the wall and for several hours there was no sound in the cabin but that
of heavy breathing.
At length Hank got up and walked over to the little window. A dull grey
blur had grown up in the East. It would soon be time. Hank sighed.
Suddenly the little man was aroused from his lethargy as though he had
heard a shout. He began talking rapidly.
“I stood behind the door of the cabin, and when he come in I downed
him with a club. Then I tied his hands and his feet and fastened him
to the floor. I sat beside him and spit in his face till he come to
a-groanin’. And it was a couple days before he could talk sense or
knowed who I was.
“And he begged and he cussed, but I didn’t say nothin’. He got hungry;
so I chawed at some pemmican I had left from the trip so’s he’d get
hungrier. He got thirsty; so I drank more’n I wanted so’s he’d get
thirstier.
“Said he’d get me into heaven for just one sup of water; so I went out
with my cup; I filled it with dust; I put it to his lips.
“Said he’d send me to hell if I didn’t give him just one drop. So I
give him more dust. And by and by he got luny like, and cussed like a
bull-whacker and whined like a sick woman by turns.
“God, Hank! How that man hung on!
“And by and by he seemed to get a little sense for a spell, and he
yelled out: ‘_He had blue eyes, didn’t he? Look at mine!_’ And I cuffed
him in the mouth till his teeth was bloody, ’cause his eyes was blue.”
The little man hesitated. Suddenly an expression of supreme terror came
over his face. The wolf was dead—the frightened sheep looked out of his
eyes. There was a sound of footsteps. The shabby light of early dawn
had already cheapened the glow of the guttered candle.
The door opened—a priest entered.
The little man gave a yell of terror and shrank into his corner.
“_Take it away, Hank!_” he screamed. “_Take it away!_”
Hank spoke a few words into the ear of the priest, who muttered a
prayer and went out. For some time the little man stared appealingly
into the eyes of the bigger man. When he spoke his voice was husky and
low: “Won’t you look after the woman a little, Hank? If it’s got blue
eyes——”
There was now a sound of other footsteps approaching. The little man
gasped like one who has suddenly been thrust into cold water.
“Oh, Hank!” he moaned; “hold me tight. Don’t let ’em take me! They’ll
stand me in the cart under a tree and they’ll put the rope around my
neck and they’ll drag the cart away! _Oh!_”
The footsteps were now very near the door. The little man on a sudden
became very quiet. He bit nervously at his finger-tips. His body
stiffened. His face seemed transparent.
When the sound of a hand at the latch was heard, his jaw dropped
nervelessly. He stared upon the soon-to-be-opened door with wide,
dilated eyes, in which all that had been human was burned to dust.
XII
THE MARK OF SHAME
IN the old times there were two brothers, Seha and Ishneda; and because
of hate for him, they did many acts of unkindness to a man whose name
was Shonga Saba.
And one night a man was killed and the man was Ishneda. So with the
coming of the light, a whisper ran about the village, saying “Shonga
Saba has killed.” And the whisper was true; for Shonga Saba sat in his
lodge all day, speaking no word. And when any came to speak, he lifted
his lip in a bad way and snarled. A sick wolf does so.
It happened that morning that some hunters went forth, for it was the
time for the hunting of bison and the tribe was resting on the trail.
And when the hunters returned, their eyes were like the eyes of a
scared deer. They told a story that frightened the people. They had
shot at three elk and their aim was true; but the arrows came out on
the other side—bloodless. And the elk changed into wolves, running away
very swiftly.
So they who were wise saw famine coming. They recalled old times; how
the game had often failed after a murder. For the spirit of the dead
man makes it so. And the wise old men told these things, and the old
women said it had been so; they remembered.
So there was a space of little speaking, for Fear sat upon tongues.
When the sun was going down, the people gathered about the big chief’s
tepee where the fathers were sitting with great thoughts. They did not
smoke nor talk. They shivered as the long shadows crept out of the
hills—yet it was the brown hot time.
And when it was dusk a chief made words which were whispers: “Let a
_wachoobay_ [holy man] take strong weapons and travel the back trail
till the middle of the night, that he may meet the spirit that comes
and kill it; for Famine walks with the spirit that comes, and there
shall be the wailing of children and many flat bellies.”
And the _wachoobay_ went forth with strong weapons. He took the back
trail; he looked straight ahead. And the people stared after him until
the dark came between, as he walked to meet the two comers.
Then the chief’s voice went over the people in the darkness, for
the fires were not lit; an enemy was coming, and there is safety in
darkness: “Let him who killed come among us.” So one went and brought
the man.
He stood among the people, felt but not seen; and with him came a
sobbing that grew into words: “I, Shonga Saba, am here; and I have
killed. Have my people seen a bison bull stung with a fly until he
tore the earth with his horns? It was so. After a long time of heat the
storm comes out of the night; it does angry deeds, and in the morning
it is past. It was so. My breast aches. I struck my enemy, but myself I
struck also. Something has died within me. So I go to do as the others
have done. I will take the punishment.”
And though the people did not hear nor see him go, they knew that he
was gone. That night only the children slept.
When Shonga Saba reached his tepee, he did that which was the custom.
He cut his hair, he took off his garments, he smeared his forehead with
mud. Of tears and dust he made the mud. Upon his forehead he put the
mark of his shame.
From the peak of his tepee, where the smoke comes out, he tore the
rawhide flap. It was blackened with the smoke of many fires. About his
shoulders he bound it; and it was the garment of his shame.
And then he went forth from the camp. He pitched a lonesome tepee
without the circle of his people; for thus he should live four summers
and four winters. It was the custom.
And in the first light his woman came to him with water and cooked
meat. Also, she brought moaning. Shonga Saba spoke no word nor looked
up. The mud of tears and dust was upon his forehead, and the blackened
garment of shame was upon his shoulders. There was a lump in his
throat; but the water did not wash it away. There was an emptiness in
him; but the meat did not fill it. And when he cut the meat, which was
well cooked, the man groaned, for blood ran forth and made the food
look like a wound.
Again the tribe took up the trail; they wanted to find the bison, for
there was little meat. And the man followed at the distance of an
arrow’s flight behind his moving people, for such was the custom. But
no thunder of bison came from the brown valleys where the trail went;
neither was there any dust cloud of pawing hoofs. And the old women
remembered old-time famines, and their hands trembled as they pitched
the tepees in the dusk that ended the day’s toil.
And in the mornings the old men gazed into the shining distance,
looking from under their hands with eyes that glared as in battle. And
all day, sweating and toiling on the trail, the people ate the distance
with hungry eyes.
Round bellies flattened; for the evil days had come.
And the man who had killed saw all this. He too walked with hunger and
something bigger than the food-wish. Also lonesomeness was ever by his
side. In the nights he felt the mark upon his forehead like the sting
of an angry knife; and the smoke-flap was as a fire upon his shoulders.
And one night he said: “I have brought these days of toiling without
food upon my people. It was for this that my mother groaned at my
coming. I should have been the food of wolves on that day when my eyes
were not yet open. I will go away, for evil walks with me, and my feet
scatter trouble in the trail. My woman is as one who has no man, and my
children are as a stranger’s children. I will walk far and seek peace
among other peoples, among strange hills and valleys.”
And he went in the night.
He was far into the lonesome places—and it was morning. He was weak
with the night walking, for famine had made him thin. So he lifted his
face and his hands to the sun. His palms he turned to the young light
and he spoke earnest words to the Spirit: “Wakunda, trouble have I met,
and trouble have my people met through me. Help me to walk in the good
trail!”
And as he said the words, a cloud passed across the sun; it was like
a smutch of mud across a shining forehead. The man who had killed,
groaned. He hid his face in the grass that he might not see the mark of
his shame. But as the day grew older the hunger pinched more, and the
man got up, set his face away from the sun, and went on further into
the lonesome places. And in the evening he killed a rabbit with his bow
and arrows. And as the rabbit leaped up at the sting of the arrow, it
made a pitiful sound like that of a man struck deep with a knife in his
sleep.
And the man fled, for a strange sickness had gripped him. The mark
upon his forehead burned, and the smoke-flap was as a heavy burden upon
his shoulders.
In the last light he found wild turnips and ate. They could not cry
out; they could not bleed. And then sleep came, but not rest. While his
body slept, his spirit killed Ishneda over and over again. And he saw
the first light with haggard eyes.
And when he had eaten again of the wild turnips he said: “I will go
to the village of the Poncas; they will take me in, for I will speak
soft words.” That day he travelled, and the next and the next. But two
others had travelled faster than he—Famine and the Story of his bad
deed; for none travel so fast as these. And these two had travelled
across the prairie together.
And after much walking, Shonga Saba came to the top of a hill and
turned hungry eyes upon the Ponca village in the valley. It was the
time when the old day throws big shadows. He stood thin, bent against
the sky. The smoke-flap at his shoulders lifted in the wind that the
eyes in the valley might see.
And a dead hush crept over the village; the sound of children died; the
people disappeared. Full of wonder and fear, the lean, lonesome one
walked with halting step down the dry hillside. He entered the village,
and it was as a place where all are dead.
He came to the centre of the village. He lifted his palms and made a
piteous cry, which was like a dry wind moving in a wilderness. And
then the head of an old man was thrust forth from a tent-flap, and from
it came a husky voice: “Begone, O Bringer of Famine!”
And the man went forth. His head was bent, his shoulders stooped as
with a weight. He walked far and met the Night. He lay down in its
shadow. His forehead ached, and the smoke-flap was as a burning brand.
And in the darkness he made a cry: “Wakunda, very far have I walked
seeking peace; but it has fled before me. Help me to find the good
trail!”
He was very tired, and on a sudden it was day again, and the dew was
upon him. He found wild turnips and ate. He drank at a little creek
that ran very thin among dying reeds. Then he walked, he knew not
where. But now and then he whispered bitter words into the lonesome
air: “In the land of the spirits is peace; there I would walk, but I
cannot find the trail.”
The day was very hot. The prairie wavered in the heat; the bugs droned;
the light wind sighed in the dry grasses like a thirsty thing. The
far hills seemed floating in a lake of thin oil. They looked lean and
hungry, yellow as with a fever; and upon their sides the dry earth was
broken like old sores.
Into the heat-drone the man sent his sighing. His feet were heavy; he
wished to die, he wished to die.
And when the day was past the highest place, a rumbling grew below the
rim of the earth, like the galloping of many bison—a sound of anger.
And a cloud arose, black and flashing with fires across its front. The
sky was as an eye of fever and the cloud closed slowly over it like a
big eyelid.
Then a hush fell. There was no moving of air, no droning of bugs. The
prairie held its breath; and the cloud came on. It moved in silence. It
threw long, ragged arms ahead of it, long, eager arms. And out of it
leaped flames, like the spurt and sputter of a wind-blown camp fire in
the night.
And in the hush the man heard strange sounds on a sudden. There was
a crying and a shouting of battle cries. He reached the bald top of
a hill and saw below him a fighting of many warriors. Bitterly they
fought, as wolves fight in hunger. There was the lifting and falling
of war clubs, the shrieking of arrows. Sounds of horror cut the big
stillness like many knives.
And the man’s heart leaped with joy—for here was death; this was the
beginning of the trail that led to peace.
With a cry he rushed from the summit. He ran with very young legs to
meet Death, for he wished to die.
But on a sudden the warring bands ceased crying. The war clubs were
not lifted, the arrows flew no more. On rushed the thin, bent runner
from the hilltop, and the smoke-flap flaunted itself behind him. As in
a dream the warriors stared upon the wild runner. Then a hoarse shout
went up: “The Famine Bringer! The Famine Bringer!” Stricken with a
common fear, they fled. And the storm broke upon the valley. It poured
down water and fire upon one who lay there upon his face. It roared, it
shrieked, it flamed about him; but he moved not.
His breast ached with the ache of the lonesome, for even Death had fled
him. And when the storm had passed, the stillness came back like a new
pain. The drenched man arose and saw the blood-red sun slip down a
ridge of steaming hills.
And near him lay one who had been killed with an arrow. The feathers
stood forth from his breast. His face had the look of much pain; his
hands gripped at the wet grass. And the lonesome one looked long upon
the dead man, thinking deep thoughts. “Even the dead have pain,” he
said, “and they seek to hold to the good earth. See how he clutches it!
I shall live and follow my trail, for on all trails there is pain; and
Wakunda wishes me to live.”
So he dressed himself in the garments of the dead warrior who needed
them no more. He threw away the smoke-flap, and in a gully that roared
with rapid waters, he washed the smutch from his forehead—the mud of
dust and tears. And he said: “Now will I walk straight again, for the
marks of my shame are gone. I will seek the Otoes, and they will take
me in.”
Is it not the way of a man to seek better things?
And it happened that in the village of the Otoes was much joy and much
feasting. For the bison had come back; the famine was ended.
And it was dark. The lonesome one sighted the feast fires from far
off and caught the far-blown scent of boiling kettles. They had the
home-smell. His heart was glad as he entered the village and went in
among the feast fires. And they about the fires said: “Who walks in
from the night?” And Shonga Saba said: “A lonesome man, one with many
stories to tell.”
They sat him down, for stories are good with feasting. And he told a
story while the meat went round and the kettles simmered and the embers
crackled and went blue. And as he told, the people gathered close about
to hear. They leaned forward, they breathed heavily, they stared. For
his story was of a brave one who suffered much; it sounded true; there
was an ache in his words. Also it had in it the muttering of war drums,
the wails of women in the night, the snarl of bow thongs, the beat of
hoofs.
But as the teller raised his face, glowing with the noble deeds of
which he told, he saw the circled mass of staring faces, moulded with
the terrors of the tale and lit blue with falling embers.
What did they see that they stared so? _The mark!_
The story-teller leaped to his feet. As a wounded man he cried out: “It
is not washed away!” He threw his arms across his forehead and fled
through the parting throng into the night.
And when he had run far from something that followed yet made no sound,
he cast himself down on the prairie and cried to the Spirit: “Wakunda,
with water I washed it away, but it is not gone! Am I a wolf to howl
always in the wilderness? I have the ache for home. I wish to hear
laughter and be clean. Help me to find the trail!”
All night his words felt about in the dark for Wakunda.
The next day his wanderings began anew. And after many sunlights the
first frost gripped the prairie, and the snows came. More and more the
lonesome one thought of the fires of his people. Through the shivering
nights the tang of the home-smoke filled his nostrils; and day by day
the homeache grew.
So his weary feet followed his longing, and the trail led home. But
there was no greeting. In an empty lodge without the village he made a
fire that held the winter off but left him shivering. And once again
his woman came with sobbing and a downcast face, bringing water and
meat. He ate and drank, yet thirst and hunger stayed. In the nights he
looked wistfully upon the fires of his people burning little days out
of the darkness. He wished to be beside them and hear the laughter, for
the famine had passed, and there was joy.
And often by day, Seha, the brother of the man who was killed, came
with taunting and words that wounded as a whip-thong. But the lonesome
one made no answer, for having suffered much, he was wise. And this
was against the law of the fathers; so it happened one day that Seha
was bound to a post in the centre of the village, and the whippers were
there with elkhorn whips to punish Seha.
Then was a strange deed done, which even yet the old men tell of to
the youths. From his lodge ran the lonesome one and stood before the
whippers. The long silence he broke with words: “Spare Seha and bind me
to the post, for mine was the bad deed. I have suffered much and now I
can see.”
And the old fathers, who were wise, said: “Let it be as the man says.”
And it was done. The lonesome one was bound to the post and took the
lashes on his back. He made no cry, nor was there any wincing of his
face. And it happened that in his pain he sought out the face of Seha
in the throng. It was no longer hard with hate.
And then, suddenly, as the whips hissed about him, a light went across
the face of the lonesome one—a strange, bright light. And seeing this,
the arms of the whippers faltered, for it was very strange.
Then in the silence that fell, the man raised a soft voice: “At last
the mark has left me! Bring my children to look upon me, and let my
woman sing! I have found peace; for the mark of tears and dust is
gone—I know not how.”
XIII
THE BEATING OF THE WAR DRUMS
HE could never be a strong _waschusha_ (brave). When he was born he
was no bigger than a baby coyote littered in a terrible winter after a
summer of famine! That was what the braves said as they sat in a circle
about the fires; and often one would catch him, spanning his little
brown legs with a contemptuous forefinger and thumb, while the others
made much loud mirth over this bronze mite who could never be a brave.
Then the object of their mirth would pull away from his tormentors,
displaying his teeth with a whimper that was half a growl, and would
slink away into the shades where the firelight did not reach. Whereupon
the braves would call after him in their good-natured cruelty: “Mixa
Zhinga! Mixa Zhinga!” (Little Wolf).
So, in accordance with certain infallible psychic laws, Little Wolf
became what he was considered, and fulfilled his wild name to the
letter.
One day in one of his most vulpine moods, while trotting among the
hills on all fours, stopping now and then to sit upon his haunches
and give forth a series of howls in imitation of his namesakes, he
had discovered a deserted wolf’s hole in the hillside, of which he
immediately made himself the growling possessor.
To make this play metempsychosis the more real, he had spirited from
the tepee of his father a complete wolf’s hide, clad in which he spent
the greater part of the time prowling about among the hills with an
intense wolfish hate for all humankind gnawing at his heart.
One summer evening Little Wolf, sitting upon the top of the hill, gazed
down upon the circle of tepees which was the village of his people. As
he looked, the silent vow he had taken, never to go back to his tribe
again, but to be a wolf with the wolves, slowly became shapeless, then
indistinct, then it vanished altogether. For the smoke, rising slowly
from the various fires, told a bewitching tale of supper to his eyes;
and the light wind brought to his keen nostrils the scent of boiling
kettles, which acted as a sort of footnote to the tale of the smoke,
finally clinching the argument of the text!
So the little wolf fell from his high resolve as the wolf skin fell
from his back, and he forthwith trotted down the hillside, at every
step degenerating, as he thought, into just a common _zhinga zhinga_
(baby).
Having cautiously approached a fire, Little Wolf sat upon the ground
with his knees huddled up to his chin, and watched the deft hands of
the women tending the baking of the squaw corn cakes and the yellow
_watuh_ (pumpkin) in the embers.
The old women, their backs bent with their loads, carried bundles
of faggots from a thicket near by and placed them upon the fires,
that flared up with a sound like the wind’s, making a small circular
day amid the gathering shadows. The air was pleasant with the scent
of boiling kettles, some filled with the meat of the _tae_ or the
_tachuga_ (bison and antelope); some ebullient with the savoury _zhew
munka_, the tea of the prairie. And as Little Wolf sat and looked upon
the suggestive scene, a great wave of sympathetic kindness passed
through his small body.
And especially did the wolfishness of his little heart melt into an
indefinite feeling of love for humanity as his eyes followed the form
of the maiden Hinnagi as she bustled with her mother about the kettles.
Already in his childish mind he was wielding the stone axe with mighty
force in some mysterious battle among the hills; and it was all for
her. His eyes grew big with the dream he was dreaming. He stared into
the fire as he thought the thoughts of ambitious youth.
The flame fell and crept into the embers. Then reality came back as the
shadows came. Something of the wonted wolfishness tugged at his heart
as he thought of what the braves had said. He could never be a strong
brave! With an awful bitterness this thought grew upon him, and even a
full stomach could not quite ease the pang.
After the evening meal the war drums were brought into the open space
about which the tepees were built. For upon the morrow the entire band
of the tribe’s warriors would go out against their enemies, the Sioux,
and to-night they would dance the war dance that their courage might
not fail.
The drums were placed in a small circle; before each an old man, who
had seen many battles ere the eagle glance faded from his eye, sat
cross-legged, holding a drumstick in either hand. About these the
braves gathered in a larger circle. The yellow and red light of the
boisterous camp fires made more terrible their faces fierce with the
war paint.
In another circle at some distance from that of the braves, awaited
the women, dressed in their brightest garments of dyed buckskin. At a
signal from the head chief of the tribe, the snarling thunder of the
war drums began. The two motionless circles suddenly became two rings
of gyrating colour. The beaded moccasins twinkled like a chain of
satellites swinging about the faggot fire for a sun. The shout of the
braves arose above the cadence of the drum beats, and the monotonous
song of the women grew like a night wind in a lonesome valley.
Tum-tum-um-um, tum-tum-um-um, went the drums, ever faster, ever louder,
inciting the dancers to delirious fury. The neglected fires dwindled
into embers. The shout of the braves and the droning of the women
ceased. Darkness fell upon the circles. The dancers moved swiftly
through the dusk like ghosts in a midnight orgy. There was no sound
save the snarling beat of the drums and the shuffle of wild feet.