BRIGHT ROBE TELLS A STORY OF THE RED FEATHERS
The men of the party sat late around the fire, telling stories of
prowess at the fishing and in the chase. Some of them even talked of
the battlefield, for they were all of one clan. They had been at war
with the people of the south and southwest, not many years before.
Run-all-day was no more backward in story-telling than in other
matters. He was a skilled and tireless hunter, and he did not object
to the fact becoming known to the general public. Simply, he praised
his birch-bark canoe; his speed and endurance in running down a wounded
deer; his summer’s work at the fishing; even his wife and his family
were bragged about--and surely no one had ever before possessed such an
admirable mother-in-law. Some of the braves grunted at that, for they
knew that Run-all-day and old Blowing Fog often disagreed on household
matters.
Suddenly one of the cod-fishers, who was called Lazy Bear, threw a
large piece of drift-wood into the heart of the fire. Sparks and flames
shot upward, and, for a few seconds, the whole camp was lit by the
redoubled radiance.
And there, at one end of the semi-circle of braves, sat a stranger with
a robe of bright fur on his back. A gasp of astonishment arose from the
fishers and hunters. Lazy Bear almost stepped into the fire, in the
first flash of amazement. A dozen hands went to the hafts of clubs and
flint knives.
“Good evening to you, chief,” said Run-all-day, in a voice that was not
altogether steady.
But the stranger made no reply, and the man nearest him edged away to
the left.
“Have you no tongue?” cried Run-all-day, with anger in his voice. Anger
always ate up fear, in the breast of the salmon fisher.
The stranger raised his head and stared at the speaker with dark and
glowing eyes. But he did not open his lips. His piercing, insolent gaze
would have daunted a weaker man than Run-all-day; but it only stirred
the great hunter’s anger to higher flame, even as the drift-wood had
worked upon the smouldering heart of the fire.
“If you have no tongue,” said Run-all-day, “make us a sign. You have
come, unbidden, to our camp. The haft of my club itches in my hand.”
“Brave words,” said the stranger, in a voice cold as a wind off the ice
floe. “Lift your club,--if you can.”
Run-all-day’s weapon lay beside him on the moss of the little clearing.
His right hand closed on the stick and he made a slight effort to
swing the stone head upward, over his shoulder. He turned and applied
both hands and all his strength to the task. But the stone head of the
weapon that was usually like a toy in his hands, would not leave the
ground. A sweat of fear burst out on him and he loosed the haft of the
club as if it were red hot. A thrill of apprehension went through the
semi-circle of braves, at sight of their comrade’s half-seen actions.
The stranger laughed without mirth.
“Great hunter, great slayer and smoker of salmon, when next Bright
Robe comes to your camp and honours you by taking a seat at your fire,
refrain from clamouring for explanations,” he said.
The name of Bright Robe drove the last sparks of courage and anger from
the breasts of Run-all-day’s companions. Run-all-day, however, felt
the sullen rage still alive under the outward chill of fear.
“You have heard of me,” continued the unwelcome guest, “and of this
robe, which is made of the pelt of one wolf--of one of the great, white
wolves that hunt under the north-lights, in the land of eternal ice.”
True, they had all heard of Bright Robe, the master of magicians. Their
mothers had frightened them, when they were children, with tales of his
fearful and wonderful doings; and they, in their turn, had heard the
stories from their mothers and grandmothers. Legend recorded that, in a
fit of anger, he had once defied a god; and many were the versions of
the tale of his punishment. But he had vanished from the island, and
that was the great thing, for he had been the most wicked as well as
the most powerful of all the magicians that had practised their arts
since the beginning of the world. And now, after a hundred summers of
banishment, here he sat by the fire of honest hunters and fishermen,
with the silver robe gleaming on his shoulders. Was he stronger than
the gods themselves?
Even the courage of Run-all-day melted again. What had brought this
awful visitor to their humble fire?
Several members of the party hastened to bring food and water to the
great magician, who ate ravenously.
“I have made a weary journey,” said he, at last. “I have spent eight
days in travelling a distance that, had I not been robbed, I should
have accomplished in a few hours. I, who owned the red feathers but a
moon ago, bruised my feet on rocks and roots like any common fellow.”
Run-all-day stood beyond the smoke of the fire and so Bright Robe did
not notice the sudden alertness of the hunter’s face and body.
“What are these red feathers, mighty chief?” inquired Lazy Bear, who
possessed curiosity to the extent that he lacked energy.
Food had mollified the magician’s spirit. “The red feathers,” said he,
“are articles of great magic. The man who wears them against his feet
can outrace the flying hawk, and only he who wears the moccasins of the
wind can overtake him in the air.”
“I have heard old people talk of the magic moccasins that carry a man
with the speed of a flying teal, but I have heard no stories of the
red feathers,” said Run-all-day.
He spoke in a voice that showed no more than a polite interest in the
subject.
“Many stories are told of the moccasins,” said Bright Robe, “for they
have changed hands many times, but have never left this country, in
hundreds of years, for more than two moons. The red feathers, however,
are not known to the old story-tellers. Maybe they have thought that
all the swift running was done by the moccasins of the wind. It was in
the time of the coldest winter, when the Narrow Sea was bound with ice
from shore to shore, that the red feathers came into the possession
of a chief of this country. Mountaineers from the hills under the
setting sun crossed the Narrow Sea--and with them came many of those
fierce little men of the north--and did battle with the nations of this
island. The leader of the invaders sped here and there in the air,
swift as a chasing hawk, swooping and slaying like a hawk among grouse.
To every man he killed, terror was burned into the hearts of a score.
Our warriors had no strength to bend their bows against him, or hurl
their war-clubs, when they heard the whisper of his flying feet. But
one man kept his courage alive and his eyes ready. His was a strong
bow, and his arrows were long and sharply barbed. Slipping from the
central tumult of the battle, he crouched beneath a spruce tree and
peered about for the flying enemy as a hunter looks out of cover for
homing geese. Suddenly he saw the terrible one flash down upon the
struggling warriors; saw him strike once, and twice, and leap into the
air again. With lessened speed he drew near the spruce tree under which
the Beothic chief crouched ready. The bow bent and sprang straight,
and, with a fearful cry, the man of the flying feet struggled in the
air. Another arrow whined and struck--and another found its mark--and
then the terrible invader fell, like a stone, to the earth. And, in the
moccasins of the warrior from across the Narrow Sea, the chief who slew
him found the red feathers.”
The men around the fire had followed the story with breathless
interest. For the time being, their fear of the narrator was forgotten.
“The coldest winter was many hundreds of seasons ago,” said one, “and
never since then has our country been in such danger. It must have been
a mighty battle.”
“It was a mighty battle,” replied Bright Robe. “I was young then--I am
older than I look--and had learned nothing of magic. I fought in the
battle, for I was born in the tribe that dwells on the coast of the
Narrow Sea.”
“Was it you, great chief, who slew the leader of the enemy?” asked
Run-all-day.
“Nay,” replied the magician, with a low chuckle. “But two days after
the invaders were driven away from our shores, out onto the ice that
was already weakening and breaking, I took the red feathers from the
moccasin of that great chief and put them in my own.”
“Then he must have been sleeping,” said Run-all-day.
“A sound sleep, in truth,” replied Bright Robe, calmly.
“You killed him--a chief of your own tribe--for the magic feathers,”
cried the hunter.
“Verily, oh smoker of fish and flesh,” replied the magician. “And many
another have I killed, for less than those red feathers. To regain
possession of them now I should consider the speeding of an hundred
lives a niggardly payment.”
“We know nothing of the feathers,” cried an old man.
Others confirmed the statement, in broken words and tremulous gestures.
Bright Robe sneered. “You may save your breath,” said he. “No cleaner
of cod stole the prize from the feet of Bright Robe; of that, I need no
assurance. Only the gods, and Wise-as-a-she-wolf, have the hardihood
to strike at me. Even now I am on the trail of my enemy. It will be
a long trail, for he has both the moccasins of the wind and the red
feathers--but when one knows the secret of everlasting life one can
afford to travel slowly.”
He looked about him with his dark, glowing eyes. The braves at the fire
felt their muscles loosen under the awful glance.
“Now bring me thirty days’ food, dried meat and smoked fish enough
to last a man thirty days,” he ordered. “I do not intend to delay my
journey for the purpose of killing caribou,” he added.
Run-all-day and his companions were glad enough that the magician asked
for so little. They hastened to bring the best of their meat and fish
and pemmican. They heaped it near their unwelcome visitor, in the light
of the fire.
“Now bind it securely into one pack,” he ordered.
When this was done he arose from the ground and, bending over the great
pack, laid his hand on it. In a moment it had dwindled to the size of
a crouching wolf--to the size of a man’s head--to the smallness of a
hazel nut. And this tiny object he picked up, between finger and thumb,
and tucked somewhere under his belt.
“You are worthy people,” he said, looking around, well pleased at the
wonder, fear, and admiration written on the faces of the hunters.
“Now I continue my journey,” he added. “See, I draw my robe of white
fur over my head so that not a man of you shall be able to say which
way I went.”
At the last word he drew the robe above his shoulders--and lo, the
fearful magician was nowhere to be seen.
For hours the hunters continued to sit by the fire. They were afraid
that Bright Robe might still be lurking near them, to hear what they
had to say of him. So they praised him warmly to each other, until they
could not keep their eyelids open another minute.