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Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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Western Story Magazine, 27 August 1927,
with "Red Wind and Thunder Moon"
WHEN Walking Horse came to visit the Suhtai band of the Cheyennes over which Big Hard Face was the leading chief, it was an event of great importance. Not that such visits were at all rare of a warrior passing for a time, or even permanently, into another of the ten allied bands of the Cheyenne nation, but Walking Horse was no common brave. Among the Omissis of the Cheyennes he was the very foremost and leading name. He had built up such fame supported on such hardy achievements in battle that it was almost as though half the power of the Omissis, condensed into the person of this one man, had come to sit down among the Suhtais.
His visit was also made significant by various details of his conduct. In the first place, though he was absolutely the principal chief among his tribesmen, he came alone with no following whatever. In the second place, he came among the Suhtai and found there a number of old friends, former associates in battle, grave and celebrated figures. He visited in one teepee and then in another. He talked of the hunt, of the war trails on which he had ridden with them and with others, of the prosperity of the Cheyennes, and of the devilishness of the Pawnees. Yet never a word did he say of the cause of his visit.
All of this was very singular, of course. The outer world, which has mistaken the shyness of the Indian among strangers for taciturnity, perhaps will feel inclined to say that this essential silence was the nature of the man and of all his peers but, as a matter of fact, the Indian talks as fast as running water when he is among tried companions. Even so Walking Horse of the Omissis said not a word of the reason for this visit. He was among them for a fortnight, and still not a word of explanation was given! Whispers of wonder ran back and forth through the camp.
Then came a band of three well-known warriors from the Omissis. They saw their chief. When they proposed to him a promising plan for a raid upon the Sioux, Walking Horse turned to them a deaf ear. After that, they asked him how long he would be absent from his people. They received no rejoinder. Further than this, mystified, hurt, and desperate, they drifted here and there among the Suhtai lodges and asked cautiously: what was the purpose that kept their chief so long from home? Affairs of the greatest importance were up for discussion in the councils of the Omissis. Why did not their war chief come home?
Of course, the Suhtai had no answer. The suspense grew greater and greater. What was the purpose in the mind of this great man? Had his feelings been wounded by some slight received by his followers? Did he contemplate joining himself to the Suhtai permanently? It made the Suhtai chiefs scowl—not one of them wished to be elbowed from his place by such an addition to the roll of great ones in the camp—as it made the common warriors glad, for many and many a youth yearned to follow such a famous leader.
So a month passed. Then Walking Horse went out from the village to the place where Big Hard Face was watching his great herd of ponies grazing. Wrapped in their robes, the two chiefs stood side by side and regarded the horses.
"You are rich, Mahk-he-kon-in-i," said the visitor.
"I am rich," admitted Big Hard Face, with a grunt of satisfaction.
"The horses are not as big in stature as they are in numbers," went on the Omissis.
"They are greater in heart than in body," replied Big Hard Face. "Look at them again."
The other made a little pause and pretended to look. Long before this he had examined the herd in the greatest detail and saw that there was not a single weed in the lot. Small they might be on the whole, but there was not one to whose hardihood and speed a chief of chiefs might not be proud to trust himself and all his fortunes. Surely a rich strain of blood was represented here.
"I have looked," said Walking Horse at last. "They are very good," he admitted.
"They are Comanche horses," said Big Hard Face, concealing his satisfaction as well as he could. "There is not one among them that is not a Comanche."
Of all the tribes that rode upon the plains the Comanches were famous for the excellence of their mounts. Perhaps it was because on their many raids into old Mexico they had seized the cream of the Spanish horses again and again and so purified the strain of their herds. Perhaps it was that the desert life on their southern ranges tempered and hardened their horseflesh. At any rate, mounted upon their ponies their stroke was like the stroke of lightning and, if they failed, the hostile tribes could not pursue them in their flight.
"All Comanches! All Comanches!" murmured Walking Horse. "Then you have given a great treasure for so many."
"I have not given," said Big Hard Face, touching the beadwork which encrusted his robe so richly. "I have not given so much as the value of a single one of these beads."
"They were all taken in war, then?" asked the other, drawing in his breath a little.
"They were taken in war, brother."
Walking Horse regarded the older man for a moment. Big Hard Face was well advanced in age. His strength had turned heavy upon him. If he had not yet withered and grown weak, yet no one could imagine him swooping down on the agile Comanches in distant raids.
"They are gifts," said the old man in explanation. "All the gifts of Thunder Moon, my son."
"One does not need to be a hawk to see Thunder Moon on the earth," said the Omissis. "One does not need the ears of an owl to hear his name. Because of him, how many lodges are empty in the camps of the Comanches and how many of their young wives gash their flesh and cut their hair short and sit in the dust to mourn? If I had a wish to buy from you fifty of these horses of the Comanches, what price would you place upon them, brother?"
Big Hard Face gathered his robe a little closer about him and cast a glance brighter than fire at his companion. The lust of the trader was hot in his soul.
"That is a thing to consider," he said.
"A horse is a horse," replied the Omissis, "and a woman is no more than a woman. These things all have their price."
"Would you ask an eagle for the value of his wings?" asked Big Hard Face, a most cunning bargainer. "If I wish to send out the best of my young men on a great raid, when they must fly far and fast, I lead out these horses of mine. I place the young warriors on their backs. It is then as though I had placed them on the back of the wind. They ride out. They are so fast that their enemies cannot see them in midday. They strike. They count a hundred coups. Then they return to my village and before their faces a great cloud of dust rolls up to the heart of the sky. It is raised by the hoofs of the horses which they drive back to me." He waved his hand again toward his herd of horses. "Now you ask me," he said, "at what price I will be willing to sell fifty of these?"
"Horses are good," replied the Omissis, taking the time-honored track of all traders making a good bargain, "but so are rich robes covered with beads and robes painted by cunning hands. New strong guns are good. So are much powder and lead and keen knives and sugar and coffee!"
Big Hard Face grinned and showed two or three large fangs in the black shapeless slit of his mouth. "They are good," he said. "Sugar is good!" He licked his lips and drew in a great breath.
"Pounds and pounds of sugar," said the Omissis cleverly, "and knives, guns, robes. It is only necessary to name the amount. You are rich, Big Hard Face. Neither am I a poor man."
"When a man stands on a cliff," said Big Hard Face, "one step is life and one is death. There is no need for hurry. Let us go back to my lodge and speak with Thunder Moon."
Back toward the village they strolled. The wild heat of the midday was over. The shadows were reaching toward the east. From the river the shouts of the playing and swimming boys and young men rose into the air, echoing hollow from the face of the water. Girls were coming in with bundles of firewood broken or cut in the brush. Women were carrying up water. Smoke was going up from the lodges.
At the entrance to the village, they passed a burly Indian clad in a robe of great value, wearing a strange headdress which was the scalp of a wolf mounted with all the terribly grinning teeth. Beneath that uncouth gear there showed a thoughtful, meditative face. He was passing with his eyes upon the ground but, seeing Big Hard Face, he started and raised his hand.
"How!"
"How!" said Big Hard Face, and went on.
"I still wait," said the man of the wolf's head.
Big Hard Face answered nothing but went rather more hurriedly on his way.
"Tell me, brother," said the Omissis, who had listened with much curiosity to this brief exchange, "was not that Spotted Bull, the chief among the medicine men of the Suhtai?"
"May he die without a scalp!" exclaimed Big Hard Face. "May he die as naked as when he was born and the Pawnee wolves count coup on him three times. Why should he fix his teeth in a child of my teepee?"
"Ha!" murmured Walking Horse. "Then he is not a friend to Thunder Moon?"
Big Hard Face sighed but, as though the matter were too great for words, he said no more of it, and the Omissis did not press the point. They came to the lodge of Big Hard Face and passed inside. Big Hard Face, as he passed in through the flap, uttered a little exclamation of disgust and displeasure. For squatted in the middle of the teepee with a flashing scraper in his hand, the son of the chief was hard at work preparing a small buffalo hide.
"Woman's work!" snorted Big Hard Face. "Thunder Moon, do you forget that you are a man?"
THUNDER MOON shrugged his broad shoulders and did not turn his head. "White Crow is old and tired," he said. "Besides, who would sit by the fire all day and make his lungs ache with smoke or tell stories until the tongue tires?" Saying this, he continued to work with the flashing tool, which was a shoulder-blade shaped for the grip of the hands. There was no vestige of clothing on him except for moccasins on his feet, a breech clout, and a narrow band which held back from his face the long shower of black hair that fell glistening over his shoulders and down his back almost to his hips. As he worked with the scraping bone, one could see why no man among all the tall Cheyennes dared to exchange cuffs with him, or wrestle with him hand to hand on equal terms. For though his arms were massive, they were alive with long, twisting tangles of muscle that swept without a break from shoulder to wrist, and the power across his shoulders knotted and leaped like so many hands being clenched hard beneath the skin.
Walking Horse took curious note of this figure. Though he had been many days among the Suhtai, still he had not had great opportunity for observing Thunder Moon. Thunder Moon did not go to the feasts. When the circle formed and the coup stick was passed, Thunder Moon would rise and stride from a teepee. He did not go where the old men talked in the evening.
"Thunder Moon!" exclaimed the old chief in a tone of command.
The young man turned and stood up. Seeing a guest, he greeted him gravely, flushing a little, and threw a robe about his great shoulders.
Big Hard Face was terribly displeased but he swallowed his anger a little. He merely said: "How can a man's work be done by a woman? Or a woman's work by a man?"
"Father," replied Thunder Moon, "tell me this: when a man strikes in a battle should his hand be heavy or light?"
"That is a child's question," answered the chief.
"Very well," said Thunder Moon, "does the hand grow strong holding a pipe or dipping into the meat pot?"
"It is always like this," said Big Hard Face gloomily, turning to the Omissis. "There is no corner so narrow that he cannot talk his way out of it. There are more words and ways to his tongue than there are buffalo and their trails on the open plains. Now hear me, Thunder Moon. Walking Horse wishes to know the price of fifty of your horses. He is a guest. He is a famous man. Therefore we wish to make him a small price. Consider it, Thunder Moon!"
He made a little private sign to his son which, in a white man, might well have been replaced by a wink.
Thunder Moon considered. His two elders were seated. He remained standing, and with the butt of a battle spear he prodded at the earth. "We do not wish to lose so many horses," he said. "Our guest is a famous man. Take fifty from our herd. You need them for the war path, I suppose? Take them, send out your young men on their backs. If some horses die on the trail, it is no matter. When the young men return, keep ten of the best for yourself and send back the remainder to me. I have spoken."
It seemed as though Big Hard Face would choke during the latter part of this short speech. His color changed and his eyes started from his scarred, horribly deformed face. Still he dared not say no. It was beneath the dignity of any brave to deny a gift once proffered, but he writhed to and fro on his couch and hurriedly caught up a pipe that smoke might allay his injured feelings.
As for Walking Horse, no doubt he was familiar with the impulsive generosity of his race, but this was a kingly magnificence that was quite beyond his comprehension. His eyes burned for a moment and, to mask that greedy fire, he glanced down to the ground. He cleared his throat once or twice and then he began to make a speech. He declared, in many magnificent words, that he would be ashamed to ask a price and then get horses for nothing. One horse he would accept, partly because the Comanche strain was so glorious, but partly because every horse that Thunder Moon had taken from the enemy was a reminder to every Cheyenne of the glory of the taker. That glory grew every day. According to Walking Horse, as he warmed to his work, the whole nation of the Pawnees shuddered in their lodges when they so much as thought of Thunder Moon. The Comanches hushed the cries of their children with his dreadful name. Accordingly, Walking Horse would accept one pony, the meanest of the herd, as a souvenir of the great man. In the meantime he persisted, and begged Thunder Moon to name the price of fifty horses.
Under this shower of praise, Thunder Moon at first stood straight, then winced. He turned a bright red—which the paleness of his face made more pronounced—and finally seemed to look for an avenue of escape. At last he said, with a bluntness of which no other Cheyenne assuredly would have been guilty:
"Your many words make me unhappy. Take whatever horse you please. But great praise means great blame."
He turned to his father and bade Big Hard Face settle the terms if a price were to be made.
Big Hard Face could wait no longer. "You see," he said, "that we do not wish to sell. The heart of Thunder Moon is like a rain cloud. It would dissolve in giving! But, since you will not take the gifts he offers," the chief went on hurriedly, "then I shall tell you a cheap price for such horses as run in our herd. One hundred good rifles and ten of the small guns that have six voices." He indicated a revolver which hung from the post at the foot of Thunder Moon's couch. "Also, much lead and powder, and ten good knives with edges that will not turn. Furthermore, we need some good painted robes and a suit covered with beads. The Omissis women make many of them. If you will do these things, then you may be sure that you shall have the fifty horses."
Walking Horse considered these demands with blinking eyes and a shudder. "Brother," he said sadly, "you ask for enough guns to arm a whole tribe."
"The Omissis are rich," said Big Hard Face coldly, "and all men know that Walking Horse is the richest of his tribe. His horses make the earth tremble as they gallop together. Two tall and broad teepees cannot hold the mass of his saddles and guns and beaded clothes and knives and other treasures."
"Ah, brother," murmured the visitor, "rumor is full of lies. I am not so rich."
He looked appealingly at them in turn. Big Hard Face endured that appeal with an unmoved countenance, but Thunder Moon frowned at the ground and bit his lip. It was plain that his father's bargaining had shamed him.
"However," said the Omissis suddenly, "if I am not so rich, neither am I poor. You shall have everything as you ask. In return, I shall want something more than just the fifty horses."
"Speak," said Big Hard Face, his eyes narrowing to shrewdness again. There was still a faraway light in them, as though already his glance were caressing the heap of weapons for which he had bargained.
"It is a small thing," said the other. "In my teepee there is a thing which I wish to give to Thunder Moon, to be taken into his lodge and cherished. Let Thunder Moon give me his promise that he will accept it. Then I shall go to make the long journey to the fort of the white man and bring back all that your hearts desire."
"You are kind," said Big Hard Face instantly, "and my son accepts your kindness."
"No," put in Thunder Moon, "I have no need of gifts which I do not know. I have a horse to ride, a gun to shoot, and a spear to stab with. What more does a Cheyenne ask of the Sky People?"
"Boy," said his father, "you speak like a fool. You shame me before Walking Horse. Tell him at once that whatever he brings, you will take and keep it well to honor him!"
Thunder Moon looked narrowly at the Omissis, leaning forward a little and seeming to probe the very soul of the stranger.
"It is well," he said finally. "My father commands me. I give my word to Walking Horse."
There had been a great tension in the expression of the Omissis up to this time. Now it was as though a burden had been cast from his mind. He stood up and, making some remark about the distance of the journey which he had to perform, he left the teepee almost at once. Five minutes later he had departed from the camp of the Suhtai.
He left a gloomy scene behind him, where Thunder Moon stared at his foster father.
"There was more wealth put in our hands," said Big Hard Face, "than any Suhtai ever has seen in one heap before and been able to call his own. You would have thrown it away! Thunder Moon, you are a child and you grow no older with the years."
"Tell me," said Thunder Moon, "has not Walking Horse acted like a fool to accept your price without bargaining?"
Big Hard Face smiled with the greatest satisfaction. "Wisdom is richer than wealth and cunning thoughts are turned into strong horses," he said.
"Yet," said Thunder Moon, "Walking Horse is not a fool, but a wise chief and a ruler over chiefs, and a rich man as well."
Big Hard Face was quite silent, frowning.
"You may be sure," said the younger man, "that whatever he gives to us will be a thing worse than poison to him."
"Still you have many words," said Big Hard Face. "But words are not medicine. If there is poison in his teepee, would he not throw it away?"
"You will see," said Thunder Moon in reply. "Unless Walking Horse is a fool, I know that he came to us not to buy horses, but to make us take this precious gift. When we receive it, may the Sky People give us strength and wisdom."
THREE important events kept the mission of Walking Horse and his expected return well in the background during the following weeks. In the first place, the tribe moved camp. In the second place, Spotted Bull fell out with Big Hard Face and Thunder Moon. In the third place, Falling Stone, a young Pawnee brave, made the first of his famous excursions into Cheyenne territory and crossed swords with Thunder Moon.
As for the camp removal, it was no more important than such events usually were. It called for the making of medicine and the making of the medicine brought Spotted Bull to the lodge of Big Hard Face. There they sat talking amicably, until the medicine man turned the conversation into other channels.
"I have waited for three months," said the medicine man, "and still Thunder Moon keeps far from me. I never see him in my teepee. On the walls of my lodge hang suits of rich beadwork and I have painted robes and knives and guns given to me by the braves of the Suhtai, but I have nothing from the hand of Thunder Moon."
Big Hard Face made a slight grimace. "My son shall remember you," he said. "Go home, and you will find three horses at your teepee. They will let you know that Thunder Moon is your friend."
"A gift that is asked for is meat that chokes the gullet," said the medicine man grimly. "It is not for added riches that I sorrow. It is because the young men come to me and say, 'From whom did these good things come?' Then I name the givers. Behold, all the brave men of our tribe are then named and many famous men from among all of the Cheyennes whose children and wives I have healed, from whose fortunes I have taken curses, and whose guns I have given power on the war path. At last I must stop. They look at me in wonder. They say: 'What is the gift of our greatest warrior, our hero with the heart of a charging bull, our wisest councilor who has the strongest hand and who keeps the richest teepee? What is the gift of Thunder Moon?' Then I am silent. I hang my head, and the men go away, wondering."
Spotted Bull had retained his calm, but only through a considerable effort. Now he was breathing hard. He could hardly compel himself to take the pipe which Big Hard Face had had trouble filling and had passed to him.
"Consider the soul of a young man," said Big Hard Face. "It is like the wind that roves through the sky. It blows here and it blows there, not because one quarter of the heaven is better than another, but because it has an idle way."
The medicine man snorted as he blew out smoke to the earth and smoke to the sky. "Tell me this," he answered. "The foolish youths of our tribe are like colts, throwing up their heels and running from grass to water and from water to grass, but Thunder Moon has a mind that thinks. When he looks into the face of a man, he is like one who reads the sign of a trail. All that he does, he does with a good reason, even though his reasons are not anything like the reasons of the rest of the Suhtai."
The anger of Spotted Bull was growing. His host feebly fumbled here and there with his wits, but he could think of nothing that might appease his guest.
Spotted Bull continued: "Is my medicine bad? What else has given good fortune to Big Hard Face? What has turned the weapons of his enemies away from his breast when he rode to war? Now there is a greater medicine in his teepee, men say!" With a malignant smile, he pointed to a glittering thing made of yellow metal. It hung from the central pole of the teepee, shaped roughly and rudely into the semblance of a human arm.
Big Hard Face looked in the same direction. There was much respect in his voice as he said: "That is a piece of The Yellow Man, the greatest medicine that the Comanches owned. Has not their luck left them since Thunder Moon carried their medicine away from them? Have they not run from before the faces of the Suhtai? Has not Thunder Moon prospered in all things because of that medicine, brother?"
A deep, guttural exclamation from Spotted Bull showed Big Hard Face that he had touched a most tender point. "I know it!" said the medicine man. "That was the knowledge that the spirits whispered to me when they said that an enemy was lodged in the teepee of Big Hard Face. The Yellow Man has always done mischief to the Cheyennes. When he was with the Comanches, he turned their bullets into the hearts of our warriors. Now he only can turn Suhtai against Suhtai. Always he has been the enemy of my tribe! Throw away that cursed token, brother. Give it to me. Let me purify it. Let me hang it in my tent. I shall accept the danger that comes out of it." He rose from his place, touched the symbol, weighed it in his hand. "Yes," he said. "I shall take it from you."
"Brother," said the chief in a dry voice, "take heed for yourself. Do not touch it. My son would be angry."
"The anger of a man," replied Spotted Bull, "is nothing to me. Neither yours nor your son's. I have to do with such great spirits, Big Hard Face, that if I call them now, they would leap down out of the sky and turn you and all that is in your teepee into mist. The people who passed would see no more than a big smoke going upwards from this pipe of mine."
He said this solemnly and Big Hard Face, listening with starting eyes, shuddered and sighed.
"But, I am your friend," went on the medicine man who saw that he had made a point, "and I wish to be the friend of Thunder Moon. I have been his friend all these days, without gift or without kindness from him. I have prayed for his success on the war path. I have offered up sacrifice. I have taken out the sacred medicine pipes for his sake. I have no reward. I have not gone among the people and said to them in times of misfortune, 'You are hungry and cold, but may that not be because you keep in your midst a man who makes strange medicine? A man who speaks with the tongue of a Suhtai, but whose heart is not the heart of a Suhtai.'"
He paused. Big Hard Face sat up stiffly. "What lying spirit has told you that his spirit is not the spirit of a Suhtai? Is he not my son?"
The medicine man could not restrain a grin of triumph and malice. "Is your skin the color of my skin?" he said.
"That is true."
"We are Suhtai, brother. But the skin of Thunder Moon is the pale skin of a white man. He is not your son. He is a stranger. His heart is a stranger's heart."
The eyes of Big Hard Face flickered from side to side. If ever danger were written visibly on the face of a man, it was written on the face of Big Hard Face. "This is not good talking," he said huskily. "Brother, beware!"
"I remember when you left the camp," said Spotted Bull. "It was many years ago and you were gone many, many days. When you came back, you had the child with you. You took him into your teepee. You got him a Suhtai name. He was a member of the tribe. But he is a white man. He is not one of us. How would it be, Big Hard Face, if I told these things to Thunder Moon himself?"
"If you separate a father from a son," replied Big Hard Face ominously, "because of the wrong words which your spirits have told you...." He could not say anything more. His eyes, however, were fire.
The medicine man continued smoothly: "I have no wish to make trouble. That is for the medicine of The Yellow Man yonder to do. I work against him. I try to keep peace in our city. I make our young warriors like brothers on the trail. Only... I tell you again, let Thunder Moon come to me. Let him open his heart to me like a child to a father. All still may be well between us. All still may be well." Having said this, he got up at once and left the teepee, gathering his dignity about him like a robe. Big Hard Face remained, lost in gloomy reflections.
Thunder Moon came in from the hunt with three horses loaded with antelope meat, for when did he return empty-handed? The old chief then sent White Crow away from the lodge and sat down beside his son and talked with him before the blood of the hunt was washed from his hands. Not all of the conversation with Spotted Bull was repeated, but enough was said to explain that the teepee and all in it, especially Thunder Moon, were in danger of the terrible wrath of the medicine man. Their bodies might be twisted with deformities. Their horses might be stolen. Their arms might grow powerless. The bullets of the enemy might be turned into their hearts, their scalps hung at the belt of Pawnee warriors, and their souls left to wander miserably up and down the winds of the earth until at last they dwindled, grew thin, and disappeared forever.
When the young man had heard it, he answered gravely. "Father, you are old and you are wise. You know how to speak before the council. You understand how to hunt the buffalo. You know many things, and every day I sit at your knee like a child and drink in your words and your wisdom. As for Spotted Bull, and all the doctors of our tribe and of all other tribes and the medicine that they make, I think they are no more than scoundrels or fools, and that their medicine is folly. I will not have it."
Big Hard Face hastily threw a sweet grass on the fire and went through the motions of bathing himself in the purifying smoke. He did the same for his son. "Do not speak like this," he complained. "Words may be more dangerous than Pawnee bullets. It is not much to go to the teepee of Spotted Bull and say that you are his friend. It will cost you nothing."
"It will cost me a lie," said Thunder Moon.
"It will cost you only a word."
"Look!" said the youth. "Now, I am as free as any man could wish to be. I go where I will over the prairie. I pass in and I pass out from the village, and I am my own master, except when you command me. You are the chief of our tribe. I do not even belong to any of the soldier bands. No man can compel me to do one thing if I choose to do another. Now you want me to make a slave of my mind to Spotted Bull. I shall not be his slave. I laugh at him and, if he crosses me, I shall laugh in his face and beat him into his teepee. He is a villain and a fool. You want to make me worse than a squaw, worse than the stupid white men who are not able to live under the sky and who have to have roofs over their heads, making their heaven out of wood. No, Father, I must be free. All medicine is foolishness."
"Do you never pray?" asked the old man, angry but baffled.
"Yes," said Thunder Moon. "I pray to the Sky People. They send a shining cloud across the face of the heavens. I know that they have heard my prayer. It always has been so since I was a boy. I shall go out and ask them now if I have been wrong."
BEYOND the village, seated on his horse on the top of a hill, Thunder Moon looked up to the sky and raised his hands. So much was seen by Big Hard Face. For an entire half hour the young man remained in that position, though the sun must almost have blinded his eyes. Then forming suddenly in the middle of the sky, a cloud of a dazzling whiteness appeared and blew softly down toward the northern horizon.
Big Hard Face watched no longer from the distance but went hastily back to his teepee, his mind revolving many doubts. Of the success of his foster child in war the whole tribe could bear witness. Of the wisdom of Thunder Moon all the council of the old men and the heroes could speak also. For what plan of war was considered unless Thunder Moon were in the camp to give his advice? So it had been from the days of his youth, and most particularly since that famous expedition against the Comanches which had brought back the arm of The Yellow Man from the southern riders.
Yet there were gaps in the strength of Thunder Moon. No man was so acutely aware of them as Big Hard Face. There had been a time when his life had been turned to a hell of misery. In those days the croaking voice of White Crow, his aunt and the only woman of his teepee, continually pointed out the weakness of the foster child. As she had said in those days, Thunder Moon never was one to endure pain like a brave Indian. Even as a young man, sudden agony could wring a cry from his lips. When the other young braves drew their belts tighter and endured famine on the trail, Thunder Moon grew faint, just as he grew faint if the race were long on foot. He did not have even the craft of a ten-year-old boy in reading the signs of the war trail. His eyes and his ears seemed to be half blinded or deafened. In all these matters he was lacking, and great matters they were.
He had worse faults and follies. He took no joy in slaying an enemy from ambush but, like a madman, he loved the battle only when he endured a peril in order to inflict an injury. In the middle of a battle had he not been known to go insane, like a witless creature, with battle passion and charge straight through the line of the enemy, shooting to the right and to the left? These indeed were things to be wondered at, but greater stupidity remained. To any sensible plains Indian, there were three necessary parts to battle. One was the counting of the coup. One was the slaying of the foe. And one was the taking of his scalp. Their importance was first the counting of the coup and second the taking of the scalp. Last of all was the actual slaying of the foeman. Yet with Thunder Moon these matters were reversed. He would not take a scalp. He would not have his clothes trimmed with scalp locks or hang them from the bridle of his horse. He declared that they were disgusting emblems. As for the counting of coup, he scorned the ceremony and announced that it had no meaning to touch the body of an enemy. But to kill—ah, that was a different matter!
Never had there been a Cheyenne in the remembrance of old Big Hard Face to match this adroit hunter of the Pawnees and the Comanches. Never had there been another to equal his list of the slain. In battle, the charge of Thunder Moon was like the charge of an entire squadron. The foe could not stand against him.
So he had virtues to balance against his faults. No Indian could handle a rifle with such remorseless skill. Few even possessed the new small revolvers which were so deadly in the possession of Thunder Moon. If mere boys could outlast him in a long run, not the most brilliant athlete could escape from him in a short sprint—just as the mountain lion overtakes the wolf, although it cannot run all day across the plains. So, too, he had such wisdom in council as made the old men wonder. He seemed able to read the minds of friends and foes. The same iron which seemed to nerve his hand for an encounter and make it resistless was no less in his wits.
Thunder Moon was so different from the rest of the tribesmen that he never could become a chief. Yet, he was so necessary to them that they could not imagine the Suhtai without his help. Because of him Big Hard Face had remained in his lofty position as leader of the tribe. Now, as the old chief revolved the words of the medicine man again and again, he wondered if it were not true that not only the skin but the soul of his foster child was white. If that were the case, might he not someday even return to his people?
Big Hard Face drew his robe about his face. There he sat, shrouded in darkness, when his son returned and announced in a quiet, cheerful voice that all was well. The Sky People approved of what he had said and done concerning Spotted Bull. They had sent him a visible sign not many moments before.
His father returned no answer for his soul was sore. During the days that followed, Big Hard Face waited for the danger to strike at him from the hand of the medicine man. He lacked the cunning to argue with his foster son. All he could do was endure and to hope for the best. The croaking voice of White Crow did not help him. Time had withered her, but it had not taken the strength from her sinewy arm or the deathless malice from her tongue. She had heard enough of the trouble between Thunder Moon and the medicine man. Her dry, dusty voice rattled out prophecies of evil for a long time to come.
Before any blow could be struck by Spotted Bull, who seemed to be waiting with an admirable patience for some approach from Thunder Moon, a blow of another sort struck the entire village. It was the first raid on them by Falling Stone. Still in the flower of his youth, Falling Stone had been known only a short time for being a rising young brave among the Pawnees. Obviously he had now reached such consideration among his tribesmen that they had sent him out with a considerable body of warriors. He stole up close to the Suhtai camp and, just with the setting of the sun, he rushed his horsemen up from the hollow by the river. Half the entire horse herd was swept away by that charge. Falling Stone led his warriors on to the outskirts of the village. There they rode down, slew, and counted coup upon more than twenty people, mostly women and children. But a death is a death, and a coup is a coup. All are equally honorable. All equally swell the fame of an Indian.
Behind the stampeded horses, Falling Stone and his warriors rushed away across the prairie. They had dealt the Cheyennes such a blow as they had not received in years from their traditional enemies. A vengeance party was assembled at once, all the best and the bravest of the young men. As a matter of course Thunder Moon was there to lead them.
There was only a hasty consultation with Spotted Bull. It was in this brief moment that he struck his blow. He came out in his full medicine regalia, a nightmare figure, and he chanted to the excited listeners a pretended revelation from the spirits. They bid the Suhtai no longer to follow the leadership of Thunder Moon—certainly not until he had been purified in the eyes of the Sky People for his sins.
At such a time as this, while a war party was actually arming in haste, there was no question of doubting the advice of the inspired prophet. With Standing Bear, the tried and trusted hero, to lead them the war party rushed away on the trail of the Pawnees. Thunder Moon remained behind. He sat his horse before Spotted Bull. Women, children, and old men surrounded them.
"Spotted Bull," he said, "has my good fortune left me?"
"Alas, my son," said the medicine man, "what your sins have been, you know as well as I. The spirits tell me. Your heart tells you what you have done that is wrong."
"Tell me, Spotted Bull. Am I to bring back none of the stolen horses, and are no Pawnees to fall under my rifle?" asked the youth.
"I have said it," answered Spotted Bull, gathering his robe about him. "It is only a fool who asks a man to repeat a thing that he has said once."
Behind the medicine man, his uncle and his young nephew had guns in hand, ready to defend him in case Thunder Moon's proverbially heavy hand threatened to descend on Spotted Bull. Thunder Moon merely laughed, sitting at ease on the back of one of his Comanche ponies with a led horse beside him.
"I go on that trail," he said. "When I come back, I shall let the people see that Spotted Bull is a liar and a fool!"
He rode away into the night, leaving consternation behind him. Big Hard Face was lost in bewilderment and woe. What could be the outcome of this duel between his foster child and the most powerful medicine man in the tribe? He could not guess, but he gravely doubted. Every Suhtai prejudice would be on the side of Spotted Bull.
In fact, no sooner had the warrior departed than Spotted Bull began to rouse sentiment against Thunder Moon. Openly and in private he talked. The old men listened. The children gabbled the news about the village. The women could talk of nothing else. All that could be said against Thunder Moon was brought forth now—how as a boy he had failed in the test of courage by which the Cheyennes pass from boyhood to manhood and become worthy of the war trail so that, indeed, he could hardly be called a warrior at all. How pain frightened him. How he failed in his reverence to the spirits and offered them no sacrifice. How even in battle he would count no coups. He would take no scalps!
"Because he dares not!" said the medicine man. "He has no medicine except the medicine that he stole from the Comanches, and that is poison for a true Cheyenne. This man has a white skin. He has a white heart. Let him go back to his own people."
These words were reported in due course to Big Hard Face. If he had not heard them from rumor, he would have heard them from White Crow as she worked in the teepee.
"Woman," thundered the chief in a fury at last, "do you hate Thunder Moon?"
She raised her head and looked at him with bright, beady eyes. "I am a Cheyenne!" she said.
"Is that an answer?" cried Big Hard Face. "Am I not a Cheyenne, also?"
"I am a Cheyenne and a Suhtai," she said.
Big Hard Face glared at her evilly for another moment and then he turned and rushed from the lodge into the darkness that waited for him outside—the darkness of the night and the darkness of his troubled spirit.
FOR a whole day the eager horsemen of the Suhtai rushed across the plains on the hot trail of Falling Stone and the Pawnee warriors. Toward dusk of the second day they came to a shallow stream and began to ford it in haste. Nearly half of them were across when the ground before them quivered and the air was stirred by the rapid drumming of many hoofs.
Over the brow of the farther slope Falling Stone with all his warriors banded behind him drove down upon the Cheyennes. The Suhtai, disordered, tired from the long march, straggling here and there or heaped close together just as they had come out of the ford, did not think of resistance for a moment. They turned to flee and, as they fled, the bullets and the showered arrows of the Pawnees dealt death among them. The reaching spears stabbed them in the back. Right on into the water, which foamed with blood and with tramplings, the Pawnees charged. At a shrill command from their leader, they swerved suddenly away, back to the bank. From the cover of the shrubbery that lined the shore, all lying prostrate and taking secure aim, they pelted the yelling Cheyennes with bullets and with arrows again.
Undoubtedly there were enough Suhtai present to have lurched back across the stream and overwhelmed these daring horse thieves, but it was not Indian nature to make such a frontal attack. They might also have swung to either side and tried a flank of the Pawnees, but they had received a dreadful check. Fifty of their best and bravest lay dead, scalped, unburied behind them. Their bodies had been plundered, their sacred medicine bags gone, and their corpses flung into the river where they were rolled and tumbled and battered and hurried far away.
Plainly the medicine which accompanied the Suhtai upon this expedition was of little strength. Therefore the band turned sadly back toward the distant village. Even then, Falling Stone would not have done, but with a dozen of his best rifles he hung on the rear of the defeated host and quickly bagged a round half dozen laggards.
When had there been such another day as this for the Pawnees? When such another for the Suhtai band? On the farther shore of the river, secure beyond its waters, Falling Stone pitched his camp at last and prepared to give his men a full day of rest and rejoicing and feasting before they continued the march. All his braves had counted at least one brave, and great deeds unboasted are like poison in the soul of an Indian. Talk he must, and sing of his glory.
From the woods that crowned the slope, Falling Stone had trees cut and dragged down whole to the edge of the water. There the great fire was lighted. Around it smaller camp fires glimmered here and there, surrounded by warriors cooking. The feasting was interrupted only by the revel of the rejoicing. All those Pawnees were mad with delight. They sent their shouts beating up against the night sky.
They were not unheard. In the edge of the trees a solitary warrior looked down on the flames of the fires and the figures of the dancers, leaping up black and tall. He listened to the yells of triumph and his soul swelled high. Stretched along the lower branch of a tree, his horse picketed well behind him in the wood, Thunder Moon stared at the Pawnees and trembled with indignation, like a hungry wolf watching in the distance the banqueting of many coyotes too numerous to be attacked even by his superior might of tooth and shoulder.
He did not have the patience of an Indian, but he had a patience which any white man could have admired. He lay there hour after hour and saw the fires diminish, heard the cries of joy grow fewer, and the screech of horn and whistle die out. Glutted with victory and with boasting, the Pawnees fell asleep. Only here and there a few hardy enthusiasts, chiefly very young men who had not counted a coup before, continued the dancing and the merrymaking. A tall brave hurried up the slope, axe in hand, to bring back wood for the main fire. The spirit of the dance still was upon him and, as he went, he leaped up and down and his whoop went thrilling behind him. Straight under the tree of Thunder Moon he passed. Down upon him dropped a shadow. The Pawnee fell without a sound and there was the heavy, hollow sound of a knife driven home by a strong hand. His medicine bag passed into the possession of the victor and Thunder Moon stood up and laughed down at the noise of the celebration. He laughed silently, for now he could turn back to the far-off village. He had done his deed, counted his coup, and he could return and tell his disheartened people that Spotted Bull was a liar and a fool who made medicine without strength, and who could not give strength to his friends or unnerve his enemies. The proof was the medicine bag of this fallen Pawnee. Yet suppose Spotted Bull declared that the bag must have been picked up from where it lay forgotten on the battlefield?
Thunder Moon lingered on the edge of the woods and passed his tongue across his dry lips. He was athirst with a burning of the soul which cried out for the blood of the Pawnees—and there they were spread out before him, enough to feast even his vengeance. Ah, those wolves of the plains.
The moon rose, hanging a bright, golden disk in the east, and Thunder Moon took it as a token. He went back to the place where he had left his horse and found there his spear, plunged into the ground, and his shield hanging from it. Both these he took and returned with them to the forest's edge. He advanced into the open a few steps and held up shield and spear to the rising moon. It was a dream shield of wonderful power, made in the old days by a forefather of Young Hawk and bequeathed by him to Thunder Moon when the brave died. No bullet struck the warrior who carried that shield in battle! It was round, made of thickened bull's hide, covered with well-dressed antelope skin. Eagle feathers hung from it to signify the flight and power of the king of the sky. It was painted with the mysterious form of the crescent moon, the horns turned upward, and there were four spots to represent the four winds of heaven.
This shield and the long lance Thunder Moon raised to the moon, which now floated in the black bowl of the sky. To the zenith, to the west, he raised them, and last he presented them straight to the moon again and made this prayer aloud:
"White Spirit, look down on me and see me standing here. I am not a stranger to you. My name was taken from your brother, who looks through the thunder clouds. Your image is painted on this magic shield which has covered me in battle so that the arrows, the spears, the bullets, the knives of all my enemies cannot harm me in war. The Sioux, the Comanches, the Crows, the Blackfoot, and the Pawnees know this shield and they know me who carry it. I am Thunder Moon. No man among the Cheyennes is so strong as I. Wherever the plains stretch from the north to the south and from the great river into the western mountains, I am known and I am feared. I know that it is not my strength that conquers but the strength of the Sky People, and chiefly yours. If ever I have sacrificed to you swift horses, and whole buffalo, and beaded suits, and weapons, and painted robes, hear me now! The Pawnee wolves lie by the river, and their bellies are filled with meat. Their brains are more filled with victory over my people who have been fools and trusted to the medicine of a cheat instead of worshipping the Sky People. Now I stand under your white face and wait and watch for a sign to tell me whether I may safely go down among them and come back again, having done things which they will remember. Speak to me, spirit!"
Lance and shield extended above his head stiffly at arm's length, face raised, Thunder Moon waited through long minutes. He seemed to have turned to iron, to be incapable of weariness. At last he said in a low voice, "My arms fall from my shoulders. My head swims. Speak to me quickly!"
Instantly, as though this message had been heard, a wisp of cloud blew across the disk in the sky, not darkening it but rather absorbing the light and hanging for a moment, like a shining scarf before it vanished. Thunder Moon drew in a great breath. Then, with an effort, he stilled the shout of triumph which trembled in his throat. He turned and hastened back to his horse where he drove the lance into the ground again, hung the sacred shield reverently upon it,—for these weapons would be useless in the work that he intended—and then started straight down the slope for the camp. Even his rifle he had not brought with him, but in the front of his belt was his knife, long bladed, heavy, and strong as a short sword. With a stroke of that knife he had severed the spinal cord of a running buffalo. He carried, moreover, a heavy Colt revolver in a sheath of antelope skin against his thigh, fastened low down, so that it was ready for the quick and practiced touch of his fingers. So equipped he felt that he could give death to seven Pawnees before he died in turn—if the worst came to the worst. The moon shone behind him and he did not fear the brightness of its light. Rather it was a heavenly companion that filled his heart with courage. For had he not prayed and had not his prayer been answered?
He went down the slope hastily. A true Indian of the plains would have moved with less than half his noise, especially through the tall, dried grasses that covered the slope, but his heart was armed with enchanted power, and he was not afraid. He came up to the camp, not crawling but upright, like a man who feels his destiny upon him. Just below the camp was a deep little swale and, as he stepped into it, a form rose before him and held a rifle at his breast.
"What is your name, brother?" asked the Pawnee. "Have you gone out to give thanks to the night for your dead men?"
"Yes," said Thunder Moon in the Pawnee tongue which he had learned perfectly from prisoners, "and you are the second man!"
As he spoke, the knife was conjured into his hand and driven into the heart of the warrior. The latter gave a gasping, half-stifled groan. Thunder Moon, catching the body to keep it from crashing down among the rattling grasses, listened breathlessly. Apparently the groan had not been heard in the Pawnee camp. Only the wind whispered guiltily among the long grasses and, far off, a horse neighed from the opposite side of the sleeping camp.
Thunder Moon, his heart swelling with gratitude and joy, stood erect. He held the limp body of the Pawnee up to the moon and whispered: "This death and the medicine bag of this warrior, I sacrifice to you, white face!" Then he laid the body softly in the grass, took the medicine bag from about its neck, and walked confidently on into the midst of his enemies.
MOST in that camp were sleeping, exhausted by their riding, their battle, and their rejoicings, but many were still awake. Thunder Moon passed within a dozen strides of some of them. However, their eyes were partly blinded by the brightness of their camp fires and partly their suspicions were blinded and could not quite waken at the sight of this tall, naked warrior, striding through the camp.
The prairie sun had bronzed the body of Thunder Moon to a darkness almost as coppery as the color of the true Indian and, by the moonlight, there was nothing to betray him except the length of his hair which flowed far, after the fashion of the Cheyennes. However, he had disguised himself sufficiently in this particular by catching up and putting on one of those wolfish head-dresses of which the Pawnees were so fond.
He went straight to the center of the camp where the chiefs should be found. He told himself that, if he could know the face and form of the leader of this brilliant war party, he could strike a blow at the Pawnees which almost at a single stroke would overbalance the whole work of this expedition. He looked down upon an array of scattered warriors, all in the prime of life, magnificent men wrapped in buffalo robes, all fit he thought to lead such an expedition.
Their lances were fixed in the ground. Their shields hung upon them. They seemed to Thunder Moon like silent guardians of the sleepers. Passing man after man, his lips twitched and his fingers tingled for his weapon. How simple it would be to lean and with a stroke of the knife send a spirit wandering on the long road to the sky. But he was not one to strike and count coup while an enemy slept.
He was in the exact center of the camp. Not one of the recumbent forms had stirred. He saw before him what promised to be the goal of his expedition, for here was the long headdress of a chief, decked with eagle feathers hanging from a suspended shield. Two lances were fixed in the ground, side by side. Each supported a shield and from one hung the eagle feathers. On either side of those lances slept a warrior. Which, then, was the wearer of the headdress? Which was the leader of the band? Thunder Moon leaned and stared fixedly at one and then at the other. Both were amazingly young, not far advanced into their twenties. But, after all, fame on the war path did not always accompany age. Youth sometimes would be served even on the blood trail across the plains.
He who seemed the older, and the more likely indeed to be the chief man of the party, lay on the left of the spears. He who seemed the younger lay to their right, which seemed the more suitable position for the chief. Thunder Moon, distracted, looked back to the moon, now sailing high through the black sea of night, putting out the stars as she traveled through the sky. He received no sign to help him in his time of doubt. Close over the younger of the two he leaned and laid the point of his knife on the hollow of the sleeper's throat. Instantly the large eyes opened and looked calmly up into the face of Thunder Moon.
"Pawnee," he said, speaking that tongue, "are you not the chief whom all these braves follow?"
The latter looked down at the glittering length of the knife blade. "I am he!" he replied calmly.
The hand of Thunder Moon tightened on the haft of his weapon, but he could not strike. "Stand up... softly... and walk in front of me and out of the camp," he whispered. "I walk behind you, and in my hand I have six deaths!" He touched the revolver at his thigh as he spoke. Without a word of protest or argument, the Pawnee rose, softly as he had been bidden.
"If a man stirs, if a man groans," said Thunder Moon, "you are dead, Pawnee wolf!"
A loud burst of laughter rolled across to them from the nearest camp fire, where several young braves were seen routing out the sleepers. The heart of Thunder Moon stood still. There was an expectant fear in the eyes of the youthful Pawnee as he glanced at the short gun which was now in the hand of his captor. However, it was not the spreading of an alarm which they had witnessed, merely a fresh outbreak of rejoicing. Soon a dozen braves were capering around the fire and raising hideous war cries.
The prisoner walked straight past the fire and the celebrants toward the edge of the camp, stepping with great care, for his way had to wind back and forth among the sleepers. They were nearly out of the camp when a sleeper wakened suddenly and raised himself upon one elbow. He looked full into the face of the prisoner and raised his hands in a silent salutation. Thunder Moon, making the same salute, followed and felt the keen eyes of the Pawnee looking up at him.
They passed on, but presently Thunder Moon became aware that a man was following—a thing that he judged rather by guess than by sense knowledge for no sound was made by the feet of the trailer, and no shadow was cast by his coming. Yet Thunder Moon knew that there was danger behind him and, turning a little as he wound between two prostrate forms, he risked a backward glance and saw that he who had recently saluted the young chief was now striding erect in his rear.
They passed the edge of the camp and descended into the little swale where Thunder Moon had slain the watcher who had risen out of the tall grass. Just before them and to the left were the horses, totally unguarded. It seemed as though these Pawnees, by the greatness of their victory, felt that they had frightened all danger from the face of the prairies.
"Go toward the horses," said Thunder Moon to his captive, "and there pick out a pony and jump on its back and take another horse by the lead rope."
The ponies wandered here and there, the rawhide lariats trailing behind them. The captive gave no sign but turned toward the horses and went on, tall, slender, lithe, stepping like a cat through the grass so that his footfall made no sound even in its dry and crackling stems.
From behind, equally cat-like, curious, insistent the other Pawnee stalked them without a spoken word. If Thunder Moon turned, the chief before him would whirl about and leap on his shoulders, wielding the short knife which was in his girdle. Or if Thunder Moon attempted first to dispose of the man ahead of him, the rifle which was in the hands of his trailer would instantly be fired into his back. He was in a quandary and, being cornered so deftly by ill chance, he determined to rely upon his spiritual protectors, the Sky People. Up to the ascending moon he raised his eyes and, as he looked down again, he saw his victim step aside and pick up the lead ropes of two ponies. They were admirable specimens of horseflesh. All the followers of the war chief in this raid had been mounted, it appeared, upon specially chosen horses. The sides of these two had been heavily scored with whip-strokes that showed they had been ridden into the battle charge, but otherwise they seemed fresh, and lifted their heads and laid back their ears as the Pawnee approached them.
"Better bad spirit than no spirit at all!" thought Thunder Moon as he regarded those flattened ears.
"Brother," said a harsh and sudden voice close behind him, "what Pawnee wears long hair, like a woman or a dog of a Cheyenne?"
What to do then? Thunder Moon, glancing behind him, saw his captive sitting stiffly erect on the back of his pony, obviously ready to whirl and spring to the attack at the first opening. Better the attack of a man armed with a knife than the attack of one who carried a rifle.
"I shall tell you in one word!" said Thunder Moon quietly and, flicking the revolver from his thigh, he only half turned and fired a snap shot under his left arm at the brave behind him. How many hundred times had he practiced that trick, and now his patience was rewarded. The Pawnee had his rifle at the ready with his finger on the trigger. The weapon exploded as he fell with his forehead bored through by that well-aimed ball. The danger hissed close past the head of Thunder Moon, but he had no time to thank the Sky People for that escape from peril. He straightened to meet a shadow flying toward him through the air. The young chief had swung around on the back of his pony and hurled himself like a projectile at his foe. As he leaped, he thrust before him with his knife.
Instinctively Thunder Moon crouched and struck out and up with his left clenched fist. Over his head darted the knife of the Pawnee, a deadly ray of light, and at the same moment his whole arm went numb with the shock of the impact. He felt his knuckles bite through flesh to the bone.
A limp, senseless form struck him, staggered him, and fell inertly upon the ground at his feet, while the terribly loud echoes of the two explosions still rang through the swale with hollow, heavy voices. The camp was already up. Stamp on the ground and every wolf within a mile leaps to his feet. The Pawnees were not less alert than sleeping wolves.
Up to their feet they started, weapons instantly in hand. Their shouts rose in a crash to the trembling moon. The foster son of Big Hard Face stooped to drive his knife into the heart of the fallen Pawnee chief. He saw the young brave lying with his arms thrown above his head, his lips parted, and blood trickling down his cheek from the blow which had stunned him. There was no Cheyenne under the broad heavens who would have hesitated in a similar instance, but Thunder Moon could not strike the decisive blow.
Instead he scooped up the limp body in one powerful arm, caught a frightened pony as it darted past, and threw his burden across its withers. He mounted in turn behind and, with the little beast groaning under the double weight, he forced it to gallop up the slope toward the trees. Like the promise of all blessing, the dark and obscuring shadows of the forest lay before him. As he reached its margin, he looked back and laughed through his teeth. Out from the camp came the first of the Pawnees to sight him as he vanished, but they were well to the rear. His own horse, fresh and strong, waited for him in the midst of the trees. Surely he had more than an even chance to make his escape—aye, and carry his prisoner with him.
HE had a triple task before him when he got to his own pony. He had to wrench spear and shield from the ground. He had to tie his prisoner to his own saddle and, leading his warhorse behind him, he had to ride the Pawnee pony on through the trees.
What he would do now, he had determined long before. Beyond the woods lay the broken district of a stretch of badlands and, into that district, undoubtedly the Pawnees would think that he had fled. Whereas on the farther side of the little forest lay the river, and beyond the river there was nothing save the open, moon-lit plains. Yet it was toward them that he headed. As he rode, he heard the hunt crash past toward the hills. He laughed savagely—a laughter that made no sound.
All was well in the heart of Thunder Moon when he reached the edge of the water and saw that no one scouted on the farther bank. He rode boldly in, heedless in such a moment of a proper ford. At once the strong current foamed around the two swimming horses. They began to whirl around and around, their brave, pricked ears flattened, a sure sign of desperation in them. Thunder Moon was about to strike out for himself toward the farther bank when they hit a shallow sand bank and, in another moment, were climbing the farther shore.
The captive, dazed, choking, coughing forth water from his lungs, had been brought back to his wits by that involuntary bath. Almost at once he whirled about as far as the rope permitted him to move in order to see in what manner he could annoy his captor. He looked down along the great war spear of Thunder Moon, its narrow head glistening like eyes of vengeance.
"If you cry out, friend," said Thunder Moon gravely, "I strike this spear through your heart and choke the noise you try to make."
The Pawnee stared at the spear point as though bewitched, and made no response. At length he murmured: "Tarawa has bewitched my brothers. He has veiled their eyes. Lo, there they ride. I see their shadows sweeping along the river and across the hills, and yet they will not look down and see me here."
"Friend," answered Thunder Moon with satisfaction, "the eyes see only what the brain wishes them to know."
"It is true," groaned the young Pawnee. "My brothers ride toward the hills to find me, never dreaming that you would dare to come by this open way. You know it so well," he added, turning to Thunder Moon with wonder, "that you will not even gallop the horses."
"If we rode fast, we would make a streak across the plain," Thunder Moon explained. "The moonlight would glance on us. We would be discovered. Now we journey slowly, and the moon mist swallows us. We are no more than ghosts to them already."
He laughed, but this time he allowed his voice to make a little sound. It rumbled deeply in his throat, like an ominous music.
It seemed the captive saw that all hope was lost for him. He breathed deeply, as though about to utter the war cry which would send the spear of his captor through his heart but which also might doom his slayer to quick vengeance at the hands of the pursuing Pawnees. Yet, as the cry formed in his throat and at his lips, he looked again at the ready spear of Thunder Moon and checked the shout. To the young, hope is a giant!
So they rode on and, finally, all sights and sounds of the camp were lost behind them. The night grew older still. The wide silence of the plains received them and in turn the cold gray of the dawn began to be sketched across the eastern horizon.
They reached a little rivulet, running not a hundred yards from its fountain head before it sank into the thirsty prairie again. Here Thunder Moon looked to his captive, washed the blood from the wound which his knuckles had made in the cheek of the Pawnee, and then freed him from the cruel strands of the rope.
"There is a long trail before us," said Thunder Moon. "Let us ride like friends. I have no pleasure in tormenting you. All the while, I shall watch you. The little gun in my hand... you have seen that it does not strike in vain. So be warned, my friend."
The Pawnee said nothing for some time after this. He kept his head high, yet it was plain that rage, shame, and despair were at work in him. He held his glance straight before him and his jaw was set.
At length, Thunder Moon stopped to break his fast. He was no patient endurer of long famines. He had knocked down two rabbits with expert shots of his revolver and paused to make a fire and cook the game. The eyes of the Pawnee stared first at his captor, and then were slowly raised to follow the gradually ascending smoke which climbed the great arch of the sky.
Thunder Moon understood that surprised glance, but he said nothing. Only when the rabbits were cooked, did he offer one of them, neatly browned on a wooden spit, to the other.
The Pawnee stared again. "My friend," he said in a pleasant and surprisingly gentle voice, "in the towns of the Cheyennes I know that the Pawnees are dogs and the sons of dogs. They are hated and they are feared. One Pawnee scalp is more prized than five scalps of the Sioux or even more than a Comanche's. Yet... one does not stop to cook in the open prairie when there may be danger on the trail... or offer food to a dog. Is it true?"
"I am too hungry to think clearly," Thunder Moon said frankly. "You are hungry, also. Eat, my friend."
So they ate together and, from time to time, Thunder Moon observed his captive. The longer he regarded him, the more certain he was that this was indeed the war chief for, even if the brave had not confessed his identity, there was about him such an air of dignity and grace as Thunder Moon never before had seen—not among the tall Cheyennes, not among the well-made Crows or the graceful Blackfoots. The Pawnees tended to a broad and heavy build as a rule. This warrior was shaped with infinite skill, and his face, too, varied from the usual appearance of an Indian. It was more oval. The eyes were larger and set in under a deep and thoughtful brow. His features were molded with the same beauty and regularity with which his body was formed. This Pawnee was such a man Thunder Moon felt fear never could come near him, simply because fear was an ungraceful passion and unworthy of such a creature.
"Noble brother," said Thunder Moon at last, "I have heard the great chiefs of your nation named. Some of them I have met in battle, and I have seen them charge along the lines of the Cheyennes. I have not seen you. You are a stranger to me. Yet a tree does not grow from a slip to a great height in one day, and a man does not become great suddenly. Never have the Cheyennes been struck a blow as you struck them yesterday. Tell me, where have you hidden yourself that you have not appeared before this upon the plains? It is well for the Cheyennes that the fire is ended before it had a chance to consume them."
The eyes of the captive glistened. "It is well!" he said.
"Why do you call it well?" asked Thunder Moon naïvely. "Is it well that you should be here with me, journeying where I am to take you?"
"Where I go," said the Pawnee, "is a small thing. Where I travel, the Pawnees will hardly care. Only one man among them will yearn for me greatly."
Thunder Moon stared.
"I have spoken!" ended the other.
"You have spoken strangely," declared Thunder Moon. "Are the Pawnees worse than wolves in winter who eat their dead? Do they forget their great men as soon as they have fallen?"
"No," said the youth, "but I have done no great deeds. If I have counted seven coups... why, that is not many. If I have slain four men in battle, that also is not much. It is well that all the four were Cheyennes. Their spirits are lost between earth and heaven. Their scalps will hang in my lodge and dry there in the smoke. Their medicine bags and their souls in them shall be sacrificed to Tarawa."
Thunder Moon fondled the haft of his long knife with a loving touch and, at the same time, regarded the other with a melancholy eye.
"Look, my friend," he said, "you walk now on a dangerous trail. Still I listen. Your words I cannot altogether understand. That man who led the Pawnees in the battle of yesterday is no unskillful warrior. What if no more than four men have fallen behind his hand? The brain is mightier than the arm, both in council and in battle. Though he never strikes a single blow himself, he would have caused the death of hundreds of the enemies of his people if he had lived. If he had lived!" added Thunder Moon, and dwelt upon the Pawnee with an infinite satisfaction.
However, the latter seemed not a whit dismayed. He even laughed a little, softly and deeply in his throat, as a man will do when he exults greatly. "He lives and the hundreds of whom you speak shall fail. He will wash the prairies with blood, even for my sake."
"For your sake?" echoed Thunder Moon.
"For my sake, Cheyenne! Because I told you that I was the leader when you leaned above me, your knife at my throat, does it follow that I am in fact the chief?"
Thunder Moon was silent, watching with burning eyes. Truth and ecstasy of great accomplishment were stamped upon the face and trembling in the voice of the Pawnee.
"For if I had denied it, your knife would have turned from me and entered the heart of the son of my father!"
"The son of your father?"
"Falling Stone! Falling Stone is my brother and our leader. It was he who washed his hands in the blood of the best of the Cheyennes yesterday. He still lives, and he shall not die until he has swept the Cheyennes howling from the plains and driven them into the Father of Waters. I have spoken! Open the sky, and Tawara strike me if I have not told the truth... if I have not made a prophecy."
VERY great had been the hopes which Thunder Moon had founded upon that midnight exploit of his. Now he found his hopes dashed quite to the ground. His heart welled in him with disappointment first, and then with a deadly rage against his companion.
"Traitor... dog of a Pawnee!" he gasped.
He lurched a little forward and caught the shoulder of the youth in that terrible clasp which the strongest men of the Cheyennes knew so well and feared so much—that grip which, as men said, in the midst of battle when all other weapons were broken or lost had served him to tear the life out of a foeman as you or I might pluck out the core from an orange.
The Pawnee endured that grip, though the iron finger tips were biting through his flesh and grinding the nerves against the bone. He endured it and, although the sweat started upon his forehead, he smiled calmly, proudly, even disdainfully upon Thunder Moon.
"Strike when you will, friend," said the Pawnee. "I have told you the truth. That is a snake which only bites the heel of a villain. And I have seen you stung."
It was on the whole as well-rounded an insult as could have been flung in the face of a Cheyenne, and Thunder Moon gasped deeply with fury. Twice the long blade of his hunting knife gleamed naked of the sheath, and twice he thrust it back within the leather. At last he sat back, frowning.
"You see the torture before you," he said, "and you see the Cheyenne women... whose fathers and brothers and sons have fallen by your hand and by the weapons of your men... you see them gathered around you, tearing your flesh, burning you, filling your ears with taunts, dangling before your face your own scalp. Therefore, the greater the chief the greater the torment. So you would belie yourself, discard your name, and take another. That is the game of a child, and I smile at you, and understand the trick."
"You lie," replied the Pawnee, with a sneer. "As I hang on the stake, I shall laugh at the Cheyenne she-devils as they tear me. I shall laugh when my own scalp is dangled in my face. Until death chokes me, I shall shout out the names of the Cheyenne warriors who have fallen under my hand. I shall laugh and sing my battle song and my death song, and make my boast true in the ears of men and in the ears of Tarawa who hears all things." He looked up, and smiled at the sun-flooded sky.
Thunder Moon listened aghast, for now he felt that he had heard the truth, indeed. So this great exploit, this greatest of his deeds, was a useless thing. He sighed bitterly. "I have asked too much," he said. "The Sky People heard only a part of my prayer."
"Brother," said the Pawnee with the same disdainful smile, "did you think that the Sky People to whom you prayed could have filled your hands with such glory as the death of Falling Stone? No, he is a warrior who is not fated to die in such manner. When he falls, thousands shall fall around him. Wait but a little and you shall have a sign from him. For he comes across the prairies swifter than a great fire, scourged along by the wind. The horses die under him as he rides. He sings a terrible song in his heart: 'my brother, Rising Cloud, is lost to me! A thousand men shall die for his sake!'"
As he spoke, he swept his hand toward the horizon, and Thunder Moon, so had the words worked upon him, started a little and bit his lip when he saw that he had shown his emotion. For that matter, he never had been able to control his expression with the true immobility of feature that distinguishes an Indian of pure blood.
"Words are not bullets," said Thunder Moon dryly, "and speeches are not armed warriors charging together. It may be that some day I shall meet this Falling Stone, this brother, and there shall be mourning in the lodge of your father and your mother again. There are some who reap glory and gather it like corn, and preserve it like pemmican. Others take what has been reaped and what has been preserved and it is they who eat it. But you, Rising Cloud, you are young, and yet you are very brave."
The Pawnee was so amazed by this compliment that he was utterly speechless for a long moment.
"You are brave," said Thunder Moon, speaking his thoughts aloud, rather than addressing his prisoner directly, "and you are wise as well. You were wise in what you said to me. What courage is greater than for a man to die for another... even for his brother?" He paused.
"A thought comes to me," continued Thunder Moon. "It may be that you will not die under the hands of the squaws and the children while the Cheyenne braves look on. I have promised a sacrifice to the Sky People who brought me safely into the camp of Falling Stone and took me out again. It might be, Rising Cloud, that you would be a sacrifice acceptable to them. I would not sacrifice a scalped and dishonored man. How could a wandering ghost be acceptable to them? One who had lost his medicine bag and his soul? One who could not ride on the plains above us and follow the buffalo over the shadows in the sky? So I have this thought, Rising Cloud, of dressing you in all the regalia of a great Pawnee chief and then striking you dead as an offering to the Sky People. After that, I would bury you honorably, and kill a fine horse beneath the frame on which your body lay, and put weapons beside you, even good rifles and knives, and all that a spirit could need in the hereafter."
When he had finished this singular speech, Rising Cloud maintained an erect head for a moment only, and then his glance dropped to the ground. In this manner they remained for some time, the foster son of the Cheyenne turning his thought in his mind and finding it good, and the Pawnee apparently overcome by this generous offer. A death by indescribable torment had lain before him. To avoid it, he had badgered this pale-skinned enemy in the hope of provoking a sudden thrust of the knife. Now, however, he was promised an end almost as honorable as death in the midst of battle, charging at the side of one's best friends for the honor of the tribe.
"How many," asked the Pawnee suddenly, "died in the camp of my brother last night? From how many did you take the medicine bags?"
"Three," said Thunder Moon, and went on with his secret thoughts calmly.
"Three men died under your hand, and a fourth was carried away a prisoner like a child or a helpless woman!" said the Pawnee, writhing with shame. "It is plain," he added, raising his head again, "that the Sky People gave you power. Tarawa willed it. He would not have the Pawnees too proud. He wished to tame the high spirit of Falling Stone after the great victory. So he chose the hand of Thunder Moon, who is the heart and the head and the hand of the Cheyennes."
At this, the big man looked up sharply. "How did you know my name, brother?" he asked.
"The wolf kills in one way," said the Pawnee, "and the mountain lion does not have two ways of killing the deer. Have I not heard the story of how a Cheyenne rode far south to the camp of the Comanches and killed in that camp and brought away the greatest medicine of the tribe?"
"So!" breathed Thunder Moon, "that is known even to the Pawnees."
"Besides," said the young chief, and he smiled a little, "I have not heard that there are two Cheyennes with pale faces and with hands of iron. We know you, brother. When I looked up from my sleep and saw the glittering of your knife, had it been any other man, I should have struck one blow for my life and to alarm the camp. But I saw that it was Thunder Moon, and I gave up hope."
The delicious sweetness of praise ran softly and kindly into the soul of Thunder Moon, but he controlled himself and said merely: "It is time that we take the trail once more."
So they mounted and resumed their way across the plains, refreshed. They continued through the day, goading the sides of their weary horses. The hot sun dipped into the western haze. It set and the day was covered with delicate color. Immediately afterwards, they could see dim lights twinkling before them and, coming closer, they saw the Cheyenne village spread out before them.
It was always a noisy time of the day for it was the moment when the boys, bringing in the horses which they had herded and guarded during the day, swept with whoops and yells into the camp. It was the time, too, when the braves went forth often and shouted their invitations to a feast. There was the neighing of horses and their frightened snorting as they were tethered for the night nearby. Now, however, all these sounds were lacking. But first, from the distance, it seemed that one long, shrill voice was wailing out of the edge of the sky and, as the two drew closer, they heard this sound dissolved into many portions. Each was the lament of a woman, sharp and thin, and reaching over the prairie as far as the cry of a hunting wolf.
"You hear?" said Thunder Moon grimly. "It is a token that Falling Stone is not forgotten in the village of the Suhtai. When you enter that place with me, you ride into great danger, my brother. Yet keep a strong heart. I shall not forsake you. Ride before me. Go slowly and yet never stop, even if a crowd gathers close before your horse. Ride straight into the center of the village, and when you see a bear lodge, with a great red bear painted along the side of it with wonderful art, you will know that that is the home of my father, Big Hard Face. Go to that lodge and dismount. I shall be close behind you, protecting you."
"It is well," said the Pawnee. "Yet," he added wistfully, "if you will sacrifice me to the Sky People who are your friends, Tarawa who hears all things and sees all things is as near to me now as he will be in the center of the Cheyenne camp. Strike now, Thunder Moon, and accomplish your vow for, if you take me into the village, the women who have lost husbands and sons in the battle will tear me out of your hands. I have seen such things happen. I know them very well."
"Brother," said Thunder Moon calmly, "I am not a young man. Among the Cheyennes my name is known. I do not take you in among my people in order to shame you or put you in danger at the devilish hands of the women. There is another purpose which you serve in coming with me into the camp of the Cheyennes. I have to prove that one man there is a liar. After that is done, have no fear. You shall die simply and quickly."
"It is well," repeated the Pawnee.
AT the edge of the village the wailing of the women had increased in volume and had become wildly poignant cries, each with its separate, hoarse note of woe. There Thunder Moon paused and, taking his robe from his own shoulders, he threw it around those of his companion.
"Because," he said, "it is not good that a great man and a chief should be naked before the eyes of strangers."
Rising Cloud gave his captor a single glance brimming and brilliant with gratitude, and then they entered the camp. They had made no other preparation, except that Thunder Moon had tied to his lance, near its point, the three medicine bags which he had taken from his victims in the Pawnee camp. These dangled—strange small shapes—one the tiny skin of a field mouse, one the pelt of a small muskrat, and one was the soft hide of a chipmunk. In them were who could tell what odd trinkets, the collection of which had been commanded by the same dreams that made the warriors who had owned these bags in the first place go out to collect them. There was about them, in spite of their small size and their strange appearance, a mysterious importance, at least in the eyes of all who knew their significance. For they were, almost literally, the souls of men—the souls of dead men, still lingering upon the earth in this form. No matter how bravely the hero might have died, no matter with what perfect ceremonies he were buried, still because he had lost his medicine bag, all peace was stolen from his spirit forever.
There was such excitement through the village that no attention was paid to the two horsemen, for they were only now and again illumined by the light from within a lodge whose flap hung open.
They had covered almost half the distance to the center of the village when the harsh, crackling voice of an old man sang out: "The medicine of Spotted Bull lied when it said that Thunder Moon would not return to the Suhtai. It lied, for here is Thunder Moon, and he brings a companion with him."
Straight before them at that moment was a woman seated in the middle of the way, cross-legged, covered with dirt. Her long hair she had shorn away with slashes of a knife and some of those cuts had gashed her scalp and let the blood flow. Furthermore, she had slashed her legs and arms and breasts with the same knife which she still brandished in her hand and which she sometimes waved over her head, all the while keeping up a terrible keening. Often it was a wordless lament. Again, it took shape in words: "Sky People, under earth spirits, spirits that live in the water, how did Big River hurt you? When was he not your friend? You deserted him. You went from him. Then you held his arms so that he could not strike the Pawnee wolf who came and tore at his breast. Yet his heart was great. He would not die even from such a terrible wound. He kept fighting. You wanted to have him dead. You held his arms, and two more Pawnee devils leaped on him and bore him down. He lies far off on the plains. The river has rolled him ashore like a dead pebble. His body is filled with water. The medicine bag is gone from his throat. His scalp drips blood from the bridle of a Pawnee. And I am here! Pity me! Take my life from me quickly! Carry me away to Big River. There let my soul dwindle and fade from the earth with his soul, until both become so thin that even the eye of Tarawa cannot see us. Let me die. I do not wish to live. I have a brother and a sister who will take care of my son. Let me die. I ask you for death. I am sad and sick of living, and my teepee is empty. Oh, my lodge is empty and the pipe that hangs from the lodge pole never will be smoked again."
In this manner she lamented, and all these exclamations were interspersed with wild, long-drawn, animal-like cries and howls, and then heartbroken sobbings. When she heard the name of Thunder Moon, it startled her to her feet. Up she bounded, knife in hand, and throwing herself down before the warrior she literally embraced the knees of his tired pony—which, except for its weariness, would have trampled her into the ground.
"I cried out!" she screamed up to the brave. "I cried out, and the spirits heard me, and they sent me Thunder Moon. Oh, Thunder Moon, Spotted Bull lied when he said that you would not return to us. He lied, too, when he sent our braves out and would not let you lead them. May he die... may he rot like mildewed meat! For if you had led our warriors, they never would have been beaten. No, they would be riding back now with scalps at their bridles. They would be dancing around the fires, counting their coups. Oh, may Spotted Bull shrivel away like grass in the first heats. May he...."
Here two other women rushed to her and tried to cover her mouth with their hands, cautioning her, begging her not to bring her soul into mortal peril by challenging the wrath of the medicine man.
"He dares not touch me, the liar and cheat, the mangy dog, Spotted Bull. For Thunder Moon is here. To my husband he was a brother. When Thunder Moon and Big River rode out together, they made the Pawnees tremble. Spotted Bull separated them and therefore let him die and be shamed before all men and let...." She broke off and added: "Thunder Moon, Thunder Moon, my husband's friend, be a friend to me."
"I am your friend," said the warrior gently.
"Then go to the river, find his body. Take me to find his body and bury it. The same water that took his dead body, let it take my dead one, and so my soul shall float down the stream and come to his soul."
Before an answer could be given, through the crowd which had begun to gather a loud voice sounded: "Who is the fool who curses Spotted Bull and wishes for his death? Who is she?" Spotted Bull himself came striding through the crowd, who gave way before him.
He came directly to the squaw of Big River and she cringed away from him, taking shelter between her two companions. Even these two seemed quite anxious to get away from her, and tried vainly to disengage the hands with which she clutched them so firmly.
"The going of Big River may have been only a token and a sign," said Spotted Bull, extending his clenched hand over the squaw. "Bring two good horses and tie them to the post in front of my lodge. It may be that I may be able to intercede with the Sky People and turn their anger away from you because you have cursed me. Unless...."
Hundreds had gathered and still were gathering. The space between the teepees was jammed tight with men and women and children, so that the Pawnee, trying to get ahead through the mob, found himself lodged there and helpless, unable to move.
Here the stern voice of Thunder Moon broke in. "Spotted Bull, spotted calf, spotted coyote, take your hand from the woman. I have come back to let the Cheyennes know that you are a liar and a fool! Do not look at the squaw of Big River whom you sent out to death with the other warriors. Look to me. You gave them weak medicine. You put a curse on me. Your medicine was nothing. The Sky People laughed at you. Here are medicine bags of the Pawnees to prove that I have been among them."
Spotted Bull, who had stormed up to the squaw in such a passion that he had been blind to all other faces and forms, now looked up to the towering silhouette of the man on horseback. At that instant the flap of an adjoining teepee was thrown open and a flickering, wild firelight streamed out upon the face of Thunder Moon. So Spotted Bull went backwards a step, staggering like one who has received a heavy blow. A sort of groan of interest and of fear came from the lips of the crowd. It was a terrible thing to which they had listened—never before in the annals of the Suhtai had a chief medicine man been denounced in the face of the entire tribe in this fashion. He recovered himself almost at once, for he was one who made his living as an actor and by the constant use of words. He called out, pointing to the medicine bags which dangled from the head of the war spear of the brave:
"After the bear has fought and feasted, the buzzards steal down from the sky and eat also. You have sneaked up onto the battlefield. You have found dead Pawnees and stolen their medicine bags before their friends could bury them. You come here and talk loudly, but men know that every liar has a huge voice."
There was another gasp from the crowd. They seemed to think that the spear of Thunder Moon would be buried in the breast of the medicine man the next instant. So, doubtless, it would have been, had Spotted Bull carried a gun or even a knife. As it was, he stood defenseless before the warrior, showing such courage as few men in the tribe would have exhibited at such a moment.
"I have not come back here to murder you, Spotted Bull," said Thunder Moon. "I have come back to kill your reputation. I shall make you laughed at even by the children. Your own squaws will scorn you and spit on you. Do you say that I have not been in the camp of the Pawnees?"
"I say it and I know it," went on the medicine man, boldly brazening out the situation, for he saw that either he or Thunder Moon must go down on this occasion.
"By your medicine you know it?" asked Thunder Moon in a dry voice.
There was not so much as the whispering sound of a drawn breath through all the crowd. Never before had they come to a moment of such terrible interest. For no warrior in their tribe was so great as Thunder Moon. No medicine man had such a reputation as Spotted Bull. How often his medicine had brought rain. How often his medicine had sent them out to successful battle or to good hunting. It was now the meeting of flesh and spirit. And great things were expected.
"Yes," said the medicine man, "I talked to the spirits. A spirit came like an owl and sat on my shoulder and told me that you had crept out onto the battlefield and tried to steal a great name by taking these three medicine bags."
"Hear me, Spotted Bull," said Thunder Moon. "Do you know the name of the chief of the Pawnees who led the army?"
"It is Falling Stone. The spirits have told me. They told me after the braves started on the trail. I tried to call them back to tell them that the Sky People had given luck to the Pawnees. All that happened was revealed to me... and that included your wretched treachery."
"That is not true!" shrilled the sudden voice of the squaw of Big River. "When has Thunder Moon lied in all his life?"
"WOMAN," cried the medicine man to the squaw, "because you made your husband sin, he died. Now you draw down on your head the...."
"Harken to me, Spotted Bull," broke in Thunder Moon. "You have told me the name of the chief of the Pawnees. Have the spirits told you the name of his brother, also?"
"What is that? I ask only for the chief leader," replied the medicine man.
"I shall tell you the name of Falling Stone's brother. Do you wish to know?"
Spotted Bull stretched out his long arm and shook his finger toward Thunder Moon. "Hear this man, oh my brothers!" he cried. "With the heart and the soul of a liar, he is striving to turn your minds to other things... small things... while he juggles his words and makes small matters into great ones, so that you may forget him and his lies!"
"I shall tell you," said Thunder Moon, "that the brother of the war chief of the Pawnees also is a great warrior. The scalps of the Cheyennes dry now in his tent. His name is Rising Cloud."
"More lies!" said the medicine man. "I smell them afar like a carrion which has lain a fortnight on the ground and in the sun. More lies!"
"They are truths," answered Thunder Moon. "Now I shall shut your mouth forever, Spotted Bull, and make you less than a starved dog in this camp, less than a toothless old dog that no longer can crack a bone. Do you hear me? Do you hear me, all my friends of the Suhtai? There sits Rising Cloud on that horse, wrapped in his robe. The medicine of Spotted Bull was fool's medicine. He sent out your young men to their death. But, in spite of him, I went behind the war party. I came up and saw them fleeing from the river. Then I crossed the river and went into the woods that stood on the hills near the camp of the Pawnees. I was so close that their howling over the victory filled my ears. Then I went down into their camp to get their best man, their leader. By chance I missed him. The moon spirit and the Sky People helped me and brought me to the right place, but there like a blind man I failed to see the war chief. I brought away a brave warrior, his brother, as a proof that Spotted Bull is a fool and a coward, and that his medicine is weaker than water."
As though to verify what had been said, at this moment Rising Cloud allowed the robe to fall away from his head and the familiar headdress of a Pawnee was instantly recognized. A wail of wonder and delight went up from all in the crowd and that wail, like a roaring voice of fate, silenced Spotted Bull.
He shrank back, scowling and muttering. As others pressed forward, he allowed himself to drift toward the rear, and presently disappeared, to skulk softly away toward his own lodge. There he sat with his robe gathered about his head, speaking not at all, while his frightened wives moved like shadows here and talked with one another by the sign language.
However, now that the mass of listening, excited Cheyennes stirred before them, Thunder Moon pressed ahead, and carried the young prisoner with him. They managed to make their way only with great difficulty. The warriors were sullen and silent for the most part as they saw the prisoner go past them. The younger men and boys screamed with pleasure and almost forgot the greatness of the defeat in this sight. But the danger was from the women who had lost kin in the battle.
Knives flashed and clubs were swung up on either hand, and many a deadly blow would have been directed at the Pawnee if it had not been for the thundering voice of his captor, following rapidly in the rear and calling to the Suhtai women to beware.
"If there is harm done to the Pawnee," Thunder Moon shouted, "I shall take vengeance for it, blood for blood, and head for head! Beware and keep back. The Sky People have sent him to us. Let us treat him as a gift from heaven."
Thus calling out, he managed to keep Rising Cloud from harm. They pressed on through a growing pandemonium until they came to the central portion of the village, and there reached the lodge of Big Hard Face, with the walking bear painted in brilliant red upon it.
The old man was standing at the flap of the teepee, his arms folded inside his robe. It fitted neither his position nor his age to rush away and mingle with the curious to learn the news, but his eyes were flashing. For he had heard the name of Thunder Moon shouted, and he could not tell in what connection—whether it meant news of life or news of death—until he saw the familiar great shoulders of the rider breaking through the mass with the Pawnee herded before him.
He started violently and raised a hand in salutation. He permitted himself no word of triumph or of exultation, merely gathering his arms again inside his robe, while his foster son dismounted. Indeed, whether emotion had mastered him or he wished to appear indifferent, he turned and disappeared into the teepee, where his son and the prisoner immediately followed him.
Only White Crow remained outside the lodge. All the life of Thunder Moon, since first he had been brought, a crying infant, to the lodge of Big Hard Face, White Crow had been divided between interest and pride on the one hand, and aversion on the other. This was no child of her childless body; neither was it a child of her nephew, Big Hard Face. Therefore, she detested Thunder Moon and all the ways in which his white blood appeared. On that score she never ceased badgering the chief about his foster son. On the other hand, her breast swelled with joy and pride because of the exploits of this young warrior who rode out from her teepee. She remained outside the lodge, boasting in a loud, shrill voice, taunting her neighbors by name.
"Who has gone out from your lodge, Wind Woman, and brought back glory and prisoners? Red Leaf, who is it that has gone out from your lodge and done such things? I send out Thunder Moon. A great, bright moon that blinds the eyes of the Pawnees. Like a thunderstorm he strikes them down. They shrink before him. He leans from his horse and picks up their chief men and brings them back with him like antelope meat." In this manner she boasted.
Presently the head men of the Suhtai began to arrive at the teepee and, one by one, they passed inside the home of their old chief. Excitement waxed constantly in the gathering crowd. There the women who mourned for dead kinsmen had drawn to the front covered with blood from the gashes which they had inflicted upon one another. Their clothes in rent rags, their bodies covered with dust and with ashes, now they had forgotten their laments and with one voice they demanded that the prisoner be led forth and delivered over into their hands. He was their due. They had earned the right to send his soul on the long journey with all the cunning torments which their hands could devise. They shouted, and the shrill voice of White Crow boasted, as she walked back and forth in front of the teepee.
Inside, there was another scene. Guarded by two famous warriors, the prisoner sat cross-legged at one side. His face was utterly immobile, his fine eyes apparently unconscious of the keen, cruel glances which were fixed upon him, and his ears apparently unaware of the debate which raged concerning him.
First of all, as was his duty, but with perfect simplicity and without boasting, Thunder Moon told a straightforward tale of how he had approached the Pawnee camp, watched it, listened to the songs and shoutings of his enemy, and then made his prayer to the Sky People and his guardian spirit in the moon. How he had struck down the forager for wood. How he had gone into the camp and killed a warrior on the way. How he had gained the central place and found the insignia of the chief. How he had taken the wrong man, as it appeared. How he had led him out and been followed by a suspicious Pawnee. How he had killed this man also, and how he had finally escaped almost by miracle from the swarming Pawnee hunters who rode to find him. Here, then, was the prisoner. For his part, he had a mind to lead out the chief at the next moon rise and sacrifice him in return for the aid which the Sky People had given to him. This was a matter in which the wise men of the tribe should first be consulted.
The old chief had the right of first speech. He shook his head and bade others offer their opinions.
Snake-That-Talks—a young man but a famous fighter, and long ago a companion of Thunder Moon on that famous war trail which carried him first deep into the country of the Comanches—was the first to speak. He said: "A scalp is a scalp and a coup is good to count. Besides, the women deserve to have sport with this man. More than this, it will gladden the spirits of many unhappy Cheyennes who now are wandering spirits, drifting here and there about that river where they died. It will gladden them to see a Pawnee ghost come so quickly to join them! Let Rising Cloud be given to the women... only let Thunder Moon count coup upon him three times and take his scalp when the women have ended their pleasure with him."
Thunder Moon, listening, leaned forward and looked intently into the face of the captive, but the latter gave no sign that he had heard this terrible advice. Most of the others agreed to this scheme, except Gray Eagle, who declared that some good might be done the tribe by trading the prisoner back to the Pawnees because the war chief, Falling Stone, doubtless would pay an enormous price to redeem his brother.
"Brother," said Big Hard Face at this point, "all the horses and all the buffalo on the plains could not pay for all the men we have lost. Our young men, too, will grow afraid of the Pawnees after this battle unless they see a fresh scalp before long. Give us Rising Cloud, my son. Let us do what we will with him. Let the women have him, saving only his scalp for you."
Twice Thunder Moon attempted to speak and twice his voice failed him. He could not withdraw his eyes from the handsome, immobile face of his captive. At length he said: "This is not a little thing. I have promised a great sacrifice to the Sky People. Let me have until tomorrow to think about this thing. As for the women," he added with a sudden flash of disgust, "they yell like coyotes. Let them wait. I shall tell them my thoughts later."
IT is necessary to go back to the raid of the Pawnees to describe a most important detail that now had bearing upon the course of events. When Falling Stone and his band swept down upon the Cheyenne village, they carried away with them a great portion of the horses of the Suhtai. They even made some lucky inroads upon the band of Thunder Moon's Comanche ponies. But the tribe also underwent a loss more mortal than that of men or ponies.
Long ago, when Big Hard Face came back from his foray carrying his white foster son in his arms, he was riding upon a tall dark chestnut stallion, taken from a breeder of Thoroughbreds, with blood as pure and an ancestry more ancient than the blood of kings. That great horse became the father of a line of such stock as the plains Indians had never ridden before. Hardy as the Indian ponies, but with galloping powers far beyond the stretch of any known pony's legs, the chestnuts had served as mounts for Thunder Moon's band on that famous occasion when he foraged deep in the territory of the Comanches and had scoured away from all pursuit.
Upon one of those chestnuts, therefore, he would have been mounted at the time of the Pawnee foray had it not been that those chosen animals had been put out to graze under careful guard at a distance from the camp. There they were safe enough, it seemed. Trained and schooled more carefully than the Indian children themselves, these horses came at a whistle and obeyed the voice almost as though they understood human speech. Therefore, they could not be stampeded. On two occasions when skillful thieves had managed to get on the back of one of Big Hard Face's chestnuts, the faithful animals had come back to the call of their master and brought their would-be captors with them. So it was considered safe enough to range the horses at a distance from the camp, under a guard of three or four men, keeping them always where the choicest grass was to be found.
On the very night when Thunder Moon returned with his prisoner, disastrous tidings were brought in that the impossible had been accomplished. Five of the chestnuts had been taken in the dusk of that same day, taken by a sort of magic and spirited away from the hollow in which they were grazing. The guards made only a feeble effort to follow the trail when they noticed the loss. Darkness closed on the prairie. So they came back to report the loss.
Five out of twelve magnificent horses were gone, and the guards dared not go directly to Big Hard Face, but came and touched the feet of Thunder Moon as he lay asleep. To him they told their story and he in turn took heart and reported the tragedy to his father. There had been no sign of any danger on the plains, the herdsmen reported. Only, in the late afternoon, a great buffalo wolf had been observed sitting on the top of a distant hummock.
Straightway Big Hard Face, Thunder Moon, and half a dozen of the best trailers in the tribe made ready to mount the remaining chestnuts and start the pursuit. They made their preparations with heavy hearts. They were far behind. The dark had passed and the dawn had come since the thief made off with his prizes. Scarcely ten days of hard riding could make up for the difference, even with the best of luck.
While the preparations for departure were underway, an event happened which filled the mind of Thunder Moon with something other than troubles about horseflesh. Already in the rosy light of the morning, the squaws were beginning their keening at a distance from the camp, and the melancholy sounds came from afar in the saddest of music when Thunder Moon, standing in front of his foster father's lodge, heard a tumult down the main passage through the teepees and presently he saw the Omissis, Walking Horse, riding toward him.
A little crowd was running out to look at the chief, then hastily gathering around behind him. It seemed to Thunder Moon that their attention was not so much fixed upon the Omissis as upon something behind him. A little later he could see that a woman followed the chief. As the pair drew closer, he could see that it was such a woman as never before had entered the Suhtai camp.
For she had long, red hair and even from a distance it flashed like two copper swords, curving down from her brows and over her shoulders in massive braids. Her skin was not so swarthy as that of an Indian belle, but was a rich, dark olive. Though she was not tall, she carried herself in such a manner that she filled the eyes entirely. Thunder Moon never had seen a creature quite like her in all the days of his life.
In the meantime, the Omissis came to the lodge entrance and saluted Thunder Moon and Big Hard Face, who had just come out.
"Brothers," he said, smiling upon them, "I have come back, and I have brought the payment for the fifty horses as we planned and bargained together." So saying, he pointed to a whole string of pack ponies now approaching, driven forward by several of Walking Horse's tribesmen. The arrival of such a cargo put off even the thoughts of redeeming the five lost chestnuts.
The pack ponies came up and, one by one, they were unloaded of such treasure as rarely had come under the eye of an Indian in one bulk. There were nearly a hundred rifles. There were quantities of powder and lead. There were five six-shooters of the new Colt pattern—miracle guns they seemed to the Cheyennes, even though they had watched them at work in the hands of Thunder Moon. His shooting with them was considered rather as "medicine" than as his able use of a weapon. Besides, there were plaited robes and beaded suits, and excellent knives and, indeed, all that could gladden the heart of a Suhtai. In heaps this treasure was carried into the lodge of Big Hard Face, and White Crow received it, gloating over its masses.
"We are to take all of this," said Big Hard Face, "and in return you wish no horses?"
"I have made the bargain," said Walking Horse, "and I have received your word under witness of Tarawa. You will accept in turn what I am to give you and keep it in your teepee. You and Thunder Moon... you will guard it carefully?"
"That is all agreed," said Big Hard Face impatiently. "Now, brother, what is this thing?"
Walking Horse turned sharply around and made an imperious gesture. The girl at once dismounted and, taking her hand, Walking Horse placed it in the hand of Thunder Moon.
"Other men," he said, "accept great gifts for a daughter, and especially for a beautiful girl. Instead, I offer the price of fifty horses to the man who will accept her. Her name is Red Wind. Take her as you have sworn to do. Put her in your lodge. Guard her well and keep her. Make her your squaw if you will. But watch her always."
Thunder Moon was stunned. He looked down to the soft, slender hand which lay in his. He looked up to the face of the girl and saw that her eyes were not black, but the deepest, darkest shade of blue, like the color of water at dusk—almost like the color of the midnight sky.
They passed into the teepee. Big Hard Face, his doubts ended, began to laugh a little, and his old eyes shone as he looked to Walking Horse.
"Brother," he said, "you have given us two gifts, and the first was worth fifty fine horses, but the second looks to me still more valuable."
Walking Horse, in place of replying, smiled most sourly. Then he turned on the girl. "I have brought you into a new life," he said to her in a stern voice. "Among the Omissis, you have made much trouble. Twenty men have had their knives ready for my throat because of you. There has been no peace among us for five years. Now I take you to another tribe. Guard your voice. Take heed when you sing. Keep your head covered. Learn cookery and the dressing of skins. It may be that you will become a blessing to Thunder Moon. But make such trouble in his lodge as you have made in mine and be sure that he will take you with one hand and crush out your life as a boy catches a small bird and crushes it to death. I have spoken."
With this bitter farewell, he turned upon his heel and left the teepee. Big Hard Face overtook him just outside.
"Walking Horse," he said, "we are friends. When two friends are together, they point out to one another the dangers that threaten him. Now, you see a danger. You see that there is a storm ahead, but Thunder Moon and I cannot see it. Tell us then, from what direction it may blow."
"I shall tell you," said Walking Horse, half sternly and half in sorrow. "From this moment, there is danger all around you. It lies down by your side at night; it walks beside you in the dusk. It slides in the shadow of your galloping horse, and it hangs in the sky above you. Danger blows toward you from every corner of the sky."
Big Hard Face became sober indeed. "Brother," he entreated, "we look and we see only a beautiful girl. The color of her hair is strange. But it is not unpleasant. Otherwise, she seems what a woman should be. Tell us, therefore, in what way she may harm us?"
"You are not a young man," said the Omissis, unrelenting. "I am not a boy and yet you could be my father. You are the chief who leads a great tribe, and the councils of Big Hard Face have made the Suhtai rich and great on the plains. You have a great warrior in your lodge. There is no other like him among all the Cheyennes. Between you, you may discover the danger for yourselves. It may be that no danger at all will be seen. The Sky People listen to the voice of Thunder Moon. They may teach him what to do and how to make a wild bird sing songs. I have been long from my people and they need me. We have been in great trouble. I have lived for five years with the knife at my throat. Now I shall go back to my lodge and lie down to a long sleep. Farewell. Be wise. Let White Crow keep her eyes open every day and every night."
With this he turned away and mounted his horse and was gone, followed instantly by the Omissis who had driven in the pack train.
THE pursuit of the five lost horses was forgotten. Thunder Moon went back into the lodge and found the maiden standing with her hands folded together as close to the wall of the teepee as she could get. The prisoner, Rising Cloud, turned the eyes which had been watching her toward his captor, and it seemed to the latter that there was a touch of keen envy in the expression of the Pawnee.
"You have ridden on a long trail," said Thunder Moon to the girl. "Sit down. White Crow, put meat before her."
"This is fitting?" said the old hag, her withered face growing black with anger. "I must wait on a slave who has been given away by her own father because of the evil that is in her. I must wait on her. I shall not lift my hand to help her."
"It is true that I must serve myself," said the girl meekly, and would have then, but Thunder Moon with a gesture made her sit down again.
"What evil is there in her?" he asked his foster aunt.
The hag went to the girl with long strides and laid hold on a heavy coil of the copper-red hair. "There is danger in this, worse than fire," she said.
"Fire?" murmured Thunder Moon, astonished. He knew nothing of women. They had not crossed so much as the very threshold of his life.
"You will soon be in flames," said White Crow, sneering again. "There is danger in this also," she went on and, placing her bony hand under the soft chin of Red Wind, she forced up her face and pointed to the great blue eyes and to the lips, parted as though in fear.
"What danger?" asked Thunder Moon.
"You have lived all these years in my teepee," said White Crow, "and still you are a fool." In the meantime, she placed a dish of meat before Red Wind, and then hurried from the teepee, as though fearing that she might be called upon for other services.
Thunder Moon reached forth his mighty hand and took up a braid of the hair gingerly. "I see no danger in this," he said simply. "And in no other Cheyenne maiden or man have I looked into blue eyes. But is there a wrong in the color? You, Rising Cloud, are a wise man and a chief, and the brother of a chief. Tell me if there is danger?"
The wind had been rising and now it increased heavily. The patch of sun which fell through the opened flap of the teepee was darkened suddenly as though the sky had been overcast. Rising Cloud, before he answered, raised his head and seemed to listen to the storm. Then he looked at Thunder Moon.
"Oh, my brother," he said, "sometimes the trail cannot be followed by the sign, and sometimes the mind travels where words cannot go."
Very often an Indian expresses himself in some such obscure fashion, letting his meaning be hinted at rather than spoken and defined. Most of the Cheyennes were experts in deciphering such hidden meanings, but the foster son of Big Hard Face ever was dull at this exercise of the wits. He shook his head and looked back to the girl.
"Tell me," he said, "in what manner Walking Horse has found evil and trouble in you?"
She looked down and sighed meekly. "My father never has loved me," she said. "Who can tell why? Evil spirits surely stand between him and me."
It seemed to Thunder Moon that from the corner of his eye he saw his prisoner smiling, but he could not be sure.
"Eat!" he said.
"I am not hungry," she said.
"Have you had food today?"
"No."
"Then you are hungry."
She lifted her large eyes to him. They were filled with tears. "Fear and hunger are not brothers, oh Thunder Moon," she said.
"Are you afraid?"
"I have been brought like a dog and flung into the lodge of a man who does not want me," she said. "I am among strange people and my heart turns to water."
The soul of Thunder Moon swelled within him. He flashed a glance over his shoulder as though daring danger to approach. Then he said: "I have not said that you are not welcome here. You are very welcome. No danger shall come near you. As for White Crow, she is so old that she is losing her wits. Now eat. I myself, Thunder Moon, tell you not to be afraid."
She began obediently to eat with such a wonderful daintiness as he never had seen before. Every time she raised her fingers to her lips, her eyes went up childlike, resting for a moment upon the stern face of her new master, as though asking for further permission.
Thunder Moon began to smile a little, and nodded continually. He was on the verge of pointing out choice morsels, as a squaw does for her child. It seemed to him that Rising Cloud also was smiling continually, faintly, though whenever Thunder Moon looked fairly at him the Pawnee's face was grave enough. Something was wrong, he felt. What it could be he was unable to guess and before long he discovered that he did not care.
"Thunder Moon is happy," said the Pawnee suddenly.
"Yes," said the warrior, but corrected himself to add: "Sad, also, my friend."
"Your teepee is filled with treasure. A beautiful woman has been given to you. Why should you be sad, Thunder Moon?"
The maiden ceased eating so that she might listen.
"I am sad, Rising Cloud, when I think that such a girl, young, beautiful and good, could be hated by her own father. That is what makes my heart heavy."
The maiden continued her meal.
Shouting and confusion began to come upon the village. The wind had increased to hurricane dimensions. Clouds of dust began to invade the teepee of Big Hard Face, sifting through imperceptible crevices. Now and again a lodge went down with a crash before the cuffing of the storm.
Thunder Moon went to the flap of the lodge and watched the vast masses of the storm mist hurtling across the whole face of the heavens. He saw the frightened Indians working furiously to make fast their lodges while some unlucky families, screaming for the help of their neighbors, struggled away to secure their possessions after the lodge had been blown from above their heads.
Big Hard Face came hastily into the teepee, pressing past his foster son unceremoniously. "The Wind Spirits are angered, child," he said, as he passed. "I shall make medicine. Come and help me. Where is White Crow?"
Big Hard Face was as hard-headed as any man in the tribe but, like all the rest, these disturbances of the sky troubled him. They were the direct manifestations of the power of an angered deity. To Thunder Moon, however, they had a different significance. Since that day in his youth when he had first conceived that the Sky People had taken him under their particular protection, all the phenomena of the air fascinated him. If there were danger, and if these prodigious outbursts showed the limitless strength of the spirits, nevertheless it seemed to him like the wrath shown by a friend and therefore a passion which would be sure to leave him unscathed.
The doorway of the teepee was to him bethel. From that place he had stared at the sky many an hour and, watching its changing lights and drifting clouds, he had felt as though he were looking into the mind of Tarawa. This thronging legion of the storm spirits seemed to him an army singing a canticle in praise of the Sky People and he wanted to raise his voice to add to the tumult. He controlled himself, however, for he knew that it would have seemed to the rest of his people a mysterious sort of blasphemy.
He saw Spotted Bull, dressed in the hideous costume of his profession, staggering against the wind and approaching as rapidly as he could, followed by half a dozen of the chief men of the Suhtai. When he came nearer, Spotted Bull turned slowly into the lodge of Big Hard Face, crying: "Make way, Thunder Moon! This storm is of your raising. You have brought evil into this camp and, unless I drive it out, the Sky People will tear up all our lodges and then tear up the Suhtai also, and send us whirling away through the air forever."
Saying this, he pressed past the warrior and entered the lodge with his companions at his heels and, the instant he was inside, he stretched out his arm toward Red Wind.
"It is in her!" cried Spotted Bull. "The evil is in her, and Thunder Moon has brought her into his lodge."
"Drive her out!" shouted Gray Eagle, one of those with Spotted Bull. "Drive her out at once from the town. My lodge is staggering. Soon it will go down. The teepees of Snake-That-Talks and Two White Feathers have been snatched away into the air. Drive her out at once."
White Crow caught the girl by the arm and tugged at her. "Get up, witch!" she shrieked. "Get up and go."
Thunder Moon strode suddenly between his foster aunt and the girl. "You are all fools," he said. "I have shown you once within a day that Spotted Bull is a fool and a coward. The Sky People are angry. But not at us. Only they are shaking our town a little as they rush away toward the mountains."
Spotted Bull, his face dark with malignity, stared at the youth and quivered with rage, but presently he shouted: "I will show you what my power is, Thunder Moon. I will show you that I could wither you up like a leaf, if I chose. I pity you. I shall not drive this woman away. I shall purify her, and presently the Sky People will make the day clean again above our heads."
Thunder crashed at that instant and such a terrible lightning bolt leaped down from the sky that through the seams and the cracks of the tent it cast a bright flicker of light on those inside. With a groan, they cowered toward the earth—all save Thunder Moon and the girl who kept her eyes fixed upon his face, as though half bewitched by his calm courage.
"Make haste, Spotted Bull!" cried Big Hard Face. "Make haste. I feel the Sky People pluck at the top of my lodge. The earth trembles. In another moment all of us will be whirled away."
THUNDER MOON, at this entreaty, relented in so much that he stood back a little, merely saying to the girl: "Do not be afraid. Spotted Bull dares not harm you. He is a fool. I have proved it before. He will prove it himself by trying to stop this storm. That will be the end of him."
So said the warrior sneering at the medicine man. The latter, in fact, understood his position perfectly well. The disastrous inaccuracy of his late prophecies which had been meant to depress the influence of Thunder Moon had, instead, reared the fame of the young brave like a temple built of massive ashlar. For lesser failures than these, medicine men had been put to death as though they were dogs. Had not Thunder Moon possessed singular gentleness of spirit for a Cheyenne, the fatal blow certainly would have fallen upon the false doctor when the hero returned to camp with his prisoner. Even as it was, Spotted Bull was in a perilous position. His power had melted away. He stood upon dissolving sands. Accordingly, he had seized upon the opportunity which the storm gave him of proclaiming the vengeance of the spirits upon Thunder Moon.
No matter how much the chiefs might doubt the power of Spotted Bull's medicine, they were too frightened not to listen to him with attention and watch for possible results. By the springing of a sudden trap, the medicine man found himself committed to the desperate task of banishing the storm itself from the sky.
He fell to work with a perfect fury, dancing wildly around the Omissis girl, who stood with her hands clasped and her head bowed, staring at the ground in quiet submission. Perhaps the passion of Spotted Bull was bipartite, partly assumed in a frenzy of fear, and in one portion really composed of a mysterious confidence that he was in touch with the spirits of the upper air.
The necklace of bear claws leaped and rattled upon his neck. Sweat streamed down his face and body. His headdress waved and nodded madly. All the time he kept up a prodigious racket by beating a rattle which he held in one hand against a drum which he held in the other. In the meantime, he shouted forth in a chant confused words of Delphic import and only paused once or twice to throw a handful of sweet grass upon the fire, the smoke of which rose with the prevailing current of the air and covered the form of Red Wind with fragrant mist.
Through that mist Spotted Bull was seen still leaping and gesticulating, until finally he paused and struck an imposing attitude before the maiden and shouted: "Spirits of storm and terror, I see you. I have forced you to come down. Like a white eagle your king sits on the head of this girl. I see you. I name you. I command you to be gone. Be gone! Be gone!"
The only answer to Spotted Bull was a vast peal of thunder and then again a perfect torrent of lightning flooding down from the sky, followed by deadening volleys as though all the powers of the universe had joined in a sort of mammoth derrydown to maintain the burden of this terrible song of wrath.
"See?" laughed Thunder Moon. "He is ten times a fool!"
The others could not see, however. Fear crushed their bodies and their hearts against the ground. Only the medicine man, Thunder Moon, and the girl remained erect, while Big Hard Face called hopelessly: "Kill Spotted Bull. He only angers the spirits. He will have us all destroyed."
Spotted Bull apparently saw death literally rubbing elbows with him and he bellowed out: "Yell and shout, evil winds! Pour down your fires! You are angry, because I am your master. The Sky People will hear me. They will herd you out of the sky like buffalo before the hunters. Go! Go! Go!"
So shouted the medicine man, and the prostrate, frightened Suhtai closed their ears and shut their eyes, expecting another roar of heavenly artillery. Presently it came, but at an amazing distance. With a sudden inspiration, Spotted Bull rushed to the flap of the lodge and tore it open. There he stood, pointing above him with an arm stiffened by excitement and shrieked.
"Now, come to see! I have been heard. The storm runs away. Be gone, black clouds! I command you! Fall down the slope of the sky! Let the sun shine upon us! Give us your brightness and your heat! Let your rays tell the Suhtai that Spotted Bull has good medicine... has great medicine... that he can command even the winds, and he holds the lightnings even in his bare hands."
So screamed Spotted Bull, and the people in the tent hurried to the open flap and stared up to the sky; and there they saw—most miraculous!—that the deep masses of the clouds had parted and rolled away to either side, and now, even as the medicine man spoke, the shadows were parted from before the face of the sun and all the golden tide of his brilliance streamed once again over the earth. At that, as the wind fell suddenly away, a great song of rejoicing rose from the entire village, but it was as nothing compared with the excitement in the teepee of Big Hard Face. He himself, though he was a thrifty soul, picked up a fine new rifle and thrust it into the hands of the great medicine man. All the others followed suit by presenting gifts of some sort or promising others when they could get them.
By this lucky stroke, Spotted Bull had swept into the forgotten past the little matter of his false prophecy concerning Thunder Moon and the war trail. Nothing succeeds like success, particularly like the success of today as against whatever may have happened yesterday. He was more than a luminary. He was literally a great binary that filled the whole eye of the Cheyennes at that moment for partly he was a hero for having defied the evil spirits of the storm and dared their wrath in person, partly he was a divine medicine man. His own joy was as tremendous as his fear and his despair had been great only a few moments before.
Literally staggering, so dizzy was his head with his glory, he turned on Big Hard Face and said: "The maiden is purified. Now she cannot harm our tribe. As for the young man"—and here he pointed carelessly toward the famous Thunder Moon—"you have seen that I could have poured a river of lightning upon him if I chose. But I am merciful. I remember that he is young and that he lives in the teepee of a good friend, Big Hard Face. So I am merciful."
He left, surrounded by the chiefs. Big Hard Face hurried after him to join the chorus of praise.
There remained in the lodge the Pawnee, just recovering from sheer terror, Thunder Moon, and the girl. She had not stirred from her graceful position and Thunder Moon, staring at her, half thought that he saw the drifting smoke of the sweet grass form above her head in the dim outline of an eagle. He thrust the superstitious fancy from his mind.
"Is it ended?" asked the girl.
He nodded.
"And may I move?"
"You may. You are free to go where you will, Red Wind. The young men will show you my horses. Of all that is in this teepee you may make your choice. Of the rifles and the ammunition. Do as you will with them. I shall not force you to remain here."
"Ah," said the girl, "do you drive me out, also?"
"I?" cried Thunder Moon. "No, but you ask me if you are free to move and I tell you that you are as free as the lightning in the sky. Go where you will."
"Where could I go? I am homeless in the world," she said, and sighed deeply.
"You forget, Thunder Moon," broke in the dry voice of the young Pawnee, "you have given your word to keep this maiden."
Thunder Moon, recovering from his enthusiasm, bit his lip and darted an angry glance at the prisoner. The latter was looking intently at the girl and apparently did not notice the wrath of his captor. She, however, had lifted her head and looked with mild eyes on the shining treasure of the guns.
"In the middle of the storm," said Thunder Moon suddenly, "you were not frightened, Red Wind. While the rest... and even Rising Cloud, yonder... shrank and trembled, you were not afraid."
Her large, gentle eyes turned to him and dwelt upon him and his heart began to flutter with something like fear, though delight was blended mysteriously with it.
"You stood near me," said Red Wind. "I knew that you would protect me. The Sky People are like brothers to Thunder Moon. They never would step into his lodge."
This speech made Thunder Moon fairly giddy and he went slowly to the entrance to the lodge, and paused there. His heart was beating at a prodigious rate. What he was to do he had not the slightest idea, but he felt that something was expected from him. Or, rather, it was as though a vast opportunity had opened before him, and how to use it was not given him to understand. He did know that the Pawnee was smiling again, knew it, though his back was turned to the captive.
Outside the village was in an uproar. He could see a shouting crowd gather around the proud form of Spotted Bull who was making a speech, in which he doubtless had much to say about his familiarity with the spirits and in which he congratulated the Suhtai on having such a person as himself among them. Thunder Moon smiled a little in turn, a grim smile, and then he looked back to the girl.
She no longer seemed an Omissis maiden in the teepee of Big Hard Face, chief of the Suhtai. The last smoke of the sweet grass clung to the ground about her feet, and a wisp of it shrouded her faintly, and the red-gold of her hair shone through. To Thunder Moon she was of more than an earthly beauty. It was as though he stood in the very presence of a dream that was not a dream. She was to him like some strange vision of Ashtoreth standing in a field of white flowered asphodel, smiling, and with profound mystery in her smile.
He wanted to speak. Words would not come. He was dizzier than before. He stepped out into the open air and looked up to the blue of the sky from which the storm had been brushed away so oddly. He had no faith in the astral pretensions of the medicine man but, in spite of himself, he could not help feeling that there was danger indeed in the presence of the Omissis girl.
BIG HARD FACE was a man of practical mind and he quickly recovered from the shocks of that day's events—the presentation of the treasure, the coming of the girl, the mystery of the storm, and the big medicine which had banished it. He reverted to the subject of the stolen horses and went to his foster son to urge him out on the trail. He found Thunder Moon like one in a trance, looking up to the sky which had given him inspiration so often but which failed him now, utterly.
"Then I ride myself!" said the old man hotly. "You have been bewitched and turned into a deaf stone and you are no longer a man, Thunder Moon."
He would, in fact, have departed at once with a chosen band of braves had it not been for the arrival of a messenger who raced his pony through the village and flung himself down in front of Big Hard Face, gasping out a strange message.
He had ridden out onto the prairie after the storm to help locate the horses which might have been driven astray by the fury of the wind and, venturing far out, suddenly a Pawnee riding a tall chestnut horse barred his return to the village and covered him with a rifle. Boy though he was, and armed only with a knife, he would have fought for life and scalp. The Pawnee offered him peace and good will and merely bade him go into the village and carry word to Big Hard Face and particularly to Thunder Moon that the Pawnees were ready to bury the hatchet and welcome peace, if Thunder Moon would set free Rising Cloud. In return, the Pawnees would return all the ponies they had captured during the raid. Particularly, as an earnest of good faith, they engaged to send in immediately, upon an appointed signal, the five chestnuts which had been stolen the day before. The Pawnees would give up the chestnuts merely as a signal of their desire for peace, but first they must be assured that their messenger would receive no harm at the hands of the Suhtai.
To such a proposal as this there could be only one answer. The appointed smoke signal was sent up at once. The wailing of the squaws which was rising from all quarters of the camp in dreary assonance ceased and the curious mob began to assemble to see the Pawnee come in.
What a roar rose from the outskirts of the town when the Pawnee came. It swept closer. Big Hard Face was discovered in close and eager conference with his son. He was entreating Thunder Moon to listen to reason and agree to deliver up the captured Pawnee. For there was only a definite value to be attached to all things—even to such a splendid exploit as that of Thunder Moon in the Pawnee camp. But the foster son of the chief was gloomily silent. Only his eyes flashed when, through the opening gap in the crowd of the Suhtai, he saw a warrior with the cropped head of a Pawnee mounted on a spirited pinto and leading behind him the five beautiful chestnuts which had been stolen from his father's herd.
Coming up to the lodge of Big Hard Face, in front of which that chieftain stood, the newcomer dismounted and saluted the Suhtai with much dignity, regardless of the savage hatred of the squaws. They were pushing forward eagerly, anxious to have clearer sight of this man who had had some hand, doubtless, in the slaying of the lost Suhtai. Before the messenger could speak, a young warrior cried out in a thrilling voice: "Beware! It is Falling Stone himself. It is the new war chief of the Pawnees."
That startling suggestion reduced even the squaws to silence. All, in a hushed reverence that was almost fear, pressed closer to stare at the victorious leader who had struck them such a dreadful blow. There was little about him to suggest that he might be the brother of the handsome and graceful brave, Rising Cloud. Low-browed, with wide cheekbones and heavy, brutal jaw, he looked like the lowest type of plains Indian. His eyes, though, were bright and clear. When he spoke, one felt instantly the presence of a reasoning and keen intelligence. Moreover, though his body was scarcely more beautiful than his face, it was framed on such massive lines of strength that even Thunder Moon scanned the figure of the leader with something like apprehension. All the striking and gripping muscles along his arms and in his mighty hands grew taut, as though he were stepping into combat with that chieftain at once.
Falling Stone said simply: "The son of my father and my mother is in the teepee of Thunder Moon. The lodge and the heart of my father are empty. I have come to ask for Rising Cloud. Give him to me, oh Suhtai, and take in exchange my friendship and these horses as a pledge of it."
"My friend," answered Big Hard Face, looking intently at the other, "you have taken away many of my young men and you have brought us much sorrow. Every man must do his own work, and the work of a Pawnee and a Suhtai cannot be the same. I am willing to talk to you about setting your brother free. You offer five horses. It is very well. But that is not the price of your brother, I believe."
"I offer all the ponies which you lost when I was last in this camp," replied the Pawnee.
"And how many is that, Falling Stone?"
"You, yourself, can count them, my father."
"We have counted our losses. Three hundred and fifty horses which were grazed by our young men have been lost."
"They are not all in my hands," replied the other. "Yet I can give more than three hundred."
"It is not in my heart to make a close bargain," said Big Hard Face, with pretended generosity. "Let it all be as you choose. Send me the three hundred ponies and you shall have your brother...."
"If it is my will," broke in Thunder Moon sternly.
"In the camp of the Pawnees," replied Falling Stone, with cunning rebuke implied, "when one speaks to the father, one is also speaking to the son."
"True, true!" said Big Hard Face, speaking hastily and apparently out of the ebullient good nature which was in him. "Let it be as...."
"Father," said Thunder Moon, "I must be heard. Let us go into the lodge. The children and the women listen to us. It is better to speak to a few than to many."
"It is true," said Big Hard Face. "There are no brains in a crowd. It has no head." He ushered them into his lodge with much dignity.
The Pawnee brothers stood face to face again and it was curious to watch their behavior. Undoubtedly in their own home they would have rushed into one another's arms, but here they were before strangers and they gave one another only a glance and a quiet word. The contrast between them was sharper than before. The war chief looked more abysmally brutish; the prisoner seemed more wonderfully graceful and capable of swift movement. One was a mastiff, the other a greyhound.
"Here in a Suhtai lodge, and living, I never expected to find you," said Falling Stone.
His brother answered in a soft and rapid voice: "I woke up with the knife of that man at my throat. He asked if I were the leader of the war party. Should I have said no, brother?"
Falling Stone cast a sharp glance of inquiry at Thunder Moon, who replied with equal brevity. "He gave himself to me in your place. I looked at both of you. When your eyes were closed in sleep, I could not guess that you were the leader."
Falling Stone cast one eloquent glance of affection toward his brother and then was silent, waiting with courtly majesty and composure.
Thunder Moon said abruptly: "You have brought back to us five horses as a pledge of good faith. I shall buy back those horses. There are rifles in that heap, as you may see for yourself. They are not common horses. I offer no common price. Take five rifles for each."
The eyes of the war chief glistened, and Big Hard Face broke in: "Boy, you put lightning in the hands of one who will pour it on your own head!"
"I have made the offer," said Thunder Moon, frowning at the interruption.
"It is taken!" said the chief. "The horses are yours again. These are mine." He could not avoid picking up one of the rifles and he put it down with the lingering touch of one who loved the weapons. Perhaps already he was imagining a score of his best followers mounted on good horses and equipped with these new and first-rate guns. The picture filled his mind's eye, for he was no carpet knight, but a hero who had advanced by battle alone.
"I take the rifles," he said, "and give back the horses. I accept the price which you offer. Does that deprive me of the right to buy back the freedom of my brother?"
"No," said Big Hard Face eagerly. "The fifty horses...."
"Father," interrupted Thunder Moon, "I have offered a great price and bought back your horses. Now I talk of a thing which is purely mine... not mine, but belonging to the Sky People. That is Rising Cloud. The white spirit of the moon and the Sky People led me into the Pawnee camp. They made my feet silent even in the dead grass. They used my hand to kill three men. They gave me a chief as a captive. They carried me out of the camp again. They sheltered me when I escaped, putting a mist over the eyes of my enemies. I offered them a sacrifice. A great sacrifice. Now I swear it. Rising Cloud must die to do them honor!"
The prisoner was silent, but a deep groan was wrung from the throat of his brother. There was a slight flash of light and Thunder Moon saw that it was the Omissis girl, turning gravely toward the captive. In this light her hair was like the red of carnelian, shot with gold. Her eyes said nothing and her face was like a mask.
"We two shall meet!" cried Falling Stone in a fury of grief and of hate. Big Hard Face, thinking of the fifty lost horses, covered his head and withdrew from the conference—a mute recognition that his authority over his foster son had reached a sharply defined limit.
"Let us meet, then," answered Thunder Moon instantly. "Let us take out your brother, still bound, into the prairie beyond the village. There you and I shall fight for him. He who wins takes him."
"Is it agreed?" asked the Pawnee eagerly.
"No," broke in Rising Cloud. "Listen to me, my brother. You are great in war. This man fights with a strange medicine. The spirits point his guns. With that one which has six bullets, he knocks down the rabbits as they run. If you fight with him, you die! I have seen him. I understand."
Falling Stone, writhing with shame and with envious grief, cried out: "And you, brother?"
"As for me," said Rising Cloud, with the calm of a true eclectic who has considered many forms of life and thought and found them all light things, "as for me, I die with no dishonor and shall be buried without shame. Thunder Moon has given me that promise. You... go back to our people. You cannot struggle against the medicine of this pale-faced Cheyenne. Do not forget me. When you lead out your war bands, let the braves shout my name when they charge. Many Suhtai shall die for my sake."
It was no mere blazon of indifference which the captive showed, but a true resignation, and his brother looked long and earnestly upon him.
"No man will believe that I have refused to fight for your sake, Rising Cloud," he said. "I am a naked warrior and Thunder Moon is shielded by the spirits. Only the Sky People could have led him into our camp through all the warriors. Do you forgive me if I ride away?"
"I forgive you with all my heart," said the prisoner. "Farewell!"
Falling Stone went slowly from the teepee. As he passed out, Thunder Moon stepped softly after him. "I shall leave my guns behind me," he said. "Let us ride out with shield and spear and knife only, my friend. If you go back to your people with your brother and with the scalp of Thunder Moon, you will be the greatest hero who ever rode into the city of the Pawnees."
Falling Stone regarded him with an odd mixture of hate and fear and wonder.
"Is it only a bullet that a spirit can guide straight?" he said. "I live and fight by the strength of my hand. I leave medicine to the medicine makers. Say no more, for I shall not fight with you unless I see you in the middle of battle. Then be sure that I shall not go backward."
The guns were loaded upon the pony which he rode and Falling Stone departed slowly from the camp, riding with bowed head. Had Thunder Moon been a true Indian, he could not have helped pushing his advantage and, to shame the Pawnee, ride after him and taunt him loudly on his way through the camp. But he was not a true Indian. As a matter of fact, he felt a certain degree of sympathy with Falling Stone for Thunder Moon himself believed that his great deeds in war were produced more by a singular sorcery with which the Sky People had endowed him than by his native strength of hand and of spirit. His heart began to rise. Now that the five lost steeds had been returned and paid for out of the price of the maiden, it seemed that a crown of good fortune had been placed upon the head of Thunder Moon. Only one thing remained for him to do, and that was to return to the Sky People the reward which he had promised them. Many sacrifices he had offered before, but never a human life.
He went back into his lodge. "The time has come, Rising Cloud," he said. "Stand up and come with me."
IF in many ways Thunder Moon fell short of the wild cruelty of which an Indian was capable, yet it is equally true that no Indian ever could have sacrificed a human life with the calm of spirit which now possessed the warrior. To him it was a spiritual rather than a physical act and, by many dexter signs, he was convinced of the kindness of the spirit world and felt that he must make this great return to the Sky People.
The Pawnee, without a word, stood up and prepared to go with him. They had crossed halfway through the teepee when the soft, gentle voice of the Omissis girl said: "Oh, Thunder Moon, why do you sacrifice now when the Sky People are far up in the heavens, living in the light of the sun where it is brightest and hottest? Do not give this man to the moon spirit or the sky, but wait until the dawn of tomorrow has filled the sky with rosy light, for then the Sky People are so close that we can hear the whispering of their feathers as they pass by."
There is an ecumenical rule that he who proceeds calmly to action by calmness may be dissuaded. So it was now. The passionate man is the hasty man, but there was no passion in Thunder Moon now. He hesitated and then he smiled at the girl.
"How much truth there is in you!" he said. "How much wisdom. Yet you are a woman and you are not old. When I look at you, Red Wind, I feel that I am rich. There is no man among the Cheyennes who is so rich as I am in having you."
So saying, he gave up his purpose of the immediate sacrifice and went hastily out from the tent. After the storm all the prairie was fresh. The ground was soft. The horses would be running wildly and gaily. The children would be dancing and singing and tumbling one over another. There was something in the heart of the warrior which sympathized with all this physical activity and made him a part of all that he looked upon. He passed White Crow crouching by the lodge entrance. She stopped him with one of her keen, cruel glances that probed a man to the soul.
"She is yours, but she is not really yours. You have not married her, Thunder Moon."
He stopped, frowning.
"What keeps you back?" asked the crone in her snarling voice.
Thunder Moon began to think aloud, purposely looking away from the ugly face of the old squaw. "Now that she is in the lodge, she is mine to look at and listen to. If I ask her to marry me...."
"You do not have to ask. She is yours to be taken!"
"I never could do that. For all I know, she may have a lover among the Omissis."
"Would you give her up, my dear son, if she begged you to set her free and let her go to another man?"
Still Thunder Moon was silent. His forehead glistened. With the edged tool of her tongue she had wounded him again.
"But if I ask her to marry me," went on Thunder Moon, boggling his words rather badly, "perhaps she will say that she does not wish to live in my lodge. Then what? Could I keep her? She would scorn me. I could not endure that. No. It is better to keep her as she is. For a while."
The hag began to laugh, showing her pale, withered gums in the ecstasy of her mirth. "I shall tell you what really is in your mind."
"Tell me, then," he asked, diligently avoiding her with his eyes.
A boy playing with the cascabel of a rattlesnake went by them, and the eyes of the crone followed him for a moment before she spoke again. "I shall tell you, Thunder Moon. The spirits speak to you, do they not? They guide you?"
"Sometimes they do when I pray to them."
"And sometimes when you do not pray. What spirits did you know to pray to when you were first a boy in this camp? Still, you lived. Well, the spirits speak in you. Those spirits now say to you: 'Leave that woman alone! Do not go near her. She is dangerous.'"
"How could she be dangerous to me, White Crow?"
"You do not fear her because she has given you no warning. But I tell you a thing. A rattlesnake makes a noise before it strikes. A woman makes no noise. She smiles before she stabs you."
He drew himself up in a sort of diaconal stiffness and dignity, saying: "You are too old to remember the mind of a pure girl. Do not talk to me any more about her. Mind your pots of meat and make the buffalo robes and keep your thoughts away from important matters."
Thus spoke Thunder Moon, terrible in his surety and in his pride. The old hag simply answered: "Does she make you happy?"
Her foster nephew said nothing.
"Well," she said, "let me tell you that one day she will bring you much more grief than all of the sorrow that is in the hearts of those wailing squaws!"
For the mourners had withdrawn from the camp. By the river or on hummocks of ground near by on the prairie, they were raising their laments, tearing open their wounds, beating their heads, writhing in the dust, and their voices came out of the distance mingled and softened but deep with meaning. The gates of the heart of Thunder Moon were opened, and he felt that he was hearing the diapason of life, its fundamental harmony of sorrow and of despair.
"Never has a wolf made a kill," said Thunder Moon in a sudden passion of anger, "without the envious howl of a coyote close at hand. So it is with you. You have forgotten happiness. You would like to send it all out of the world."
He walked hastily away, deep in a mist of thought. Yet he could not go unnoticed. Whenever he stirred forth, a band of the striplings was sure to gather instantly around him for, at times, he was known to give much attention to them, telling them odd stories of his hunting and his fighting, talking more easily with them than with the men of the tribe.
They gathered about him, hopefully watching his face, and then trailing behind. Perhaps—who could tell?—he even would let them handle his knife which had drunk the blood of so many enemies or even fire his revolver. For he had done it before. And then he was possessed of an infinite store of wisdom such as boys prize. Whatever he could do, he could describe and therefore he could teach. Accordingly, as a teacher of wrestling and boxing and running and leaping and swimming, he was matchless.
A little legion attended him whenever he walked abroad, running ahead, pulling from his path a dog or a little child that happened to be in his way, and even shouting to the women and to the warriors: "Step out of the way there, and be quick about it! Thunder Moon is coming."
The women, of course, scattered willingly and quickly enough. One and all, they were in deadly terror of a medicine man and Thunder Moon was surrounded in part by the dignity of a warrior and in part by the efferent mystery which was breathed out around a medicine man and worker in wizardry. The warriors moved more slowly from his way, grudging his greatness, but afraid of him also.
He went through the little village like a sort of superior being. Certainly by his passing he did not edify the morals of his compeers, but left behind him a trail of envy and wrath and subdued but fierce malice. So it is always with the great ones of the world. The danger of Thunder Moon was all the more poignant because in his absent-minded course of living he never dreamed what wild jealousies sprang up around him. Who was there to tell him of the truth? No one, perhaps, except White Crow and, by the continual gloom of her forebodings, she had caused herself to be disregarded in her teepee almost as completely as another Cassandra.
Down to the river went Thunder Moon and sat on a stump and regarded the darkly swirling waters. He picked up a stone and idly he cast it into the stream. Instantly half a dozen flashing bodies leaped from the band and dived into the water. The victor emerged with the stone in his hand and laid it with a smile of pleasure at the feet of Thunder Moon. He stepped back and waited for a word of commendation—a glistening, slender young statue of red copper.
At length, the warrior looked up. Like a dancer in the bolero, so his brain was reeling and swaying with emotion which was new to him. He looked up and saw the children. He saw the dripping boy. He saw the wet stone at his feet. Suddenly Thunder Moon sighed. Some day he would like to have sons like these, slender, swift footed, bright eyed. He suddenly sprang to his feet. He would marry Red Wind, come of it what might!
He started back toward the village and, as he went, the unending wails of the mourners sang a dreary monody in his ears.
HIS little legion followed him. They were used to his absent-minded ways and therefore they did not show their disappointment. They escorted him through the village as they had escorted him out of it, worshipping him with their eyes, clearing the way before him, and dispersing at last when he came to his lodge.
Thunder Moon went straight in and found Red Wind braiding her hair, while White Crow snarled softly to herself in a corner of the teepee, sewing beads upon a pair of moccasins. The captive as ever sat erect, at ease, his eyes a blank.
"Red Wind," said Thunder Moon, "I have come to say a solemn thing to you."
She looked up to him and saw in his face such pure emotion as might have served for song by the verge of old Castalia, and her fingers froze in the solid, metal masses of her braids.
"Master," she said, "I hear you."
"I have given my oath to keep you in my lodge. Let me keep you as my wife."
Her great blue eyes dwelt upon him as though in fear. Slowly her fingers resumed the thoughtless work of braiding her hair.
"Of all the Cheyennes you are the greatest and the richest," she said. "I am only your slave. It is pity that makes you speak to me like this. Wait until the morning when you offer a life to the Sky People. Ask them then if you should do this thing. Then your will must be my will."
She had not repelled him, and yet he felt the repulsion. Out of the distance he heard again the drifting, melancholy music of the mourning women. From the side of the teepee he saw the evil grin of White Crow as she bent over her work. Then it occurred to him suddenly, that no other Cheyenne would have spoken of such a thing to a maiden before listeners. He was shamed and, in his shame, he withdrew from the girl. Like a shadow of prophetic spirit he saw dimly before him a shaping and forecasting of trouble. Gradually, therefore, it seemed to him more and more clear that he should have approached her in a different manner, but still he was reasonably certain that all would eventually go well. When he looked at himself as at a picture, he could not help seeing that he was all that the girl had said. The greatest and the richest man among the Cheyennes.
The thought comforted him. That night, as he sat on his couch and smoked before sleeping, he watched the others go to bed one by one, dropping the end curtain of soft antelope skins which shut off each compartment from the sight of the central portion of the teepee. The prisoner, first of all, retired for the night. Then Big Hard Face, then White Crow went to sleep, and soon the loud snoring of Big Hard Face rattled through the lodge. Last of all, the curtain dropped before Red Wind.
Thunder Moon sat for a long time looking at the dying fire which still shot up a red hand now and again and thrust wild shadows through the teepee. He felt that he was approaching a permanence in his life. He felt that he was secure of all the future. In that security he lay down at last and slept in turn.
Physically he had done nothing the day before, but spiritually he had exhausted himself. He did not waken until the full rose of the dawn was already in the sky; did not waken until the rough hand of Big Hard Face shook him, and the voice of the chief shouted:
"Up! Up! They are gone! They are gone! White Crow, send out the alarm. Send out the searchers."
Thunder Moon leaped up, reaching for a rifle.
"Who are gone?"
"Both! She must have set the Pawnee free. She and Rising Cloud have gone off together...."
"What she?" He really did not have to ask that. Gripping at the center pole of the lodge and holding hard, he made his brain clear from the shock, made himself look back into the past. He could remember now that there had been many exchanges of glances between the two. Yet how marvelous that a woman's heart should be taken and given in silence. And to a helpless prisoner. Might it not be that his very helplessness had been the vital point of appeal to the girl?
White Crow was screeching with ugly laughter. "I told you that the trouble would come! Now it is here, and you look sicker than an aching stomach and a bad tooth."
He reached out and caught her. He wanted to kill her. "Woman, devil!" he gasped at her, and stepped from the tent. Others were rushing out of every lodge entrance, gaping, chattering, and pointing toward him. Did he see smiles among them?
He raised his head and stared around at them, slowly meeting eyes, eyes and smiles that came out and then shrank before him—children, women, and proved, hardened warriors. They shrank under his eye and afterwards they would hate him for it. That he knew, but nothing mattered.
He flung a saddle on one of the chestnuts which stood beside the teepee, a glorious stallion, swift as the wind. Petted and pampered all its life, it nuzzled at his shoulder fondly now, with pricking ears, but he struck it away with a brutal blow.
"Call me a devil if you wish," said the hard voice of White Crow behind him, "but do not make a fool of yourself and bring back a women who detests you. She will only leave you again, or simply deceive you without leaving. This is the price, my son, of manhood."
He listened, and looked up. The sky was brighter and more beautiful than ever before, but not for him. Only where it arched above the head of Red Wind was there beauty in it, and all the rest of the world was a draped and solemn catafalque where dead things and dead men lay. He gathered the reins, but still he delayed to leap upon the back of the horse. Perhaps White Crow was right and this was the price of manhood, paid down in pain.
Roy Glashan's Library
Non sibi sed omnibus
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