Long, long ago, Red Robe and Talking Rock were young men in the
Blackfeet camp. In their childhood days and early youth their life
had been hard. Talking Rock was an orphan without a single relation
and Red Robe had only his old grandmother.
This old woman, by hard work and sacrifice, had managed to rear the
boys. She tanned robes for the hunters, made them moccasins worked
with porcupine quills, and did everything she could to get a little
food or worn out robes and hide, from which she made clothes for her
boys. They never had new, brightly painted calf robes, like other
children. They went barefoot in summer, and in winter their toes
often showed through the worn out skin of their moccasins. They had
no flesh. Their ribs could be counted beneath the skin; their cheeks
were hollow; they looked always hungry.
When they grew to be twelve or fifteen years old they began to do
better, for now they could do more and more for themselves. They
herded horses and performed small services for the wealthy men;
then, too, they hunted and killed a little meat. Now, for their
work, three or four dogs were given them, so with the two the old
woman owned, they were able to pack their small lodge and other
possessions when the camp moved, instead of carrying everything on
their backs.
Now they began to do their best to make life easier for the good old
woman who had worked so hard to keep them from starving and
freezing.
Time passed. The boys grew old enough to go out and fast. They had
their dreams. Each found his secret helper of mysterious power, and
each became a warrior. Still they were very poor, compared with
other young men of their age. They had bows, but only a few arrows.
They were not able to pay some great medicine man to make shields
for them. As yet they went to war only as servants.
About this time Red Robe fell in love.
In the camp was a beautiful girl named M[=a]-m[)i]n´--the
Wing--whom all the young men wished to marry, but perhaps Red Robe
loved her more than all the rest. Her father was a rich old medicine
man who never invited any except chiefs and great warriors to feast
with him, and Red Robe seldom entered his lodge. He used to dress as
well as he could, to braid his hair carefully, to paint his face
nicely, and to stand for a long time near the lodge looking
entreatingly at her as she came and went about her work, or fleshed
a robe under the shelter of some travois over which a hide was
spread. Then whenever they met, he thought the look she gave him in
passing was friendly--perhaps more than that.
Wherever Ma-min´ went her mother or some woman of the family
went with her, so Red Robe could never speak to her, but he was
often near by. One day, when she was gathering wood for the lodge,
and her companion was out of sight behind some willow bushes some
distance away, Red Robe had a chance to tell Ma-min´ what was
in his heart. He walked up to her and took her hands in his, and
she did not try to draw them away. He said to her, "I love you; I
cannot remember a time when I saw you that my heart did not beat
faster. I am poor, very poor, and it is useless to ask your father
to let me marry you, for he will not consent; but there is another
way, and if you love me, you will do what I ask. Let us go from
here--far away. We will find some tribe that will be kind to us, and
even if we fail in that we can live in some way. Now, if you love
me, and I hope you do, you will come."
"Ai," replied Ma-min´, "I do love you; only you. All the other
young men pass before me as shadows. I scarcely see them, but I
cannot do what you ask. I cannot go away and leave my mother to
mourn; she who loves me so well. Let us wait a little. Go to war. Do
something great and brave. Then perhaps you will not uselessly ask
my father to give me to you."
In vain Red Robe tried to persuade the girl to do as he wished. She
was kind; she threw her arms about him and kissed him and cried, but
she would not run away to leave her mother to sorrow, to be beaten
by her father, who would blame the poor woman for all the disgrace;
and so, too soon, they parted, for they heard her companion
coming--the sound of her heavy footsteps.
Three Bulls, chief of the camp, was a great man. He had a fierce
temper, and when he spoke, people hurried to do what he ordered, for
they feared him. He never talked loud nor called any one by an ill
name. When any one displeased him or refused to do what he said he
just smiled and then killed the person. He was brave. In battle with
enemies he was the equal of twenty men, rushing here, there, into
the thickest of the fights, and killing--always with that silent,
terrible smile on his face. Because he was such a great warrior, and
also because he was generous, helping the poor, feasting any who
came to his lodge, he was the head chief of the Blackfeet.
Three Bulls had several wives and many children, some of them grown
and married. Gray hairs were now many in his head. His face wrinkles
showed that old age was not far distant. No one supposed that he
would ever take another wife; so when the news spread through the
camp that he had asked the old medicine man for his daughter
Ma-min´, every one was surprised. When Red Robe heard the news
his heart nearly broke. The old medicine man agreed to let the chief
have the girl. He dared not refuse, nor did he wish to, for many
good presents were to be given him in three days' time. When that
was done, he told his daughter, she would be taken to the chief's
lodge; let her prepare for the change.
That day Red Robe had planned to start with a party to war; but when
he heard this news he asked his friend Talking Rock to take word to
the leader that he had changed his mind and would not go. He asked
his friend to stay with him, instead of joining the war party, and
Talking Rock agreed to do so.
Out in front of the camp was a large spring, and to that place Red
Robe went and stood leaning against a large stone and looking sadly
down into the blue water. Soon, as he had thought, Ma-min´
came to the spring for a skin of water. He took her hands, as he
had done before, and began to beg her to go away with him that very
night, before it was too late. The girl cried bitterly, but at first
she did not speak.
The two were standing in plain sight of the camp and the people in
it, and some one went to the chief's lodge and told him what was
taking place.
"Go to the spring," said the chief, "and tell that young man to let
the girl go; she is to be my wife."
The person did as he was told, but the two young people paid no
attention to him. They did not care what any one said, nor if the
whole camp saw them there together. All they could think about was
this terrible thing, which would make them unhappy so long as they
lived. Red Robe kept asking the girl to go, and at last she
consented to do as he wished. They had their arms about each other,
not thinking of the crowd that was watching them, and were quickly
planning for their meeting and for their going away that night, when
Three Bulls quietly walked up to them and stabbed the young man with
a flint-pointed lance. Red Robe sank down dying at the young girl's
feet, and she, looking down for an instant at her lover, turned and
ran to her father's lodge.
"Bring wood," the chief called out; "let every one bring some wood;
all you have at your lodges. Those who have none, let them go
quickly and bring some from the timber."
All the people hurried to obey. What Three Bulls ordered was soon
done, for the people feared him, and soon a great pile of wood was
heaped beside the dead man.
The chief lifted the slender young form, placed it on the pile of
wood, and told a woman to bring coals and set fire to the pile. When
this had been done, all left the place except Three Bulls, who
stayed there, tending the fire and poking it here and there, until
it was burnt out and no wood or trace of a human body was left.
Nothing remained except the little pile of ashes. These he
scattered. Still he was not satisfied. His medicine was strong;
perhaps his dream had warned him. Now he ordered that the lodges be
taken down, that everything be packed up, and that the trail of the
moving camp should pass over the heap of ashes.
Some time before this, after Red Robe had made his long fasting, and
his dream had come to him and he had returned to his grandmother's
lodge, he had told his true friend something of what had been said
to him by his dream.
"If I should die," he said, "and you are near, do not desert me. Go
to the place where I fell, and if my body should have been destroyed
look carefully around the place. If you can find even a shred of my
flesh or a bit of my bone, it will be well. So said my dream. Here
are four arrows, which the dream told me to make. If you can find a
bit of my body, flesh or bone, or even hair, cover it with a robe,
and standing over it, shoot three arrows one after another up into
the air, crying, as each one leaves the bow, 'Look out!' When you
fit the fourth arrow on the bowstring and shoot it upward, cry,
'Look out, Red Robe, the arrow will strike you!' and as you say
this, turn and run away from the place, not looking back as you go.
If you do this, my friend, just as I have told you, I shall live
again."
As the camp moved, Three Bulls stood and watched it filing over the
place of the fire, and saw the ashes scattered by the trailing ends
of lodge poles and travois, and by the feet of hundreds of people
and dogs. Still he was not satisfied, and for a long time after the
last of the people had passed he remained there. Then he went on
across the flat and up and over a ridge, but presently he returned,
once, twice, four times, to the crest of the hill and looked back at
the place where the camp had been; but at last he felt sure that no
one remained at the place, and went on.
Yet Talking Rock was there. He had been hidden in the brush all the
time, watching the chief. Even after Three Bulls had passed over the
ridge, he remained crouched in the bushes, and saw him come back
again and again to peer over its crest. Still further on there was
another higher ridge, and when the young man saw Three Bulls climb
that and disappear on the trail of the camp, he came forth.
Going to the place where his friend had lain, Talking Rock sat down
and mourned, wailing long and loud. Back on the hills the wolves and
coyotes heard him and they too became sorrowful, adding their cries
to his.
The young man had little faith in the power of the four arrows that
he kept so carefully wrapped in a separate bundle in his quiver. He
looked at the place where Red Robe's body had been burnt. It was
like any other place on the great trail that had been made, dust and
grass blades mingled together, and scratches made by the dragging
poles. It did not seem possible that anything of his friend's body
remained; yet he must search, and breaking a green willow twig he
began carefully to work over the dust, stopping his crying, for the
tears blinded his eyes so that he could not see.
All the long morning and far into the afternoon, Talking Rock swept
the dust this way and that, turning it over and over, in a circle
that grew always wider, and just as he was about to give up the
search, he found a bit of charred and blackened bone. Was this a
part of his friend's frame? Was it not more likely a bit of bone of
buffalo or elk, which some dog had carried from one of the
fireplaces of the camp and dropped here?
Now for the test. Talking Rock covered the bit of bone with his robe
as he had been told to do. He even raised the robe along its middle,
making it look as if it really covered a person lying there. Then he
shot three of the arrows up in the air, each time crying, "Look
out."
Then with a hand that trembled a little, he drew the fourth arrow
from the quiver, shot it and cried, "Look out, Red Robe, the arrow
will strike you"; and, turning, ran from the place with all his
speed.
How he wanted to look back! How he longed to see if his friend was
really rising from that bit of blackened bone! But Talking Rock was
strong-hearted. He controlled his desires. On and on he ran, and
then--behind him the light tread of running feet, a firm hand
gripped his shoulder, and a loved voice said, "Why so fast, my
friend?" and stopping and turning, Talking Rock found himself face
to face with Red Robe. He could not believe what he saw, and had to
pinch himself and to hold his friend hard in his arms to believe
that all this was real.
The camp had not moved far, and the lodges were pitched on the next
stream to the south. Soon after dark, the two friends entered it and
went to their lodge. The poor old grandmother could not believe her
eyes when she saw the young man she had reared and loved so dearly;
but when he spoke she knew that it was he, and running over to him
she held him in her arms and kissed him, crying from joy. After a
little time, the young man said to her, "Grandmother, go to the
chief's lodge and say to him that I, Red Robe, need some dried
meat." The old woman hesitated at this strange request, but Red Robe
said: "Go, do not fear him; Three Bulls is now the one to know
fear."
When the old woman entered the great lodge and in reply to the
chief's look said, "Red Robe sent me here. He wants some dried
meat," only Three Bulls of all who were in the lodge, showed no
surprise. "It is what I expected," he said; "in spite of all my care
he lives again, and I can do nothing." Turning to his wives he
said, "Give her meat."
"Did you see Ma-min´?" asked Red Robe, when his grandmother
had returned with the meat and had told him what the chief had said.
"No, she was not in the lodge, but two women were approaching as I
left it. I think they were the girl and her mother."
"Go back once more," said the young man, "and tell Three Bulls to
send me that young woman."
But now the poor old grandmother was afraid. "I dare not tell him
that," she exclaimed. "He would kill me, and you. His anger would be
fearful."
"Do not fear," said Red Robe, "do not fear, my mother, his anger and
his power are no longer to be feared. He is as feeble and as
helpless as one of those old bulls one sees on the sunny side of the
coulée, spending his last days before the wolves pull him down."
The old woman went to the lodge and told the chief what Red Robe
further wished. Ma-min´ was there, her head covered with her
robe, crying quietly, and Three Bulls told her to arise and go with
the messenger. Timidly at first, and then with steps that broke into
a run, Ma-min´ hurried toward the lodge of her sweetheart and
entered it. With a cry of joy she threw herself into his arms, and
Talking Rock went out and left them alone.
Great now was the happiness of these young people. Long was their
life, full of plenty and of great honor. Red Robe became a chief,
respected and loved by all the people. Ma-min´ bore him many
children, who grew up to be the support of their old age.