weird light upon the dance. Little Wolf, who had been huddling closely
against a tepee with an unintelligible fear, now felt the delirium of
the dance for the first time. He leaped to his feet with a shout that
echoed strange and hoarse from the hills! The whole village, as if
awakened from the spell, caught up the cry and sent it trembling up the
gulches!
With the hot blood pounding at his temples, Little Wolf swung into the
frenzy of the dance. He leaped like the antelope when it catches the
scent of the hunter. He was no longer the _zhinga zhinga_ who could
never be a brave. The fanaticism of the savage was upon him. With his
head thrown back until it caught the full glare of the moon, he danced.
It was not a child’s face that the pale light struck; it was the face
of a fiend! The unfettered wind of the prairie was in his lungs! The
swiftness of the elk was in his feet! He danced until the hills danced
about him in a dance of their own. He danced until the moon reeled like
a sick man! He danced until his chest felt crushed as with the hug of
a grizzly! He danced until the stars and the moon went out, and there
was nothing but darkness and a deep, deep oppressive something, like
and unlike slumber, upon him! The sun was far up in the heavens when he
awoke lying upon the ground where he had fallen with fatigue. He rubbed
his eyes and stared about him; the circles of the dance had vanished;
the war drums were still. The warriors had ridden out of the village
into the mysterious region beyond the hills where great deeds awaited
to be done. Only the women and the children and the old men remained in
the village.
Then there came upon Little Wolf that overpowering thought of
bitterness. He was only a _zhinga zhinga_; he could never be a brave.
No, but he would be a wolf! He would live in howling loneliness among
the hills!
Yet that day as he prowled about, clad in his wolf skin, he was
conscious of not being half so good a wolf as he had been the day
before. He did not find it quite within his power to hate his people
with whom he had felt the delirium of the war dance. The snarling beat
of the war drums had awakened in him a vital interest in the great
prairie tragedy of food-getting and war-making.
Several days passed, and the warriors had not returned. Little Wolf
was sitting beside the deserted hole which was his den, thinking great
thoughts of the future as he basked in the horizontal glare of the
evening sun. As he looked with half-shut eyes across the hills, his
dreaming was suddenly arrested by the sight of what seemed a number of
bunches of grass moving along the brow of the hill on the other side
of the valley in which the village lay. As he looked and wondered at
this fantastic dance of the grasses, there was a wild shout from the
opposite hill, and a small band of Otoes, their heads covered with
grass that they might the more easily creep upon their foes, rushed
down the hillside toward the defenceless village.
Terrified by the suddenness of the attack, Little Wolf scampered into
his hole like any other little wolf, and crouched in the darkness
shivering with fear. Some time passed, during which he could hear the
wail of the women and the victorious cries of the Otoes; then the
noises ceased. With a great pang of remorse, the consciousness of his
cowardice came upon Little Wolf. He had crawled into a hole like a
badger!
Then he thought of Hinnagi.
He crawled out of the hole and ran down the hill into the village with
his wolf skin still upon him. There amid the tepees he saw the bodies
of some of the old men who had attempted resistance, but the time of
their strength was passed.
“Hinnagi! Hinnagi!” called Little Wolf. He listened, and heard only the
wail of the women from the lodges.
It was the custom of the Otoes to carry off the fairest daughters of
the enemy as the spoil of war. Little Wolf thought of this with a great
pang at his heart. A great indefinite resolve of heroism came upon
him. He ran out of the village and down the valley, keeping the trail
of the enemy. When he had gone some distance, he came upon some ponies
that the Otoes had abandoned for the fresher ones from the herds of the
Omahas.
Catching one of these, weary with a long trail, he mounted it and
turned its head down the trail of the Otoes, urging its weary limbs
into a gallop by plying his heels upon its ribs.
The shades of the valley crept slowly up the hills and the golden glow
faded from the summits. Little Wolf still urged the stumbling pony
through the darkness. As he rode, the frenzy that he had felt in the
war dance rushed through him. His temples beat and his heart throbbed
to the time of the snarling drums. To him the night breeze seemed heavy
with noble deeds awaiting to be given life and voices of thunder for
the ears of men.
He felt that in some indefinite way he would now become a strong
_waschusha_! The Otoes had stolen the ponies and the women; ah, that
included Hinnagi! He would save them; little did he know how, yet
he felt that he would save them. Then the braves would not laugh at
him any more, but would let him ride to battle with them. And maybe
sometime Hinnagi would be his squaw!
Suddenly rounding the base of a hill, the pony stopped short and
pricked up its ears, sniffing the wind that came up the gulch. Little
Wolf, aroused from his musing, soon understood the abruptness of the
pony. He smelled smoke! Slipping to the ground he crawled on his hands
and knees up the gulch in the direction from which the scent of the
smoke came.
Soon he reached the end of the gulch and, looking into a small valley,
he saw through the gloom a number of rudely constructed tepees.
Breathlessly he listened. For awhile there was no sound except the
crackling of the low fires and the flap of the blankets about the
poles. Then as he listened, there came to his ears a low, mournful wail
as of a night wind in the scrub oaks of a bluff.
Having satisfied himself that the Otoes slept soundly, Little Wolf
crawled in the direction of the wail and disappeared in the gloom.
Some moments afterward, an Otoe brave suddenly awoke from his heavy
slumber. In the weird glow of the falling fire he beheld at the
entrance of his tepee a grey wolf standing motionless.
The brave raised himself upon his elbow, uttering a grunt of terror
as of one who feels a nightmare and would cry out were not his tongue
frozen in his mouth.
The wolf with a startled movement whispered hoarsely in the Omaha
tongue: “The Omahas! They are coming! Fly! Fly!”
The Otoe brave leaped to his feet, every limb growing cold with fright.
He rubbed his eyes and stared at the darkness. The wolf had vanished.
Now an Indian believes weird things, and the warning of a talking wolf
was not a thing to be despised even though it were only dreamed. So the
Otoe brave gave a shout that rang up the gulch and made the grazing
ponies snort and tug at their lariats.
Soon the entire band was rushing about the camp.
“The Omahas! They are coming!” cried the startled brave. “Fly! Fly! For
lo, a grey wolf came to my tepee and spoke to me in a dream!”
“Fly! Fly!” echoed the whole band, delirious with fear. “Kill the
squaws!” they shouted; for in their flight they could not be burdened
with their spoils, and they would not leave them to their enemies.
There was the sound of the shrieks of women; then the galloping of
hoofs; then silence.
Two days afterward the Omahas, having returned to their stricken
village, made the trail of the fleeing Otoes thunderous with pursuing
hoofs. Suddenly topping the hill that overlooked the deserted camp of
their enemies, they beheld the bodies of the slain women strewn amid
the tepees. Over one of these a grey wolf stood.
There was a shout from the foremost of the Omaha warriors, and a dozen
arrows sang in the air and quivered in the body of the wolf. It rolled
upon its side with a cry half human!
A group of braves, riding up to the corpse of the woman, pulled the
blanket from its face.
It was Hinnagi!
With a savage kick one turned the still quivering body of the wolf upon
its back. The grey hide fell from an emaciated brown face, twitching
with the agony of death.
It was Little Wolf!
XIV
DREAMS ARE WISER THAN MEN
RAIN WALKER lay upon the brown grass without the circle of the village;
and it was the time when the maize is gathered—the brown, drear time.
He lay with ear pressed to the earth.
“What are you doing?” asked one who walked there.
“I?” said Rain Walker; and his eyes and face were not good to see as he
raised his head. The dying time seemed also in his face. “The growers
are coming up, and I am listening to their breathing,” he said.
And the questioner walked on with a strange smile; for it was not the
time of the coming of the growers.
Rain Walker stood in the centre of the village and held his face to the
sky.
“What are you doing?” said one who walked there.
“I?” and there was twilight in Rain Walker’s eyes as he looked upon the
questioner. “I shot an arrow into the air. It did not come back, so I
am always looking for it.”
And the questioner smiled and went on walking; for no arrow rises that
does not fall. A child knows that.
And the people said: “It is all because Mad Buffalo, the Ponca, took
his squaw. He took her, and she went. It was after the summer’s
feasting and talking together that she went. Rain Walker is not
forgetting.”
And Rain Walker sat much alone; he sat much alone making strange
songs not pleasant to hear. And as he made songs he made weapons. He
fashioned him a _man-de-hi_, which is a long spear, tipped with sharp
flint; and he sang. He wrought a _za-zi-man-di_, which is a great bow;
and sang all the time. They were hate songs that he sang; they snarled.
He shaped many arrows; he headed them with sharp flints and tipped
them with the feathers of the hawk; and all the time he sang. He made
a _we-ak-ga-di_, which is an ugly club. He sang to himself and to
the weapons that he made. To the harsh, snarling airs he wrought the
weapons. The songs went into them, and they looked like things that
might hate much.
And one drew near who was walking. “Why do you make war things?” said
he.
“I?” and Rain Walker threw himself upon his stomach, writhing toward
the questioner like a big snake. “I am a rattlesnake,” he said,
“_hiss-ss-ss-s!_ go away! I sting!”
And the man went, for it is not good to see a man act like a snake.
And one night the weapons were finished. All that night the people
heard the voice of Rain Walker singing. They said: “Those are the songs
of one who wishes to go on the warpath!”
And in the morning Rain Walker came out of his lodge. The squaws
trembled to see him; and the men wondered. For he had wept and his eyes
were pale. Well did the men know that he who weeps in hate is not a
child.
And Rain Walker raised a hoarse voice into the morning stillness before
all the people: “Where is my woman—she who cooked for me and made my
lodge pleasant? Tell me; for I walk there that the crows may eat me!”
The people shivered as though his voice were the breath of the first
frost.
“You need not make words, my kinsmen; I know. I walk there and the
crows shall eat me.”
He went forth from the door of his lodge and came to the place where
the head chief lived among the Hungas. He raised the door flap. “A-ho!”
said he, for the chief was within eating. “I, Rain Walker, stand before
you. I have words to give.”
“Speak,” said the chief.
“I am wronged. I wish war! I wish to see the Poncas destroyed!”
The head chief gazed long into the tear-washed eyes of Rain Walker, and
he said: “It is a big thing to take that trail. It means the wailing of
women; it means hunger; it means the crying of _zhinga zhingas_ for
fathers that lie in lonesome places and never ride back. It is a hard
path to take. I will think.”
And it happened after the thinking of the big chief that a council was
called—a coming-together of the leaders of the bands.
And the leaders came together, and sat with big thoughts. It was
evening, and among the assembled leaders sat Rain Walker. His face was
thin and cruel as a stone axe stained with blood.
Then the big chief raised his voice, and words to be heard grew there
in the big lodge. “This man who sits with us has been wronged. When our
brothers, the Poncas, were among us for the feasting and the talking
together, Mad Buffalo was among them.
“A woman is a thing not to be understood. Now she dies on long winter
trails for a man, or grows old and wrinkled suckling his _zhinga
zhingas_; and now she leaves him for another; yet it is the same woman.
I knew a wise man once; but he shook his head about these things; and
so do I.
“You know of whom I speak. It was Sun Eyes; and she was this man’s
woman. Mad Buffalo smiled, and she went with him.”
Rain Walker’s breath, that hissed through his teeth, filled up the
silence that followed. His face was thin and sharp and eager, even as
the barbed head of a war arrow.
“And this man has come to me crying for war,” continued the head chief.
“Think hard, and let us talk together.”
And he of the Big Elk band said: “Let the Poncas come down in the night
and drive away our ponies, and I will gather my band about me. But it
has not been so.”
And he of the Hawk band said: “Let the Poncas destroy our gardens, and
I will think of my weapons.”
And he of the No-Teeth band said: “Let the Poncas speak ill of us, and
my band will put on the war paint.”
Then a silence grew and the head chief filled it with few words. “Let
us pass the pipe; and all who smoke it smoke for war.”
And there were ten chiefs in the council, sitting in a circle. The
first touched the pipe lightly and passed it on as though it burned
his fingers; and so the second and third, even to the tenth. And next
to him sat Rain Walker. His breath came drily through his teeth, like
a hot wind in a parched gulch. With hands that trembled he grasped the
pipe from the tenth, who had not placed it to his lips. Rain Walker
placed it to his lips nervously, eagerly, as one who touches a cool
water bowl after a long thirst. He struck a flint and lit it. Then he
arose to his feet, tall, straight, trembling—a Rage grown into a man!
“_I smoke!_” he cried; “I smoke, and through all the sunlights that
come I shall walk alone and kill! The lonesome walker—I am he!
“I shall speak to the snake, and he shall teach me his creeping and
his stinging. I shall speak to the elk, and he shall teach me his
fleetness, his strength that lasts, his fury when he turns to fight.
And I shall speak to the hawk and learn the keenness of his eyes!”
Rain Walker puffed blue streamers of smoke into the still twilight of
the lodge, seeming something more than man in the fog he made.
“I smoke!” he cried; and his cry had changed into a song of snarling
sounds and sounds that wailed. “I smoke, and I smoke alone; my brothers
will not take the pipe with me. In lonesome places shall I walk with
my hate, and not even the lone hawk in the furthest hills shall hear
me make aught but a hate cry. I have no longer any people! I am a
tribe—the tribe that walks alone! The _zhinga zhingas_ of the women
that are not yet born shall hear my name, and it shall be like a
nightwind wailing when the spirits walk and the fires are blue! I will
forget that I am the son of a woman; I will think myself the son of a
snake, that bore me on a hot rock in a lonesome place. I will think
that I never tasted woman’s milk, but only venom stewed by the hot sun.
And now I walk alone.”
His cry had fallen to a low wail that made the flesh of the hearers
creep, although they were leaders and brave. And with eyes that peered
far ahead as into impenetrable distances Rain Walker strode out of the
lodge. The night was coming; he went forth to meet it, walking.
As he walked toward the night his thoughts were of _choobay_ (holy)
things. He thought much of the spirits, and he reached a high hill
as he walked. It was high; therefore it was a _choobay_ place. And
he climbed to the summit, bare of grass and white with flaked rocks
against the sky, that darkened fast as the Night walked.
Then he lit his pipe and made _choobay_ smoke. He wished to have the
good _wakundas_ with him, even though he walked alone. For well he
knew that no man can walk quite alone. So he extended the pipe stem
to the west, the south, the east, the north, and he cried, “O you who
cause the four winds to reach a place, help me! I stand needy!” Then
he extended the pipe stem toward the earth, and he said, “O Venerable
Man who lives at the bottom, here I stand needy!” And to the heavens he
held the stem and cried, “O Grandfather who lives above, I stand needy;
I, Rain Walker! Though my brothers treat me badly, yet I think you will
help me!”
And he felt much stronger.
Then, with his weapons about him, he set his face to the south, for
there in the flat lands of Nebraska lay the village of the Poncas.
And he walked in lonesome places all night. A coyote trotted past him
and sat at some distance. “O brother Coyote,” said Rain Walker, “I am
on the warpath; teach me your long running and your snapping!” The
coyote whined and went into a gulch.
“I walk alone, and none relieve my sorrow!”
So sang Rain Walker; and singing thus he walked into the morning. And
the prairie was grey with frost and very big, and the skies were filled
with a quiet, so that a far crow cawing faintly made a shout. Having
nothing to eat he sang, and hunger went away. His song filled the
world, for he walked alone where it was very silent.
To the hawk he cried for keenness of eyes; but the hawk circled on and
was only a speck. Nothing heard the man who walked alone.
He killed a rabbit and ate; he found a stream and drank. Then he met
the Night walking again, and they walked together until they met the
Day; and the man saw below him in the flat lands of Nebraska the
jumbled mud village of the Poncas.
And it happened that the people in the village were moving very early.
There was a neighing of ponies and a shouting of men and a scolding and
laughing of women. It was the time of the bison hunt, and they were
going forth that day.
Rain Walker lay in the brown grass at the hilltop and watched with
wistful eyes the merry ones as the long, thin file left the village,
the riders and the walkers and the drags. It is pleasant to go on the
hunt. Rain Walker felt that he would never go again.
His face softened; then suddenly it changed and became again as
a barbed war arrow. Mad Buffalo rode, and after him went Sun Eyes
walking! Her head hung low like a thing wilted by the frost. She
laughed none; she, too, seemed as one who walked alone.
When the long, thin line, like a huge snake writhing westward into the
hills, had disappeared, Rain Walker got up and walked fast. He walked
fast, for he wished to be near the place of camping when the night
came. And it was so.
He lay at a distance, watching the fires flare into the night and
feeling very hungry, for he caught the scent of the boiling kettles.
They smelled like home. And when the people had eaten and the fires had
fallen, Rain Walker said, “Now I will begin my war. I need a pony, the
Poncas have them.”
He crawled upon his hands and knees to where the herd grazed. There had
been no watch set, for all the tribes were at peace, except the tribe
that walked alone.
And Rain Walker rode away into the night. He had big thoughts as he
rode.
The hunting was poor that year; it happened so, they say. Still toward
the place where the evening goes went the tribe, peering into far
places for the bison; and ever there was one who crept near the tepees
at night and heard the words of the Poncas, which are the same as the
Omahas speak.
And they wandered, hunting, in the places where the sandhills are—the
dreary places.
And one day it happened, they say, that a coyote and a hawk and some
crows saw two men in a very lonesome place among the sand hills. They
alone saw. And the two met, riding. One was a Ponca gone forth to seek
the unappearing herd. He was tall and well made, and his pony was
spotted. The other was also even as the first, although not a Ponca;
but his pony was not spotted.
And when they met a great cry went up from the one whose pony was not
spotted. The coyote and the hawk and the crows heard and saw. It seemed
a strange cry in the silence that lived there. Then he who rode the
spotted pony turned and fled; but an arrow is swifter than a pony,
though it be wind-footed; and he who fled fell upon the sand and the
pony ran at some distance and stopped. He looked on also.
And the two men met. He with the arrow in his back arose with a groan
from the sand and growled as the other approached and dismounted. They
seemed as two who had met and parted enemies.
They seized each other and rolled upon the sand. The coyote whined, the
crows cawed, but the hawk only watched. But all the while the ponies
neighed.
And the sting of the arrow weakened one, but he fought like a bear.
He made a good fight. But the other fixed his hands upon his enemy’s
throat until the silent places were filled with a gurgling and a
rasping of breath that came hard. Then there was only silence. The
coyote ran away, the crows and the hawk flew. The ponies alone watched
now.
And the man whose pony was not spotted arose and laughed very loud—only
it was not the laugh of a glad man. Then the man who laughed stripped
off the garments of the other and put them upon himself. Then he built
a fire and lit his pipe and made _choobay_ smoke. Then he spoke to the
various _wakundas_ that were somewhere there in the silence.
“I have killed my enemy. I will burn his heart and give you the ashes,
O Grandfathers!”
The crows heard this, for they had come back looking for their feast.
And the man burned the heart of his enemy and scattered the ashes,
singing a brave song all the while. He had learned to do this from the
Kansas; it is their custom.
Then the man got on the spotted pony and rode away, bearing with him
the weapons of the man who stayed. And when he was gone the crows and
the coyote came and made harsh noises at each other, for each was
hungry, and there was a feast spread there upon the sand.
* * * * *
And it happened that evening, they say, that one rode into the Ponca
camp and went to the tepee where Sun Eyes, the Omaha woman, waited for
someone.
The man who came had his whole face hidden with a piece of buckskin,
having eye and mouth holes in it. And Sun Eyes was cooking over a fire
before her tepee.
“Ho, Mad Buffalo!” she said; “you have not found the bison. Why have
you hidden your face?”
“I found no bison,” said the man, “but I saw something in the hills
which caused me to hide my face.”
And Sun Eyes looked keenly at the man, for she thought it was some
_wakunda_ he had seen.
“Why do you speak in a strange voice?” said she; and she trembled as
she said it.
“He who has seen something is never the same again!” said he.
And while the woman wondered the two ate together. And as the man ate
he laughed very pleasantly at times like a man who is very glad.
“Why do you laugh, Mad Buffalo?” said the woman.
“Because I was very hungry for something, and I have it now,” said the
man.
And when he had ceased eating he sang glad songs, and again the woman
questioned.
“I sing because of what I saw in the hills,” said he.
And this seemed very strange to the woman. But it is not allowed that
one should question a man who has seen a _wakunda_.
And it happened that the man was pleased to speak evil words of Rain
Walker, and Sun Eyes hung her head; her eyes were wet.
Then said the man, having seen: “Why do you act so? Do you want him?
Behold! Am I not as good to see as Rain Walker?”
And he acted as one who is almost angry and a little sad. But the woman
only sobbed a very little sob, for as the chief said in the council, a
very wise man does not know the ways of a woman.
And it happened that night, they say, that, as the two slept, Sun Eyes
dreamed a strange dream that made her cry out. And the two sat up
startled.
“What is it?” said the man.
“A dream!” sobbed Sun Eyes.
“What dream?” said the man, and his voice seemed kind.
“I cannot tell; I do not wish to be beaten.”
“Tell it, Sun Eyes. Was it about—Rain Walker?”
She did not answer; the man sighed.
“Do not be afraid,” he said. And she spoke.
“I dreamed that I saw my _zhinga zhinga_ that I am carrying. And it
was Rain Walker’s. It had his face, and it looked upon me with hate.
It pushed me away when I offered my breast. It would take no milk from
me. And it seemed that its look pierced me like a barbed arrow. Thus I
awoke, and cried out.”
The woman was sobbing, and a tremor ran through the man. She felt it as
he leaned against her, and she thought it anger.
“Take me there where I came from—to the village of my people!” she
cried. “You are big and good to see, and many women will follow you!
Take me to my people! Dreams are wiser than men; the _wakundas_ send
them. I wish to go back, that my child may smile and take my breast.”
And the man rose and began dressing for the trail.
“I will take you back,” said he. “Dreams are wiser than men.”