THE BLASTED TREE AND THE BLUE-JAY
No man was very sore because he had been beaten and robbed. Fish Catch
being dead, he particularly hated Strong Hand and wanted Strong Hand’s
blood. But he was afraid to go and take it, and so he dwelt in his cave
and plotted mischief.
And because no artist can work when he is angry, he gave up scratching
pictures on bone.
No Man was undoubtedly a coward, but he was very cunning. He had schemes
in his head that nobody else had yet thought of. He had the creative
spirit.
So far it had been useful only in evolving pictures and ingenious ways
of scratching them on bone; but now, so No Man swore, it should evolve
him a weapon against which none could stand and his vengeance would be
accomplished.
He thought over the different kinds of weapons then in use; clubs with
stone-heads, wooden clubs, smooth round stones for throwing, and spears.
These last were just coming into fashion, we may say. They were short,
stiff shafts with heads of chipped flint lashed to them with deer sinew,
which if put on wet and allowed to dry, shrank and became as tight and
hard as wire. No Man thought these over, and resolved to think of
something entirely new. Clubs and spears brought you to close quarters,
and that was not the way No Man wanted to fight. Throwing stones required
a proficiency which he did not possess, and was not often fatal—even at
best. He went back to the spear. Why not throw it? This was an entirely
new idea. No use. Same business as stones—uncertain.
Then he pictured in his agile mind, how, the spear having missed, Strong
Hand would chase him with a club and beat his brains out.
He went so far as to dream this unpleasant scene several times at night.
When this happened he howled in his sleep.
No, he must have something entirely new, something that would
kill—unerringly—at a good distance. But with all his cleverness, he could
not think of just the right thing.
And if his fellow-tribesmen had not been charitable, he would have
starved to death while he was thinking.
One day the big nut tree in front of No Man’s cave was struck by
lightning, and when he got the courage to go and look, he discovered that
it had been split into fine wands, half as big as his wrist. He tried to
break one but it would only bend. When he let go it sprang back nearly
straight, but not quite because it was sappy and unseasoned.
No Man sat down and thought. His face was all covered with puzzle
wrinkles. He knew that he had an idea, but he did not know what it was.
“Never mind,” he said, “I will take some of these sticks and play with
them and, perhaps, that idea will come out.”
So with grunts and twists and heaves, he managed to break off half a
dozen of the sticks. But it was hard work, for the wood was as tough as
hickory—which was just the kind of wood it happened to be.
No Man played with his sticks and became very fond of them. At night he
hid them in his cave, but all day he had them out in the sunshine, where
he could bend them and let them snap straight, and think about the idea
that wouldn’t come out. The dryer the sticks got, the tougher they got,
the more bendable and the more springy. Sometimes No Man got angry with
his sticks for the very bendiness that he loved in them.
“Why don’t you stay bent, when I bend you?” he said. “Perhaps you don’t
think I’m the master here? I’m going to take you”—he addressed the
biggest and most refractory—“and bend you and tie your ends together with
deer sinew and then you’ll I stay bent.”
[Illustration]
He was as good as his word. He lashed one end of the deer sinew to one
end of the stick, bent the stick, took a hitch round the other end, and
made fast. Then he took the stick by the middle with one hand, the sinew
with the other, pulled and let go. The sinew twanged loudly.
“This is a good thing that I have made,” said No Man, and then like a
flash the idea that had been struggling in his head came out.
First he looked about cautiously, then he listened, and as he listened
his nostrils quivered and you could see that he was scenting as well.
There was nobody near. He then fitted a straight stick to the string of
his bow, pulled and let fly. The stick sprang into the air, and travelled
what seemed a great distance to No Man—but it did not fly true and it
wabbled. “That,” he said to himself, “is because the spear is not even
all over, and because the twang thing is not properly made. These things
require much thought.”
So he thought, and labored and experimented, and hid in his cave and
glowed with the joy of creation. In time he had made a proper enough bow.
But it was so powerful that no man of our time could have bent it, and
No Man chuckled when he saw the power with which it hurled the little
equal shafts which he had made.
But they did not fly as straight as he wished. Often the back end of the
shaft would somersault over the front end, or the shaft would hit the
object aimed at with its side instead of with its point. One day, as he
was trying to perfect this part of his weapon, a blue jay came and sat a
little way off on the top of a little pine, spread its tail feathers and
laughed at him.
“Now I will show you what flying is really like,” he said. And he let
fly, and the shaft flew as straight as a bird, but much more swiftly.
Then No Man rolled on the ground and laughed. Then he sat up and crooned,
a long inarticulate croon of triumph. And he finished up by saying:
“I am the greatest man in the world. Nobody else is nearly as great.
There is nobody of whom there is any record that is so great. I will
soon kill Strong Hand and take his woman to my cave. It is not good to
live alone when one is great. No, I will not take Strong Hand’s woman, I
will get a woman that is all new, and she shall be mine. But first I must
get some sharp points for these things. And there is no one so clever
with flint as No Foot and to him I will go.”
[Illustration]