THE THEFT OF THE RED FEATHERS
All went well with the baby in the good magician’s lodge. He remembered
nothing of the world and the people that were without the magic walls;
and yet, when Run-all-day visited him, he knew him and ran to him. His
days were full of quiet play and happy, childish fancies. The wonderful
pictures on the walls were his playmates; and he learned their
meanings, gradually but without effort. He felt no loneliness or fear,
even when Wise-as-a-she-wolf was away from the lodge. But he was seldom
alone, for the magician was so happy in the company of his adopted baby
that he forgot many of his great affairs in the world. He would lie
awake all night, planning games, wonderful, magic games, to play with
the little fellow next day. And he painted some more pictures on the
walls, thus expanding the great lesson-book. He painted the flight of
Jumping Wolf through the wilderness, and the young warrior’s rescue
from the ice, all in the magic pigments that made them true as real
earth and real water and clear as sunlight. So the baby, toddling from
picture to picture, absorbed knowledge of men and beasts, of battles
and the chase, of gentleness and honesty, and of the ugliness of evil.
In August, a stranger arrived at Run-all-day’s village and asked to be
allowed to remain and become a member of the new clan. He was of darker
complexion than was usual among the islanders and his hair was black
and straight. He gave his name as Spotted Seal. He said that he had
been born far in the west, close to the shore of the Narrow Sea, and
had been a lonely warrior all his life. Run-all-day did not accept him
at once, but allowed him to fish and hunt with the villagers, so that
he might prove himself a safe and worthy man. Spotted Seal soon won the
respect of the clansmen, in spite of his black, shifting eyes; for he
was a good worker and a strong man with all manner of weapons. He was a
cunning and tireless hunter, and skilled in the management of canoes.
Spotted Seal had not been an inmate of the village many days, when he
heard some gossip of the red feathers, from old Green Bow. He showed
no interest in the subject, indifferently mending a fishing-line while
Green Bow told of the wonderful power of the feathers; of how he had
seen the chief slip them into his moccasins; of how it was rumoured
that Red Willow took care of them and kept them in a leathern bag,
along with other of her precious possessions. Spotted Seal looked
indifferent, all the while the old man talked, but his heart was
thumping madly. He had a slight knowledge of magic, and a great desire
to enlarge that knowledge. He was ambitious of power; and this talk of
the magic feathers, which carried a man through the air like the wings
of a hawk, filled him with a fever of covetousness. But he did not
show his emotions by so much as the flicker of an eyelash; and yet it
was for this very thing that he had come to the village. He had heard
something of Run-all-day’s power of flight, in a vague, roundabout way,
and so had travelled many days to investigate the secret of the matter.
He had never heard of the chief of the distant village as a magician,
and he could not believe that he was possessed of the famous moccasins
of the wind. Now he was glad to hear that the wonder lay in two small
feathers and not in the chief’s own person, for it would be an easier
matter to steal feathers from a man than wisdom out of his brain.
So Spotted Seal began to spy on the chief’s lodge, creeping and
peering about at all hours of the night. At last he was rewarded
for his exertions by seeing Red Willow take the feathers from the
bag, smooth them tenderly between her fingers, and return them to
their hiding-place. Then he saw her place the bag under the skins on
Run-all-day’s couch. His eager glance took note of the exact spot
where she hid the bag. It was a small bag, of white leather, decorated
with designs worked in dyed porcupine quills. As the night was still
young, he stole away and joined some other men at the fire, and calmly
listened to their stories and took part in their talk.
In that darkest hour before the first glimmer of dawn, Spotted Seal
crawled to the closed entrance of the chief’s lodge, and lay, for
nearly a minute, with his ear at the bottom of the great flap of hide.
He heard no sound from within, save the gentle and regular breathing of
the sleepers. He raised the flap a little, very cautiously, and thrust
his head under it. Inch by inch, and without the slightest sound, he
wormed himself beneath the edge of the hide and into the lodge. Then
again he lay still for some time, listening, straining his eyes against
the blackness, and drawing his breath guardedly. Again he advanced,
crawling almost flat, with one hand held in front of him so lightly
that, should it touch a sleeper, it would give no shock of contact. At
last he felt that he was beside the couch on which lay the chief. He
could hear that warrior’s breath, close in his ears, and he trembled.
Now his hand touched the furs, and slipped beneath them and encountered
the precious bag that contained the red feathers. At that, his heart
thumped so heavily that it deafened his ears against the sound of the
chief’s breathing. For what seemed a long time to him, he crouched,
motionless, beside the couch, with one hand on the bag of leather. But
at last he gathered courage to draw it forth. He heard the chief stir
uneasily; then lie quiet again. Some one, evidently a child, whimpered
in its dreams. He turned and crawled back toward the entrance of the
lodge, lifted the flap of hide again and wriggled under it and out to
the wider blackness of the open. After moving away from the lodge
for a short distance, he seated himself on a boulder, opened the bag
and thrust his hand within. He soon discovered the red feathers among
needles of bone, trinkets of shell and jasper, and other such trifles.
He placed one in the sole of each of his moccasins, and tied them
securely to his feet.
Spotted Seal stood up and looked about him. The sky, the forests, and
the earth at his feet, were all massed in a vast blackness. A little
stirring of wind, but newly arisen, moved around him. He shivered,
though the air was mild. Thought of the potent magic against the soles
of his feet, and of the terrific flight which he had the power to take,
up and across the blackness, shook his heart and unstrung his muscles.
For a moment he wished that he had not taken the feathers, and even
thought of returning them to the chief’s lodge. But no, he would not
again face the danger of entering that lodge and crawling about so near
to that strong warrior. And the feathers were a great prize, surely one
of the greatest possessions in the world. And now they were his.
“I am a coward,” he whispered, huskily. “I have run the risk of my life
in stealing the feathers from the chief’s couch, from under his body;
and now I have not the courage to use them. It is so dark; but when
daylight comes I shall fly into the air like a bird.”
But he knew that it would not be safe for him to wait, so near the
village, for morning. The chief might awake at any moment and discover
the absence of the precious feathers; and if that should happen--well,
Spotted Seal had been long enough in Run-all-day’s village to learn to
fear that big warrior’s displeasure. So he turned his face from the
quiet lodges and set out through the darkness. After having travelled
for more than a mile, he halted suddenly and uttered an exclamation of
disgust. He had come away from the village with no weapons except the
short flint knife in his belt. The great undertaking of stealing the
bag from the chief’s lodge had driven all thought of bow, spear, and
arrows from his mind. The day was breaking now, in a clear, colourless
streak along the east. Would he return to the village, and to his own
lodge, and arm himself? The people would still be asleep, and the magic
feathers were on his feet. Yes, he would go back, for he had left many
trusty weapons in his lodge, and fish-hooks of bone, and some good
fish-lines. Even if a man can fly like a bird, he reflected, still he
must hunt and fish, if he would live.
So Spotted Seal turned back toward the village, from which he had
stolen so fearfully but a little while before. The light of day
increased swiftly, flooding the eastern sky with crimson and bright
gold. Spotted Seal quickened his pace, afraid that the village might
be astir by the time he should reach it. Soon he was able to see
the lodges in front, between the ranks of the forests, the sunlight
gleaming on their peaks. Now he advanced more cautiously, and was about
to issue from the trees when a loud cry caused him to halt and crouch
like a startled animal.
The cry was from the lips of Run-all-day, who had discovered that the
bag in which the magic feathers were kept was gone from beneath the
skins on his couch. Next moment, he ran from his lodge, and shouted for
the men of the village, old and young, to gather in all haste. They
were before him within the minute, wondering but ready. He glanced over
them quickly.
“Where is Spotted Seal?” he asked. “Go to his lodge and find him.”
The warriors rushed to the lodge of the stranger, tore it open, and
shouted that it was empty; and at the same moment Spotted Seal turned
from his contemplation of the scene and started to run. But he had
forgotten the feathers in his moccasins. The first stride lifted him
from the ground and dashed him among the tree-tops. He uttered a
loud scream of amazement and fear, which was answered angrily from
the village. The voices of the warriors, lifted in fierce and eager
hunting-cries, steadied his wits. He sprang clear of the trees and
soared away to the southward. The people of Run-all-day’s village
beheld him thus mount into their view and then fly swiftly beyond it;
and they sent a howl of rage and a few harmless arrows after him.
Spotted Seal felt like a man in the clutches of an awful dream, during
the first few minutes of his flight. The world--river, forest, and
hill--sped backward beneath him with sickening velocity. The air
sang in his ears, and his breath seemed beaten back against mouth
and nostrils. The glory of the morning and the rushing air upon his
eyeballs, almost blinded him, and the fear of falling to earth was so
strong in him that he continued, for some time, to exert every muscle,
like a runner in a race.
But, in time, he slackened his pace, for very weariness, and then he
found that he could continue in the air with but little effort and no
discomfort. He scarcely moved his feet, and yet sailed pleasantly and
safely above the forests. His eyes cleared and his breath came back to
him. He swooped gently toward the earth and swerved easily up again,
finding this manner of flight to be as pleasant as it was amazing. He
circled high; he flew this way and that; he ran across the tops of the
forest trees, just touching them with his feet. But he continued to
increase the distance between himself and the village.
It was not until noon that Spotted Seal felt the gnawings of hunger,
and realized that the knife in his belt was the only weapon in his
possession. But now he felt no fear of starving, and cared no more for
the loss of his bow and arrow than if meat was to be picked from the
ground, like berries. He would hunt as hawks hunt, with the advantage
that no cover of brush or branches could cheat him of his quarry. So
he flew low, and kept a sharp watch. A covey of grouse flew up from a
barren and lit in a thicket of small spruces. He swooped down and beat
the tops of the trees with a short stick, hovering above them all the
while. Out flew the grouse, in all directions; and in a moment one
had received a sharp blow from the stick and lay dead on the ground.
Another was soon killed by the same means. Then Spotted Seal chose a
nook that suited him, lit a fire, and set to work to cook his belated
breakfast.