A great fire chased away the black shadows of night as the Red Men
began the gamble stick chant. First low, then louder and faster, while
they beat on drums made of logs.
There were six Indian braves on each side. On the ground in front of
each were ten sticks, small and straight, made of cedar. Three long
sticks lay beside them. These were to show how many times each side
won. There were two gamble sticks the length of a man’s finger. The
bark had been peeled from one leaving it smooth and round, while the
other had a ring of bark around the middle.
Then Wook-ya-koots took the two gamble sticks, one in each hand, and
while swinging them back and forth in front of him, changed them from
one hand to the other so quickly that no eye could follow. But at last
Left-Handed made a motion toward the hand he thought held the ring
stick. The wild chanting stopped. Wook-ya-koots opened wide his hands
and showed the sticks. Left-Handed had lost and threw one of the short
sticks of cedar across to the other side. Wook-ya-koots took it and
stuck it in the ground.
Then the Red Men again began the gamble stick chant. This time
Left-Handed guessed the hand that held the gamble stick and
Wook-ya-koots threw over a count stick and also the gamble sticks.
Chief Yee-khoo and his braves became the guessers.
So the game went on until Chief Yee-khoo’s side had ten count sticks
stuck in the ground before them. Then they took them all down and put
up one large count stick. When Chief Yee-khoo’s men had three of these
large count sticks the game ended and he and his braves carried off all
the rich robes and food and blankets which they had gambled for. This
they did the next night and for many nights after. Each night
Left-Handed and his brothers and sisters made a great feast for them.
Always Left-Handed and his brothers lost until Chief Yee-khoo and his
men had won everything they possessed except one small club made of
bone.
Left-Handed took this and said, “This is the only thing we have left.
It is worth many blankets, for with it we can kill our enemies. We
shall gamble for this and this time we may be lucky and win.”
Chief Yee-khoo and his braves began to jeer and ask, “How can a bone
you can cover with one hand kill anyone?”
At last Left-Handed said, “If you do not believe me I shall show you.”
He raised the little bone club and slew Chief Yee-khoo and one after
another all of his men except one who made his escape and aroused the
people of Tee-hi-ton. They rushed across the creek and fell upon
Left-Handed and his brothers and sisters with such fury that they were
almost overpowered.
Then Left-Handed remembered the little box “tsow” which his
grandfather, the Almighty One, had given them. He took the box and
opened one end. At once the worldly people were as the “dry leaves in
autumn when a puff of wind crumbles them into dust.”
“And,” concluded the Story Teller, as we paddled lazily along, drinking
in the mystic beauty of a starlit Northern night, “to me and my people
the Sun, Moon, Sky and Rainbow are emblems the Almighty One has put in
the heavens to show that the Red Men shall increase and prosper and
people the earth for as long as the sun and moon shall shine.”