AN INDIAN BEDTIME STORY
Several moments passed before Dick could recover his presence of mind,
so great was the shock he had received upon discovering the savage
marauders that were destroying their camp. A vision of Sandy’s mangled
form sprang up in his mind, and he covered his eyes and groaned. But he
was not one to let mere imagination long affect him when action was
needed.
“Take the bear on the right, Toma,” his voice came clear and steady.
“They’ll probably attack us as soon as we fire. Ready, aim, fire!”
The report of the rifles and the sting of the well placed bullets
brought the polar bears back on their haunches, and they whirled to face
whatever enemy had attacked them. But Dick and Toma had fallen on their
stomachs in the snow immediately after firing, and the bears could not
see them. The great beasts turned and renewed their wrecking of the camp
dunnage, whereupon Dick gave the order to fire again.
Now badly wounded, and puzzled because they could not see where the
burning missiles came from, the bears began lumbering around in a
circle, growling savagely.
Dick and Toma fired once more from their prone and hidden position and
the bears decided the territory was too hot for them. Leaving a trail of
blood drops behind them, they trotted off up the slope of the glacial
ridge, disappearing among the numerous boulders strewn upon the slope.
No more were the bears gone than Dick and Toma rushed to the torn up
camp, calling Sandy’s name. At first there was no reply and in the
death-like stillness Dick felt an icy chill of horror steal over him as
once more he imagined what had befallen Sandy. Then, very faintly, there
came an answering shout, seeming to come out of the snow-smothered earth
itself.
“Sandy, where are you!” Dick cried gladly, looking everywhere but
failing to see any sign of his chum.
“Just a minute, and I’ll be with you,” came the voice again,
unmistakably Sandy’s but for some reason half-choked and indistinct.
Then, out of a big snowdrift a hundred yards from camp, popped Sandy,
covered from head to foot with snow. Dick and Toma ran to meet him,
overjoyed at his safety.
“I thought those bears had finished you sure,” Dick said, much relieved.
“Well, they weren’t far from doing just that,” Sandy retorted drily. “I
was looking through the packs for a tin of tea, a little while ago, when
I felt that something was behind me. I looked around and there were
those two bears looking at me as if they were hungry. They weren’t more
than thirty feet from me, and I’d left my rifle in the igloo. You can
bet I didn’t stand in that spot very long. I made a flying start right
straight ahead, and when I reached those holes in the snow where the
dogs have been sleeping, I dived head first right into a big one, and
dug myself further in. Maybe I wasn’t scared. I expected every minute to
hear those bears digging in after me. About when I was pretty near
smothered in the snow I heard you start shooting. Say, you came just in
time. I’d have suffocated in that burrow in about two minutes more. And
I believe I’d have passed out right there rather than show myself to
those bears.”
“Don’t forget to keep your rifle close to you after this,” Dick
cautioned, though now that the danger was over he was amused at Sandy’s
excited relating of his unique escape from the bears.
“Bear meat heap good eat,” Toma spoke up. “Maybe one them bear die
somewhere in rocks. We go see, huh?”
“Not on your life,” Sandy declared emphatically. “I’ve seen all the
bears I want to for to-day. I’ll be dreaming about bears chewing on me
for a month.”
Dick laughed. “I don’t blame you, Sandy, but I think Toma’s idea about
following the bears is a good one. We need meat, you know, and you can
see by the blood on the snow around here that one of them at least might
have been wounded bad enough so that he’ll die later.”
“All right, you fellows go ahead. I think I’ve had about all the trouble
I’m going to have today, so you needn’t worry about me.”
“I guess you have, alright,” Dick called over his shoulder as he set out
after the bears. “We won’t be gone long.”
Toma and Dick followed the plain trail left by the bears clear up the
ridge to the east of the camp. But they did not catch sight of their
quarry until they were some distance out on the flank of the glacier on
the other side of the ridge.
The young Indian then called Dick’s attention to a movement ahead of
them. They saw one of the bears climbing to the top of a heap of ice,
and crouched in hiding until the great beast had passed out of sight.
Though they waited several minutes, a second bear did not appear, and so
they thought it safe to go on.
Not far from where they had sighted the one bear they discovered why the
other had not appeared. He lay stone dead in a little hollow in the ice.
An examination showed that two of their bullets had pierced the animal’s
lungs. Only an animal of iron stamina could have traveled so far with
such serious wounds.
Cutting a huge haunch of steak from the bear’s hindquarters, the young
hunters started back, their mouths already watering in anticipation of
fresh bear steak.
It was nearly eight o’clock by Dick’s watch when they reached the igloos
once more, to find that Sandy had been busy in their absence and had
repaired much of the damage done by the polar bears.
Two hours later, snug in a warm igloo, Sandy requested Toma to tell them
a bedtime story from his stock of Indian lore. Toma acquiesced
willingly, and began in his broken, yet simple expressive English:
“Long, long time ago, young Indian brave, by name Swift Foot, live by
big water, by name Great Slave Lake. He very handsome brave. Him mother
love him very much. His father great hunter. He have all food he can
eat, warm wigwam in winter. No have to work. Him play all day, and when
him tired he sleep. But him no happy. He look at stars and want know why
the stars twinkle; him look at sun, want know why sun warm; him look at
moon, want know why cannot reach it; him look at rainbow, want know why
cannot catch him no matter how fast he run.
“Swift Foot ask mother questions. She say, ‘Big Eagle, your father,
great hunter and very wise. He tell you, my son.’ Swift Foot ask father
questions. Father say, ‘Your grandfather old and wise, maybe he can tell
you.’ Swift Foot ask his grandfather questions, but old man say he not
know these things.
“Bye an’ bye Swift Foot visit all old men in tribe, but none knew why
stars twinkle, why sun shine, why he no can catch rainbow.
“Swift Foot, him get very unhappy. Him no eat, no sleep. His mother
think him going die. One day she tell him, ‘Swift Foot, you follow big
water north till you come to great river. There you find old, old
medicine man. He tell you why stars twinkle, why sun shine, why no catch
rainbow.’
“Swift Foot him very glad then. Him jump in birch canoe an’ paddle fast.
Many days him paddle along lake shore till he come to great river. When
he come to shore old, old man, all dried up, waiting there to meet him.
“When Indian boy ask old medicine man what he want know, old man ask him
what he give to know all things. Swift Foot, he say he give everything
he have. Medicine man ask him if he sure. Swift Foot say yes, he give
everything to know, for he no want live longer if he can no catch
rainbow.
“Then medicine man build big fire and boil something in pot, while he
dance round and round Swift Foot. After while Swift Foot feel strange.
He feel like he getting smaller; he cannot see far with his eyes; him
hands shake like leaves.
“Pretty soon fire make big smoke—puff, puff. Smoke disappear, and old
man, he gone. Swift Foot all alone on shore of big water, and he know
all things. He know why stars twinkle, why sun shines, why he can no
catch rainbow. He know so much he much afraid. He jump up, try to run to
canoe. But he fall down hard. He get up, try to run again, but he no can
run—he have to walk very slow.
“When he get down to big water it is like mirror. He bend over and look
down. Old, old man look back at him from water, oldest an’ ugliest man
he ever see. He know then him give youth for great wisdom. No more him
run an’ jump, no more him eat deer meat, for he have no teeth. He begin
weep, an’ say he no want know all things, him want be young again. All
day, all night he cry, but he not grow young again.
“Then he paddle his canoe back to his mother, but she not know him. She
laugh when he say he Swift Foot, her son. ‘My son beautiful young boy,
you ugly, old man,’ she say. ‘Go ’way.’
“Swift Foot leave village then. Him go far away in forest where no man
see him. One moon he no eat anything, but pray much to Great Spirit.
Then him fall asleep. When wake up him feel strong again. He go down to
pool of water and look in. Him jump up and make big, glad noise with
mouth. Great Spirit answer prayer. Him young again. But he not remember
why stars twinkle, why sun shines, why no can catch rainbow.
“Swift Foot go back to his mother. She very glad to see him. He say to
his mother he very happy now; him no want know why stars twinkle, why
sun shines, why no can catch rainbow. He say he love them just the same.
Many years him live happy. Make big hunter like him father, but him
never wish for what he no can get.”
“Gee, that was a great story!” Dick exclaimed. “Who told you that one?”
“My mother,” Toma replied briefly, and for an instant the boys thought
they detected the sparkle of tears in the dark eyes of the stoical young
Indian.
“That story had a moral to it just like one of Aesop’s Fables,” Dick
said sleepily, as he crawled into his sleeping bag. “Guess we can’t have
our cake and eat it too. Right, Sandy?”
But a long, tuneful snore was the only reply Dick heard from Sandy.
The boys slept soundly for nearly ten hours, and when they awakened they
felt equal to any task that might present itself. First, they visited
the bear Dick and Toma had killed the day before, and brought back all
the meat they could carry on their backs. Since this left them well
supplied with meat for themselves, Dick decided they had better make an
effort to procure some seal or walrus meat for the dogs.
Toma once more was elected to remain behind while Dick and Sandy went
hunting. The boys found that the seal herd had moved a considerable
distance eastward along the coast since they first had seen it. It took
them an hour of climbing over rough shore ice before they reached a
point opposite the seal herd. Even then, to their disappointment, they
found that several large ice floes, jammed together, separated them from
the seals.
After some minutes of deliberation, they decided to venture out upon the
ice, and get nearer the seals by jumping from one cake of ice to
another. Thus they began a dangerous adventure, destined from the
beginning to end in ill fortune, for they had not gone a hundred yards
across the treacherous ice before both Dick and Sandy had slipped and
narrowly saved themselves from a bad ducking, if not drowning, by
clutching the edge of the floe which had been their objective when they
leaped the open water.
Resting on a large, secure floe, they noticed that the tide was going
out and that frequently, from the outer edge of the ice-jam, a large
fragment detached itself and floated out to sea.
“I think we ought to go back,” Dick said once, but they did not want to
turn back empty handed after having gone so far, so they kept on until
they were within fifty feet of the nearest seals.
“How tame they are!” exclaimed Sandy.
“They seem just like dogs,” Dick added. “Probably no one has killed any
of this herd for a long time. It seems a shame to shoot such innocent
looking creatures.”
“Well, you know we have to have food for the dogs,” Sandy argued with
his tender heart. “In this country it’s eat or be eaten, and we need the
dogs and not the seals.”
“All right, then, suppose you shoot the first one,” Dick said a little
sarcastically.
Sandy tightened his lips, raised his rifle and took aim at the head of a
fine young seal. Just then a baby seal flopped away from its mother’s
side, directly on a line with Sandy’s sights. The baby seal stood up on
its flippers and looked at the boys as cute as could be.
Sandy expelled his breath in a disgusted gasp, and let his rifle fall to
his hip.
“Brave boy,” taunted Dick in fun. “If I wanted turkey for Thanksgiving I
wouldn’t send you out to chop off its head.”
“I can’t help it,” admitted Sandy. “I’ve felt this way before, but not
so much as now. I don’t see how anyone can slaughter these animals by
the hundreds even if their skins are so valuable.”
Just then a big bull seal crawled up on the ice out of the water, making
an angry noise in his throat. This old fellow was quite fierce looking
and did not apparently take kindly to the presence of the boys. He
reared up and fixed baleful eyes upon them, opening his huge, whiskered
mouth to show his tusks.
Neither of the boys felt the same sympathy for this new and hostile
arrival, and Dick quickly raised his rifle and brought down the bull
with one shot.
At the sound of the rifle almost all of the seals took to the water
hastily, swimming about and watching the man creatures from a distance.
But the old bull did not move from where he had fallen.
“The next problem is how are we going to get this big brute ashore.”
“Gee, I never thought of that. I wonder how much he weighs,” said Sandy,
going forward and trying to lift the dead animal.
But the combined strength of both Dick and Sandy was only sufficient to
drag the heavy body slowly across the ice.
“He must weigh several hundred pounds,” Dick eyed their kill
appraisingly. “I don’t think we’ll ever get him ashore, unless we cut
him up and carry him in pieces.”
So intent were the boys on the problem at hand that they had for several
minutes lost all thought of their rather dangerous situation. It was
Sandy who first discovered something wrong. It seemed to him the ice on
which they stood was moving.
“Dick, quick!” his voice was hoarse with fear. “This floe has broken
away from the shore ice. What shall we do!”
Dick wheeled toward the shore, taking in their predicament at a glance.
“Run for it, Sandy. We may reach the gap before it’s too wide to jump!”