Life in the Quahada village went very happily for Star and Songbird
after the return of Quannah and his warriors. The white men had
evidently withdrawn from their chase of the Comanches, and Quannah did
not intend to cause further trouble unless the buffalo hunters or other
white people encroached upon the land which the Quahadas considered
their own.
The Old White Horse and the Big Gray Horse seemed to be very well
satisfied among the Indian ponies, but Star was a special favourite.
More than once his mother chided him for liking the white men's horses
better than older friends among the Comanche ponies. Sometimes she even
drove him away from the cavalry horses and forced him to stay with the
others. At such times Star did his best to escape her watchful eyes and
return to his friends, but it was not an easy thing to accomplish. When
his efforts failed, he would call loudly to the two horses, and their
answers told him that they understood he had not deserted them.
"Why do you want to stay beside them all the time?" Hawk asked him one
day when Running Deer had shouldered and nipped Star until he was in the
very midst of the herd.
"Because they teach me so many things our ponies do not know," he
answered quickly.
"What can a white man's horse tell a Comanche pony?" Hawk said
scornfully.
"A great many things," was Star's reply. "I listen to them talking to
each other about big camps of white men, of strange houses that move as
swiftly as lightning, and of the wonderful flag that floats every day
from a tall white lodge-pole in the place where they live with many
horses and soldiers."
"We have lodge-poles, too," Hawk spoke impatiently. "Can their flag
bring rain like the Thunder Bird that lives in the forks of the pole of
the Sacred Sun Lodge?"
"No," Star shook his head, "I asked the Big Gray Horse about that, and
told him how the Sun caught the Thunder Bird and kept it prisoner in the
forks of the tall pole of the Sacred Sun Lodge, and that no rain could
fall until our Medicine Men and warriors vanquished the Sun and set the
Thunder Bird free; and how the Thunder Bird spread its great black wings
and rain fell from its pinions upon the thirsty earth, so that the grass
and flowers awoke from their sleep."
"Can their flag do that?" demanded Hawk.
"No; but he said that the flag on the lodge-pole meant that all those
who came to it for help are treated kindly, and all who live under it
are protected. I asked him if he thought that it could make the buffalo
hunters and other men with fire-sticks leave the Quahadas in peace. He
and the Old White Horse both said they were sure of it, if Quannah would
lead us all there to talk."
"That was what the messengers from the Cheyenne, Arapahoe, and Kiowa
camps said to Quannah," retorted Hawk. "The white men wanted them to
make a treaty of peace in a big Medicine Lodge, and then the Indians
would go and live where the white men put them. Quannah did not do it.
He was wise. He would not trust the white people, nor let them rule the
Quahadas, as though we were all captives. Who can tell what they would
do afterward? Why do you trust the two strange horses and their
stories?"
"They are my friends!" Star's eyes were angry, his ears flattened
backward, his lips twitched so that his teeth showed. As he thrust his
head forward, Hawk jumped aside to avoid Star's strong teeth, and
Running Deer stood in front of her colt.
"Why do you fight Hawk?" she snorted as Star moved out of her reach.
"You and he have played together all your lives. His mother and I grew
up together, and our mothers slept side by side before I was born. These
strangers are not of our people. They will leave us when they have a
chance to return to their own people, but we shall remain together until
we die. That is right. The white men and their horses have their own
ranges; the Indians and their ponies have other places. Whenever they
meet there is trouble and sorrow. When they dwell apart there is peace.
So why should you quarrel with Hawk about these strange horses of the
white men?"
"I am sorry," spoke Hawk, edging more closely toward Star.
The other pony moved quickly and rubbed his nose against Hawk's
shoulder, saying, "I'm sorry, too. I was to blame, but I do like to
listen to them talking."
"Let me go with you now and hear them," suggested Hawk.
"Yes, go!" said Running Deer, and she watched the two ponies trotting
together toward the Old White Horse and the Big Gray Horse, who showed
their pleasure at having the youngsters join them.
A couple of hours later as the ponies rested beside the big horses under
the shade of a tree, Star scrambled hastily to his feet, saying,
"Songbird is calling me. Good-bye!"
It did not take long for him to reach her side. She was standing before
the opening of the big tepee and a short tether was in her hand. Star
bent his head so that she could slip the crude bridle back of his ears
and around his nose, but there was no bit to be thrust into his mouth.
Then without saddle or blanket she prepared to mount. Grasping his
shaggy mane in her strong little hands, she sprawled against his side
and balanced her body across his back, after which she wriggled until
she sat erect, with the single strand of rawhide in her left hand.
Star knew that the pressure of her knee meant for him to turn one way or
the other. When she leaned forward and her bare brown legs clamped
closely against his body, the pony understood, without whip or spur,
that he must go faster. The lightest pull on the rawhide loop around his
nose caused him to stop at once. Besides all this, the tones of
Songbird's voice guided him, and he always did his best to obey and
please her, because he loved her.
Often Songbird's pet fawn accompanied them. The fawn thought it great
sport to out-run the pony, but at times Star reached slyly to nip the
little creature, which took delight in teasing the pony and getting in
front of it.
Some days the other Comanche children rode with Songbird, and when they
raced their ponies Star could easily outdistance the rest. Most of the
children rode the old ponies that were too stiff to be of value in
trades. The Comanches traded ponies instead of using money like white
people. The children bragged one to the other, about the number of
ponies his, or her, father owned, and how fast those ponies could run.
Songbird did not talk like the rest. Everyone knew that her father,
Quannah, had the most ponies of any warrior in any Indian tribe, and
that his ponies were faster and more beautiful than all others.
She thought proudly of the pony races during festivals. When only the
ponies of the Quahadas ran, Quannah's ponies were not among them, for he
would not humiliate his own warriors by showing how slowly their ponies
ran. But when the Cheyennes, Kiowas, or Arapahoes brought their best
ponies to race against those of the Quahadas, Running Deer was led into
the line of strange ponies.
As she stood among them, her bright eyes would note each lithe body,
each nervous nostril, and the outlines of steeled muscles. Measuring her
rivals she would toss her dainty head, and when the signal was given,
would shoot away like an arrow from the other ponies and reach the goal
ahead of them. Then amid wild shouts the Quahadas would gather about
Running Deer who had upheld the honour of the tribe.
Later the defeated warriors would go back to their own camps, but the
best ponies would be left behind with the herd of the Quahadas. Songbird
knew that some day Star would race for the honour of the tribe. So while
the other children raced and bragged, Songbird watched and was silent.
The games that Songbird played with the children were not so very
different from many games played by white children in other parts of the
world. Both boys and white girls shot arrows at targets, or, mounted on
high stilts, chased one another between the tepees. There were wooden
tops carved from tough limbs of trees, and the boys made whistles of
reeds on which they blew music that the Indians loved.
Tiring of this they would turn to playing "Wolf" or "Chaser," which is
much like "Tag," or it might be a game of "Hide Things" which was the
name for "Hide and Seek." "Cat's Cradle" was played with strings
of tough buckskin, and a great favourite among the boys was a
breath-holding contest in which the boy who could hold his breath the
longest was the winner, and the one who was first to fail was ridiculed
by boys and girls.
Songbird and the other little girls had dolls which the squaws made for
them. These were of buckskin painted gaily, and hair from the tails of
ponies was sewed to the heads. The women used threads of fine sinews,
and sharply pointed bits of stout wood pushed the queer thread through
the material. That was the way the Comanche women sewed, even in making
their tents, their clothes, and their moccasins.
Keeping house and having feasts like dinner parties made many merry
hours. The boys, who scorned to play with the dolls, were very glad to
join the games when they saw cactus-fruit, pine nuts, dried wild
berries, dried acorns, and maybe deer meat that had been cut into long
narrow strips and hung in the sun until cured so that it could be eaten
without being cooked. There might even be little cakes made of dried
buffalo meat that had been pounded between two stones and mixed with
dried berries.
Instead of candy they chewed dried mesquite beans, which were juicy
inside, and though sweet were tart. Possibly a special treat had been
prepared for the little housekeepers, and their mothers had given them
cactus-fruit. Eagerly the children watched the gorgeous yellow blossoms
form on the prickly-pear bushes, and when the petals fell, leaving the
delicious fruit, they knew enough not to touch it, for it was thickly
encrusted with tiny stickers. These were so fine as to be almost
invisible and were very painful as they worked into the flesh.
A tough stick was used to knock the fruit from the edge of the thick,
flat, fleshy leaves that formed great clumps of the prickly-pear cactus.
The thorns and skin were then removed with sharp sticks, or by placing
for a few moments in hot ashes. The feast usually wound up with chewing
gum obtained from the sweet sap of certain trees. It oozed through the
bark, formed into dry lumps, and was all ready for any little Comanche
who happened near.
So the men hunted deer and buffalo and made plans to protect their
families and homes, and the women searched for roots, nuts, and berries
for food and medicine, made clothes and cooked, while the children
played their games, like other children all over the world, and listened
to stories told in the tepees and by the camp fires, until the Spirit of
Darkness rode his big black horse across the sky.
* * * * *
Then the children of the Quahada Comanches went into their tepee-homes,
curled up on their beds of furry robes and slept.
But Songbird knew that Quannah and the wisest and bravest men of the
tribe sat in the big tepee talking very gravely, night after night, when
they thought that she was sound asleep. She heard enough to understand
that they did not think the white men had given up the fight, but would
come again some day, and come in greater numbers to conquer the
Quahadas.