at the knee, and his lithe brown body swaying back as he gripped his bow and held his right hand poised above his muscular shoulder ready to pull out an arrow.

When Long Hair gave the signal, he nipped the first arrow from his quiver, fixed it on the bowstring and, aiming straight upward, gave a firm strong pull that drew the arrow point almost to his hand. The released shaft flashed upward into the blue air and the string trembled still when a second arrow took its place. With sure and unfaltering regularity the boy’s deft fingers went to and fro between the string and the quiver; and the arrows followed in quick succession. The first one had not turned in its vertical flight when two were mounting behind it.

As the first curved over for the fall, a fourth left the bow, and as the former sped downward, a fifth was drawn, and the bow again twanged. There were now five arrows in the air; but as Weasel Moccasin reached for a sixth, the first one plunged its point into the turf. A great shout burst from the watching crowd.

It was then Softfoot’s turn. Instead of standing, he went down on one knee, bunching himself together, and some of the warriors clapped their hands. His first arrow soared as high, but not so directly upward as his opponent’s. He gave it a curving flight which would take it farther away in its descent. His second and third flew on the same course; his fourth and fifth went straight upward, and his sixth was barely notched on the bowstring when the first alighted. The competitors were equal, although Softfoot gained on points. But there was a second turn for each. This time Weasel Moccasin imitated Softfoot by kneeling, and he finished, just as Softfoot had done, with his sixth arrow in the grip, but the bow not drawn.

It seemed impossible that so many as six arrows could be in flight all at the same time. But in his second round Softfoot gave extra impetus to his leading arrow, and with such effect that he succeeded in getting his sixth away an instant before the first one touched the ground. He was therefore acclaimed the victor and the winner of the coveted feather.

The excitement had not subsided when Mishe-mokwa and his mounted medicine chiefs rode across the plain to make the awards in the various games of skill.

Great Bear announced that he had decided to hold a buffalo hunt on the following morning and that the six boys who had been foremost in the shooting match were to join with their elders and ride out to take part in the surround, choosing their own buffalo ponies and taking marked arrows.

CHAPTER III. THE GIFT OF COURAGE

AT sundown, when Softfoot strode towards his smoke-grimed teepee on the north side of the village, Morning Bird, his mother, stood by the open door-flap cleaning her hands with a bunch of clover grass. She had been on her knees the whole day scraping buffalo robes, and she was very weary. But she smiled in approval at sight of the two eagle plumes in Softfoot’s ruffled hair.

“Softfoot’s medicine has been good to him,” she said, following him into the twilight of the lodge. “He has made a beginning. Morning Bird is happy in her son’s success.”

He hung up his bow and quiver against one of the poles and seated himself on a roll of blankets away from the smoke and warmth of the newly kindled fire. Morning Bird brought him a large steak of cooked buffalo meat sprinkled over with dried bull-berries.

“Eat,” she said, “and we will talk.”

“It would be better if you would sleep,” he advised her.

She stood facing him.

“Softfoot is no longer a child,” she began. “It is time he should do more than waste his days in the games of children. He must try to be a man. He has skill in the arrow game, in the stick-and-wheel game. He can ride, he can swim, and run. He knows the secrets of the woods. But all this is of no value to the Pawnees. It is like the beads we sew on our moccasins to please the eye. The beads do not keep our feet warm or give us food. The warriors and braves are saying that Softfoot will never be a man fit to go on the war-path, because he is afraid to kill.”

“It is true,” Softfoot admitted. “It is true that he does not want to take life. He is a coward, like his father.”

Morning Bird’s dark eyes flashed.

“Fast Buffalo Horse was not a coward,” she denied.

“But the Pawnees say that I am the son of a coward who was afraid to go on the war-trail,” Softfoot rejoined.

“Fast Buffalo Horse did not refuse to fight the Sioux or the Crees, who are our enemies,” Morning Bird declared. “He was a great war-chief who took many scalps in many battles. But he would not go on the war-path when there was no quarrel. He was wise; he was not afraid when he would not fight the Mandans, who were our friends. If the Pawnees had listened to him there would have been peace. Our tribe had plenty of buffalo meat. They were rich in robes and horses. They only wanted to take more and more scalps to hang on their crowded lodge poles.”

“A scalp war is not a true war,” Softfoot agreed. “Eagle Speaker has said that the Mandans were weak. They could not defend themselves. They were poor. The buffalo had deserted them.”

“They owned nothing that the Pawnees wanted,” pursued Morning Bird. “They were not our enemies. They had smoked tobacco with the Pawnees.”

“If Fast Buffalo Horse were a coward because he loved peace,” reflected Softfoot, “then I, too, am a coward. I do not want to take life when there is no quarrel. I would kill the rattlesnake, the koshinee wolf, the lynx, and the mountain lion, but I would not kill the sing-bird that fills the forest with music, or the butterfly that drinks honey from the flowers.”

“Yet there is need to kill,” argued his mother. “If you are to be a brave, a warrior, you must go on the war-path against the enemies of your people. You must not be afraid to do battle in a just cause, or to kill when there is need for food and clothing. If the Pawnee boys were all like you, we should have no beaver tails to eat, no buffalo meat; no warm soft fox skins to wear or buffalo robes to cover our wigwams.”

Softfoot stood up. He was nearly as tall as Morning Bird.

“To-morrow I go on the buffalo hunt with the men,” he told her proudly. “Mishe-mokwa has said so.”

Morning Bird clapped her hand to her mouth in astonishment. She walked to and fro in the wide space of the wigwam.

“Softfoot will be afraid,” she declared, after a long silence. “He will ride away from the buffalo bulls. The Pawnees will laugh at him. They will call him a coward.” Then she halted in front of him. “You cannot refuse to go on this hunt,” she said very seriously. “You must pray to the Great Spirit to give you strength and courage. You must burn sweet-grass and sweet-pine to purify yourself, comb your hair, and paint your face with vermilion. Morning Bird will now go out to the corral and rope the best petzekee pony. She will talk to the pony and tell him to be swift and not fall.”

“It will be Snow-white,” he told her. “Snow-white is the best buffalo pony of all that ever were foaled.”

The sounds of dancing and beating drums on the plain outside died down into a profound silence as the shadows deepened into darkness. Softfoot slept heavily on his couch of bear skins near the closed entrance of the teepee. But even in his sleep his mind dwelt upon the coming buffalo hunt and its hidden dangers. In the middle of the night he awoke to find a thin beam of moonlight streaming in upon him through a gap in the door-flap of deerskin.

He raised himself on an elbow and drew the flap aside. From where he lay he could see the indigo peaks of the Big Horn Mountains against the moonlit sky, and, nearer, the dark prairie was cut by the glistening sheen of Silver Creek. From far away there came to him the long-drawn plaintive howl of a wolf and the subdued bellow of a buffalo. He shivered under the cold of the night air.

“The warriors say that I am afraid,” he meditated. “But I will not be afraid. Eagle Speaker’s gift will give me courage. I will carry it with me always. It will shield me from harm. It will give me strength and bravery. I shall kill many buffaloes. I will go on the war-path. Eagle Speaker knows the secret of this medicine gift. He told Softfoot to trust in its power to make him brave. It came to me in my sleep that I must do this thing.”

He rose very silently from his bear skins, and in the black darkness crept with cautious tread across the earthen floor to the place where he had hung his sacred bundle. Very reverently he took the bundle down and thrust his hand into its wrappings of soft doeskin until his fingers closed upon the thing he sought.

“It is very strange that it should have such power,” he whispered in superstitious awe. “What can be its secret?”

CHAPTER IV. THE BUFFALO HUNT

ALMOST before the stars grew dim and the eastern sky was beginning to show light above the pine trees, Fire Steel, the camp crier, was out on the plain beating his drum to awaken the Pawnees and tell them to make ready for the buffalo hunt.

From the surrounding lodges, men and youths swarmed out, like bees from their hives, and ran through the woodland glades down to the creek for their morning swim; and many squaws carried or dragged their children, to bathe them in the quiet pools below the willows.

Softfoot was one of the first to return from the creek. He had dived from a high rock above the rapids and allowed himself to be carried by the icy current over the curving ledge of smooth, green water to plunge like an arrow down into the turbulent, swirling cauldron of foam and spray at the foot of the cascade.

There in the whirling pool among the startled salmon he had splashed and rolled for some joyous minutes before climbing out to shake himself and throw his sheet of tanned elkskin over his wet shoulders and run home through the dim forest trail, where even the birds were not awakened by the soft pad of his moccasined feet.

Suddenly he stopped and turned back a few paces. In the moist ground at the side of a narrow stream he had seen the impression of hoofs. They were not the hoofs of an Indian pony, for they showed the clear marks of forged iron shoes, such as were not used by the Pawnees. They pointed in the direction of Great Bear’s village.

“Why should a paleface be riding through Grey Wolf Forest?” he asked himself as he ran on. “He is not a stranger. He knows his way to our lodges.”

When he reached the camp, blue wisps of fire-smoke were rising into the cool air from the smoke-vents of the teepees. There was busy movement everywhere. The whole village was awake while yet the grass was wet with dew and the sun’s light had not touched the mountain-tops.

Moving forms, clad in bright colours, passed to and fro. Tied near each wigwam there were two or three horses; dogs were barking and people were singing under the painted skin-covers of their lodges.

Everybody was glad that there was to be yet another buffalo hunt. The pack-horses and draught dogs had been kept in camp, close to the teepees. The travois frames were emptied ready to carry in new loads; nothing had been stowed away since the harvest of the last chase had been brought in from the prairie; but the women were sharpening their knives to cut up the expected meat, and they were coiling their ropes of shaganappy with which to pack the red loads and the heavy hides.

The men were looking over their weapons of the chase to see that the bowstrings were right, the arrows straight and strong, with the points not blunted; while those who had guns were cleaning them and providing themselves with powder, bullets and percussion caps.

The boys who were now to make their first hunt were excited. They had imitated their experienced elders in going through the various ceremonies of preparation, praying for good luck, purifying themselves by breathing the scented fumes of burning sweet-grass, combing their long hair and painting their faces.

Morning Bird was very anxious that her son should look his best on so important an occasion. She combed and braided his hair and painted the parting with vermilion. With practised art she had mixed many colours from the juices of herbs and berries, yellow and blue clay and charcoal, and she painted his face and body with great care in lines and curves and rings.

For the hunt he wore no clothing but a breech-clout and his moccasins, and armlets and a necklace of bears’ claws, porcupine quills and brilliant beads.

“What is this?” Morning Bird asked, taking in her fingers a small bag of delicate white ermine skin that hung from his necklace.

“It is my sacred medicine,” he answered her, covering it with his hand. “It came to me in my sleep. You must not see it.”

Enclosed in the ermine skin was the thing that he had taken from his mystery bundle during the night–the thing which was to give him strength and bravery and shield him from harm.

Morning Bird did not question him further but accompanied him out of the lodge to where his buffalo pony, Snow-white, waited. It was not shod and had never been saddled or bridled. He led it away by its long trail-rope of rawhide, one end of which was knotted about the animal’s lower jaw, while the other end dragged loose along the ground, where it might be seized if the rider should be thrown and not too much hurt to snatch at it.

“Ha!” cried Weasel Moccasin as he joined the group of favoured boys who were now for the first time to do the serious work of men in the buffalo surround. “My medicine tells me that to-day I shall have great luck. Softfoot shall not get the better of me this time. I shall pick out the finest bulls in the herd and bring many of them to the ground.”

“It may be that none of us will get near enough to kill,” said Softfoot, caressing his pony’s muzzle. “Mishe-mokwa has said that we are not to put ourselves in danger; but only to watch the men, and learn from them how to manage our ponies. It is bad hunting if our ponies are hurt.”

“That is true,” nodded Red Crow, “and I for one will keep out of danger. I will pick out a swift cow or a bull calf and drive it well away from the herd, so that I may not be too close to the ferocious bulls.”

Before they mounted they were told to lay their quivers on the ground. Heavy Head, a veteran buffalo runner, was to examine their arrows and see that they were well feathered, well pointed and duly marked.

Weasel Moccasin and Softfoot had placed their quivers side by side on the grass when Little Antelope, one of the younger boys, saw the chief coming out of his council lodge, attended by many warriors and mystery men. With the chief walked a tall, bearded stranger, dressed in buckskins and wearing a wide, felt hat.

“It is a white man!” exclaimed Little Antelope in surprise. “Come, let us go and look at him! Never before have I seen a paleface. See, he has a gun! He is showing it to Mishe-mokwa. He is perhaps coming on the buffalo hunt.”

“His gun is broken,” said Softfoot, who knew nothing of the mechanism of a breech-loading rifle. “And he is putting the bullets in at the wrong end!”

“Where does he come from–this white man?” questioned Red Crow. “I think he is an enemy.”

“He rode into our camp when the Pawnees were still asleep,” explained Softfoot. “He is alone. He would not come alone if he were an enemy. That is his horse–Long Hair is leading it. It is a beautiful horse–taller than any of ours. I want to see how he mounts. Aye! look! look!”

The stranger had raised a spurred foot to his stirrup and was quickly seated in his saddle with the bridle in his hand and his gun in the crook of his arm. To the Indian boys he looked very tall and splendid with his broad shoulders and upright figure. Even from a distance they could see that his eyes were not so dark as the eyes of the Pawnees, and, with quick recognition of this peculiarity, Softfoot said:

“Let us name him Blue Eye, for his eyes are like the moonlit sky.”

Great Bear, Three Stars, Talks-with-the-Buffalo, and other warriors, had also mounted. They all carried muzzle-loading guns, and wore their bright-coloured blankets and medicine bonnets. The chief and Blue Eye rode side by side, talking like friends. The others formed in Indian file, following across the plain, each leading a second pony that would be used in the hunt. The six boys ran back, snatched up their bows and quivers, and leapt excitedly to their ponies’ backs, taking places where they could find them in the long procession of riders.

As they rode out from the wide circle of lodges to enter the prairie trail, they turned and waved their hands to the watching crowds of women and children. Then they strung their bows to be ready for action. It was not until afterwards, when he was in the midst of the buffaloes, that Softfoot discovered that the arrows in his quiver were not his own, that they bore Weasel Moccasin’s marks. They had been changed. But by whom? And why?

The warriors rode slowly through the woodland, and when they came into the open some turned to the eastward and others to the west, forming two separate companies along the ridge of the hill to encircle the hunting-ground.

By this time the sun was rising, flooding the prairie with yellow light. The grass sparkled with dew, and thin shreds of grey mist drifted and melted. The sweet, wild whistle of the meadow lark rang out from the knolls, and the skylark and the white-winged blackbird filled the air with their rich notes. Now and then a jack-rabbit or a kit fox was startled from its bed in the grama grass, or a family of antelopes, alarmed by the horsemen, would race to the safety of the hill-tops.

Through the rising mist the brown, hairy shapes of many buffaloes could be seen scattered over the level land like cattle in a pasture. The great shaggy bulls were cropping the grass on the outskirts of the herd, as if guarding the cows and calves that were still at rest, unconscious of the dark line that was slowly creeping round them.

Neither bulls nor cows took any notice of the prowling scavenger wolves that were the usual attendants upon every buffalo herd, following them in their migrations to pick off the weak or injured stragglers or to feast upon the stripped carcases discarded by the Indians. But as the tightening ring of horsemen began to close in, the alert sentinel bulls lifted their shaggy heads, sniffed with suspicion at the tainted air, caught sight of the mysterious enemy and sounded the alarm in a long-drawn bellow.

The younger bulls and the cows with their yellow calves began to rush about in aimless panic, gathering at first in detached groups and then crowding together in a compact mass until the veteran bulls took leadership and started them off in a headlong stampede with heads lowered and tails lifted high. Their roaring was like the roll of thunder. The earth trembled under the heavy tread of their hoofs.

The Pawnees rode round and round in their unbroken circle. Three Stars, who was the captain of the hunt, saw that he could not successfully deal with so large a herd, and he allowed many to escape before he gave the signal which released all restraint.

Yelling their wild hunting cries, the Indians dashed forward to the assault, each intent upon being the first to come within striking range of their huge victims. It was a desperately dangerous game. No hunting has ever been so perilous and exciting; for the buffalo is a terrible antagonist, swift of foot, resistless in attack, vicious in defence, and backed by a strength which could only be avoided by that cunning which has always given man the mastery over the brute.