THE QUEST
Having restored peace to his beloved islanders, Wise-as-a-she-wolf
allowed Featherfoot to return to his father, and devoted himself to the
search for the red feathers. He questioned every inhabitant of every
village in the island, and beat every grove for his cunning enemy. He
investigated the mountains and the rocky coasts, and scanned every
foot of the barrens; but not a sign of Bright Robe rewarded him. But
from Little Heron, he learned of the fugitive’s visit to the secluded
valley, and of his furtive departure in the night. Assured that he
was no longer in the island, he crossed the Narrow Sea, and repeated
the question which he had put to Black Eagle once before, when on the
trail of Spotted Seal. And Black Eagle made the same answer. “I saw a
man flying over the mountains, ten days ago, toward the land of the
giants,” he said. “Have you not yet caught the warrior who stole the
magic feathers?” he asked.
But the good magician had no time to spend in replying to foolish and
impertinent questions. In a second he was high above the village again,
speeding toward the black places where the giants lived their sullen
and stupid lives. He found Stone Hand squatting before the entrance
of his mound-like lodge, and questioned him from a distance. But it
happened that the chief of the giants was in even a worse temper than
usual, for he had but just eaten too largely of bear meat that was not
very fresh.
“Who asks me questions,” he cried, “disturbing me when I am in pain?
Show yourself, whoever you are.”
The good magician showed himself at a safe distance from the
disgruntled giant. “I am Wise-as-a-she-wolf,” he said, and again asked
if anything had been seen of Bright Robe, or of a man flying in the air.
“I know nothing of such things, save that Crack Bone once thought he
could fly like a little bird,” growled the giant. “And it did him no
good,” he added, with a grunt of laughter.
The magician could read nothing in that hairy, dirty, lowering face.
The skull was too thick to allow the workings of the little brain to
affect the glassy eyes. But his suspicions were aroused. “You are
encased in stupidity like a seal in blubber,” said he, and vanished
from the giant’s indifferent sight. But he did not go away. For three
days he continued in the vicinity of the giants’ village, listened
to their infrequent talk without learning anything, and examined
at one time or another, the interior of every lodge. This led to
nothing, however, and he was forced to confess to himself that he had
mistaken the giant’s stupidity and ill-temper for an intelligent and
preconceived attempt to evade his questions.
So he left the giants and travelled northward. In the Land of Little
Sticks he searched the camps of lonely hunters, but found no trace of
Bright Robe. Passing on, he reached the land of the blubber-eaters,
where the streams and lakes were already frozen. At last he happened
upon the village which his enemy had so recently visited, and from
which he had taken the furs. On learning what these people had to tell
him, he set out for the land of eternal winter, and for Bright Robe’s
lodge of ice.
For the time of two days and nights (though the sky changed not)
Wise-as-a-she-wolf ran straight on the frozen air, between the white
fields and the ruddy north-lights. He was clothed in many garments of
fur, for well did he know the cold of those regions, where only the
great white wolves, that are the care of the northern gods, can live.
He had brought food, and he ate as he ran. The north-lights shook and
clashed before him and above him, blew like flame to right and left
and came crackling back again. He heard the hunting-cries of the white
wolves, as they ran on a mad, age-old trail, the scent of which was
nowhere but in their own blind souls. And when they passed beneath him,
white as frost and death, he sprang upward between the curtains of the
north-lights.
[Illustration: “THEY PASSED BENEATH HIM, WHITE AS FROST AND DEATH.”]
He came to the wall of ice, beyond which live the four gods of the
north; and yet he had seen nothing of Bright Robe or his lodge. He did
not cross the wall, for he felt that his enemy was in no position to
court the attention of the gods; and the cold gnawed him, and was like
the hand of death against his heart, so he turned and sped southward.
Again he hunted through the lands of the little fat men with smoky
faces, and among the lonely hunters, and westward even to the tribes
who wear crests of feathers that hang down their backs as far as
their belts, and whose numbers are as a thousand times the numbers of
the islanders. Then his suspicions of the giants awoke again, and he
returned to their country and watched them narrowly. For three days he
studied them, and though he learned much of their savage natures and
huge appetites, he saw no signs of Bright Robe and nothing to indicate
that they knew anything of that vanished magician.
Again Wise-as-a-she-wolf visited Black Eagle; and now he sat in the
big lodge, and had the warriors brought together, to hear his talk.
And while he sat among the great men of the tribe, a lad stole up to
the cave and warned Bright Robe that his enemy was in the village. So
Bright Robe, from well within the cave, lightened a great rock that
lay without with his magic, and then told the lad to place it in the
entrance, so that the cave would be hidden. The boy did as he was
told, and lifted the great stone into the mouth of the cave, much to
his own amazement. Then he went back to the village, thinking himself
a great magician. From within, Bright Robe returned its weight to the
stone, and it filled the mouth of the cave as if it were a part of the
everlasting foundation of the mountain. Then he retired by the back
way, flew over the western cliff, and hid himself among tumbled granite
boulders and clumps of spruce-tuck.
Wise-as-a-she-wolf, seated at his ease in the chief’s lodge, with the
savage warriors around him, took note of many things.
“Those are fine robes of fox-skins,” said he, with his glance on one of
the articles of the fugitive magician’s gift.
“My people are great hunters,” replied Black Eagle, calmly.
“And how is it that you are not hunting to-day?” he asked, having seen
all the warriors lolling about the village.
“The mighty Wise One is interested in his humble servants,” remarked
Black Eagle, staring haughtily at his unwelcome visitor.
Wise-as-a-she-wolf nodded, and met the other’s gaze with severe eyes.
“Then it will grieve the Wise One to hear that our storehouses are well
supplied with food of other people’s killing and curing,” said the
chief. “The good magician is a lover of peace; but we are fighting-men.
And we make war when we please, and when the hunting is poor we take
what we want from lesser tribes.”
He spoke threateningly, and all his warriors glared at the quiet
youth in their midst, and laid their hands on their weapons. But
Wise-as-a-she-wolf lost nothing of his habitual composure.
“As you are not of my people,” he said, “it is no affair of mine how
you fight, or how you fill your storehouses, so long as you do not slay
or rob the clans of the island. In this matter of answering harmless
questions, however, I must beg you to assume a gentler manner. Though I
am a hater of bloodshed and quick to forgive injury, yet I am sometimes
moved to sudden wrath.”
“My manners were never of the best, great chief,” replied Black Eagle,
cowed by the other’s hinted threat. “I am sorry that you are displeased
with me and my people, for I am ignorant of neither your power nor
virtue.”
“You speak fairly,” replied the good magician; “and I ask no more of
the chief of a savage and deceitful race. I have given my life’s work
to my own people, and still the blood-thirst and greed are strong
in many of their hearts. I could do nothing inside the space of an
hundred seasons to mend your ways save by slaying you, and I am not a
god, to judge if you are worthy to live or not.”
“You speak rashly, even for a mighty magician,” said one of the
warriors. “Here we sit around you, with our hands on our weapons, and
yet you insult us at your pleasure.”
“I fear your weapons no more than twigs in the hands of children,”
replied Wise-as-a-she-wolf, calmly. “But throw a club, or draw a knife,
and your doom is upon you.”
The warriors glanced at one another, impressed by their visitor’s
manner and voice, and yet doubtful of the truth of his words. Magic was
a great thing, but muscles and clubs and weight of numbers were also
great things. Black Eagle looked at them, and shook his head.
“He speaks the truth,” he murmured. Then, turning to the magician,
“What do you want of us, great chief?” he asked.
“I want you to tell me if you have seen anything of Bright Robe, who
runs upon the air,” said Wise-as-a-she-wolf.
“We saw the figure of a warrior flying northward, many days ago, as I
told you before,” replied the chief. “Did you hear nothing of him,
among the blubber-eaters?”
“I heard of him from a village which he robbed,” answered the magician.
Then he arose, passed out of the lodge, and vanished in the sunlight.