When Buffalo Ran Part 4

One day the next year, with a friend, I was hunting a two days' journey from the camp. We had killed nothing until this day, when we got a deer, and toward evening stopped to cook and eat. The country was broken with many hills and ravines, and before we went down to the stream to build our fire I had looked from the top of a little hill, to see whether anything could be seen. My friend was building a fire to cook food, and I had gone down to the fire and spread my robe on the ground, and was lying on it, resting, while our horses were feeding near by, when suddenly I had a strange feeling. I seemed to feel that I was in great danger, and as if I must get away from this place. I was frightened. I felt there was danger; that something bad was going to happen. I did not know what it was, nor why I felt so, but I was afraid. I seemed to turn to water inside of me. I had never felt so before. I sat up and looked about; nothing was to be seen. My friend was cutting some meat to cook over the little fire, and just beyond him the horses were feeding. My friend was singing to himself a little war song, as he worked.

My feelings grew worse instead of better. I stood up, took my gun, and walked toward a little hill not far from where we were, and my friend called out to me, "Where are you going? I thought you wished to rest." I said to him, "I will go to the top of that little hill, and look over it."

When I got there I looked about; I could see nothing. It was early summer, and the gra.s.s was green. The soil was soft and sandy. For a long time I looked about in all directions, but could see nothing, but then I could not see far, for there were other little hills, nearly as high, close to me.

Presently I looked at the ground a few steps before me, and I thought I saw where something had stepped. It was hard for me to make up my mind to walk to this place, but at length I did so. When I got there I saw where a horse had stood--a fresh horse track. Near it were two tracks made by a man, an enemy. I could see where he had stood, with one foot advanced before the other. When I saw these tracks I knew what had happened; an enemy had stood there looking over at us, and when he saw me with my gun start toward the top of the hill he had gone away. Standing where he had stood, I looked back toward our horses; I could hardly see their backs, but a man taller than I could have seen more of them, and the heads of the two men. I turned to follow the tracks a little way, and as I walked, it did not seem to me that my bones were stiff enough to support my body; I seemed to sway from side to side, and felt as if I should fall down. I was frightened.

I saw where the man had led his horse a little way back from the hill, and then had jumped on it and ridden off as hard as he could gallop. A little further on was the place where another horse had stood; it, too, had turned and gone off fast; its rider had not dismounted. One of the men had said to the other: "You wait here, and I will go up and take a look. If these people sleep here we will attack them when it is dark, and kill them and take their horses."

I cannot tell you how much I wanted to run back to my friend and tell him what I had seen; but I had courage enough to walk. I felt angry at myself for being so frightened. I said to myself: "Come, you are a man; you belong to brave people; your uncle and your father did not fear things that they could not see. Be brave. Be strong." It was no use for me to say this; I was so frightened I could hardly control myself. I felt as if I must run away.

I walked until I was close to my friend. He was cooking meat, and was still singing to himself. When I was pretty near to him I said, "Friend, put the saddle on your horse, and I will saddle mine, and we will go away from here." He turned and looked at me, and in a moment he had dropped the meat that he was cooking, and was saddling up. He told me the next day that my face had changed so that he hardly knew me; my face was like that of one dead. I said to him, "Do you go ahead, and go fast, but do not gallop." He started off without a word, and I followed him. It was now growing dark, but you could still see a long way. As I rode I seemed to have three heads, I looked in so many different directions. We traveled fast. My courage did not come back to me. I was still miserable.

About the middle of the night I said to my friend, "Let us stop here, so that the horses may eat." We stopped and took off our saddles, and held the ropes of our horses in our hands, and lay down on the ground together, looking back over the trail that we had come. My friend's horse was eating, but mine stood with his head high, and his ears p.r.i.c.ked, and kept looking back toward where we had come from. Every now and then he would snort, as if frightened. Sometimes he would take a bite or two of gra.s.s, and then would again stand with his head up, looking and snorting. This made me more afraid than ever; and now my friend was as badly frightened as I.

At last I could stand it no longer, and I said to him, "Let us turn off the trail, and go along a divide where no one is likely to follow us." We started, loping. After we had gone some distance we stopped, took off our bridles, and again lay down, looking back over the way we had come. The night was dark, but we could see a little, and we watched and listened.

Still my horse would not eat, but kept looking back over the trail.

Suddenly, my friend said, "There he is. Do you see?" I looked, and looked, but could see nothing. "Where is it?" said I. With my head close to the ground I looked in the direction in which he pointed, but could see nothing. My friend saw it move, however. I said to him, "Here, let us change places;" and I moved to his place, and he to mine. Then I looked, and in a moment I saw just in front of my face a weed-stalk, and when I moved my head the stalk moved. This was what he had seen.

For the first time since this feeling had come over me in the afternoon I laughed, and with a rush my courage came back to me. I felt as brave and cheerful as ever. All through the evening I had not wished to smoke, and if I had wished to, I should have been afraid to light my pipe. Now I filled my pipe, lighted it, and we smoked. When I laughed my friend's courage came back too. We lay down and slept, and the next day went on to the village.

_A Sacrifice._

During the next two years I went to war five times, always as a servant, but always I had good luck. This was because early, after my first trip to war, I had asked an old man, one of my relations, to teach me how to make a sacrifice which should be pleasing to those spirits who rule the world.

It was in the early summer, when the gra.s.s was high and green, not yet turning brown, that, with this old man, Tom Lodge, I went out into the hills to suffer and to pray, to ask for help in my life, and that I might be blessed in all my warpaths. Tom Lodge had told me what I must do, and before the time came I had cut a pole, and brought it and a rope, and a bundle of sinew, and some small wooden pins near to the place where we were to go, and had hidden them in a ravine.

It was before the sun had risen that we started out, and when we came to the hill where the things were, I carried them to the top of the hill, and there Tom Lodge and I dug a hole in the soil with our knives, and planted the pole, stamping the earth tightly about it, and then putting great stones on the earth, so that the pole should be held firmly. Then Tom Lodge tied the rope to the pole, and with sinew tied the pins to the rope, and then holding the pins and his knife up to the sun, and to the sky, and then placing them on the earth, he prayed to all the spirits of the air, and of the earth, and of the waters, asking that this sacrifice that I was about to make should be blessed, and that I should have help in all my undertakings. Then he came and stood before me, and taking hold of the skin of my breast on the right side, he pinched it up and pa.s.sed his knife through it, and then pa.s.sed the pin through under the skin, and tied the end to the rope with another strand of sinew. In the same way he did on the left side of my breast. Then he told me that all through the day I should walk about this pole, always on the side of the pole toward which the sun was looking, and that I should throw myself back against the rope and should try to tear the pins from my skin. Then, telling me to pray constantly, to have a strong heart, and not to lose courage, he set out to return to the village.

All through the long summer day I walked about the pole, praying to all the spirits, and crying aloud to the sun and the earth, and all the animals and birds to help me. Each time when I came to the end of the rope I threw myself back against it, and pulled hard. The skin of my breast stretched out as wide as your hand, but it would not tear, and at last all my chest grew numb, so that it had no feeling in it; and yet, little by little, as I threw my whole weight against the rope, the strips of skin stretched out longer and longer. All day long I walked in this way. The sun blazed down like fire. I had no food, and did not drink; for so I had been instructed.

Toward night my mouth grew dry, and my neck sore; so that to swallow, or even to open my mouth in prayer hurt me. It seemed a long time before the sun got overhead and the pole cast but a small shadow; but it seemed that the shadow of the pole grew long in the afternoon much more slowly than it had grown short in the morning.

I was very tired, and my legs were shaking under me, when at last, as the sun hung low over the western hills, I saw someone coming. It was my friend, Tom Lodge; and when he had come close to me, he spoke to me and said, "My son, have you been faithful all through the day?" I answered him, "Father, I have walked and prayed all day long, but I cannot tear out these pins." "You have done well," he said; and, drawing his knife, he came to me, and taking hold first of one pin and then of the other, he cut off the strips of skin which pa.s.sed about the pins, and set me free. He held the strips of skin that he had cut off, toward the sky, and toward the four directions, and prayed, saying: "Listen! all you spirits of the air, and of the earth, and of the water; and you, O earth! and you, O sun! This is the sacrifice that my son has made to you. You have heard how he cries to you for help. Hear his prayer." Then at the foot of the pole he sc.r.a.ped a little hole in the earth and placed the bits of skin there, and covered them up. Then he gave me to drink from a buffalo paunch waterskin that he had brought.

"Now, my son," said he, "you shall sleep here this night, and to-morrow morning, as the sun rises, leave this; hill, and everything on it, as it is, and return to the camp. It may be that during the night something will come to you, to tell you a thing. If you are spoken to in your sleep, remember carefully what is said to you."

After he had gone I lay down, covering myself with my robe, and was soon asleep, for I was very tired. That night, while I slept, I dreamed that a wolf came to me, and spoke, saying: "My son, the spirits to whom you have cried all day long have heard your prayers, and have sent me to tell you that your cryings have not been in vain. Take courage, therefore, for you shall be fortunate so long as these wars last. You shall strike your enemies; your name shall be called through the camp, and all your relations will be glad.

"Look at me, and consider well my ways. Remember that of all the animals, the wolves are the smartest. If they get hungry, they go out and kill a buffalo; they know what is going to happen; they are always able to take care of themselves. You shall be like the wolf; you shall be able to creep close to your enemies, and they shall not see you; you shall be a great man for surprising people. In the bundle that you wear tied to your necklet, you shall carry a little wolf hair, and your quiver and your bow-case shall be made of the skin of a wolf." The wolf ceased speaking, yet for a time he sat there looking at me, and I at him; but presently he yawned, and stood up on his feet, and trotted off a little way, and suddenly I could not see him.

So then in these five times that I went to war, once I counted the first coup of all on an enemy; and three times I crept into camp and brought out horses, twice going with other men who went in to cut loose the horses, and once going in alone. For these things I came to be well thought of by the tribe. My uncle praised me, and said that the time was coming when I would be a good warrior. All my relations felt proud and glad that I had such good luck.

I knew why all this had come to me. I had done as the wolf had said, and often I went out from the camp--or perhaps I stopped when I was traveling far from the village--and went up on a hill, and, lighting a pipe, offered a smoke to the wolf, and asked him not to forget what he had said to me.

I was now a grown man, and able to do all the things that young men do. I was a good hunter; I had a herd of horses, and had been to war, and been well spoken of by the leaders whose war parties I went with. I was old enough, too, to think about young girls, and to feel that some day I wanted to get married, and to have a lodge and home of my own. There were many nice girls in the camp; many who were hard workers, modest, and very pretty. I liked many of them, but there was no one whom I liked so much as Standing Alone. I often saw her, but sometimes she would not look at me, and sometimes she looked, but when she saw me looking at her she looked down again; but sometimes she smiled a little as she looked down. It was long since we had played together, but I thought that perhaps she had not forgotten the time, so many years ago, when she pretended to be my wife, and when she had mourned over me once when I was killed by a buffalo.

As I grew older I felt more and more that I wished to see and talk with her. Of course I was too young to be married yet, but I was not too young to want to talk with Standing Alone. I used to go out and stand by the trail where the women pa.s.sed to get water, hoping that I might speak to her, but often there was no chance to do so. Sometimes she was with other girls, who laughed and joked about me, and asked whom I was waiting for.

They could not tell who was standing there, for my robe or my sheet covered my whole body, except the hole through which I looked with one eye. But one day when Standing Alone was going by with some girls, one of them recognized the sheet that I had on, and called out my name, and said that she believed that I was waiting for Standing Alone. I was surprised that she should know me, and felt badly, but I did not move, and so I think neither she nor the girls with her knew that she had guessed right; and the next time I went I wore a different sheet, and different moccasins and leggings.

One evening I had good luck; all the women had pa.s.sed, and Standing Alone had not appeared. I supposed that all had got their water, and was about to go away when she came hurrying along the trail, and pa.s.sed me and went to the water's edge. She filled her vessel and came back, and when she pa.s.sed me again I took hold of her dress and pulled it, and dropped my sheet from my head. She stopped and we stood there and talked for a little while. We were both of us afraid, we did not know of what, and had not much to say, but it was pleasant to be there talking to her, and looking at her face.

Three times she started to go, but each time I said to her, "Do not go; wait a little longer"; and each time she waited. The fourth time she went away. After that, I think she knew me whenever I stood by the trail, and sometimes she was late in coming for water, and I had a chance to speak to her alone.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "DO NOT GO; WAIT A LITTLE LONGER"]

In those days I was happy; and often when the camp was resting, and there was nothing for me to do, I used to go out and sit on the top of a high hill, and think about Standing Alone, and hope that in the time to come I might have her for my wife, and that I might do great things in war, so that she would be proud of me; and might bring back many horses for her, so that she could always ride a good horse, and have a finely ornamented saddle and saddle-cloth. If I could take horses enough, I should be rich, and then whatever Standing Alone might desire, I could give a horse for it.

_A Warrior Ready to Die._

It was not long after this that buffalo were found, and we began to kill them, as we used to do in the old times; and then a great misfortune happened to me.

One day I was chasing buffalo on a young horse, and as it ran down a steep hill, it stumbled among the stones, and fell down, rolling over, and I was thrown far; and, as I fell to the ground, my knee struck against a large stone. When I got up my leg was useless, and I could not walk, but I managed to catch my horse, and crawling on it I reached the camp. After a little my knee got better, and then again worse, and then better again.

Still I could not walk, and for two years I stayed in the camp, crippled, and unable to go from place to place, except when I was helped on my horse.

I grew thin and weak, and thought that I should die.

Many of the young men of my age, my friends, were sorry for me. They used to come to my lodge and eat and talk, telling me the news. Sometimes, when I was sitting out in the shade of the lodge, looking over the camp, and feeling the pleasant breeze blow on my face, or the warm sun s.h.i.+ne on my body, I saw the young men and boys walking about, and running, and wrestling, and kicking, and jumping on their horses and galloping off, and it made me feel badly to think that I could no longer do the things that I used to do; could no longer hunt, and help to support my relations; could no longer go off on the warpath with my fellows, to fight the enemy, or to take plunder from them. I was useless.

Often during this time, older men--my uncle's friends--used to come to the lodge, and stop there and talk with me for a little time, to cheer me up, for I think they too felt sorry for me. The doctors tried hard to cure my leg, but though they did many things, and I and my uncle paid them many horses, and saddles and blankets, they could not help me. Once in a while, in the morning, after all the men had gone out to chase buffalo, or to hunt for smaller animals, deer or elk or antelope, Standing Alone would come to my mother's lodge, perhaps bringing some little present for her, and would sit and talk with her, and sometimes look at me, and I could see that her eyes were full of tears, and that she too felt sorry. Sometimes she spoke to me, but not often; but it always made me glad to see her, and made me feel more than ever that she had a good heart.

At the end of two years I sent word to my uncle, asking him to come to see me; and when he had come and sat down, I asked my mother and my sisters to leave the lodge, and when they had gone I spoke to my uncle. "Father, you have seen how it has been with me for two years; that I am no longer able to go about; that I am a cripple, lying here day after day, useless to my relations, and very unhappy. Now, I have thought of this for a long time, and I have made up my mind what I shall do. It is time for me to go off with some of the young men on the warpath, and when we meet the enemy, I will ride straight into the midst of them, and will strike one, and he shall kill me. I am no longer glad to live, and it will be well for me to die bravely."

For a long time my uncle said nothing, but sat there looking at the ground.

After he had thought, he raised his head and spoke to me, saying: "Son, you can remember how it has been with us since you were a little boy. You have been my son, and I have loved you. I have been glad when you went to war, and glad when you returned with credit; yet I should not have mourned if you had been killed in battle, for that is the way a man ought to die. I have seen your sufferings now for two years, and I know how you feel. I think that it will be well for you to do as you have said, and for you to give your body to the enemy, and to be killed on the open prairie, where the birds and the beasts may feed on your flesh, and may scatter it over the plain. Now, when you are ready to do this, tell me, so that I may see that you go to war as becomes a warrior who is about to die."

It was not very long after this that a party of young men set out to war, all mounted, to go south to look for the Utes. Among them was the one who had been my close friend, and to him I had told what was in my mind; and when I spoke to the leader of the party, he was glad to have me go with him, as were all of them.

I told my uncle, and he gave me his best war horse to ride, and gave me also a sacred headdress that he wore, which had in it some of the feathers of the thunder bird. I took with me no arms, except a stone axe that my father had had from his father, and he from his father, and which had come down in our family through many generations.

The party started, and we traveled fast and far to the south. At first I was very weak, and got very tired during the long marches, but after a time I grew stronger, and could eat better, and felt better; but my leg was as bad as ever.

We had been out many days and were still traveling south, east of the mountains, when, one day our scouts came upon the carca.s.ses of buffalo that had been killed only a little time before, and the meat cut from the bones.

From this we knew that enemies were close by, and we went carefully. Not far beyond these carca.s.ses, as we rode up on a hill, we saw before us in the valley two persons butchering a buffalo, and as we watched them at their work, we could see that they were Utes--enemies. All the young men jumped on their horses, and we charged down on them. Before we were near them they had seen us, and had run to their horses, and jumped on them and ridden away. By this time I was far ahead of my friends, for my horse was the fastest of all; and soon I was getting close to these enemies. They rode almost side by side, but one a little ahead of the other.

The one who was on the left and a little behind carried a bow and arrows, while the man on the right had a gun. I said to myself: "I will ride between these two persons, and the man with the bow will then have to shoot toward his right hand, and will very likely miss me, while I may be able to knock him off his horse with my axe." I was not afraid, for I had made up my mind to die.

Before long I had overtaken the Utes, and, riding between them, made ready to strike them. The man with the arrows turned on his horse, and shot at me, but I bent to one side, and the arrow pa.s.sed by without hitting me, and I struck him with my axe and knocked him off his horse. Then the man with the gun turned and was aiming at me, but when he pulled the trigger his gun snapped and did not go off. I was close to him and caught the barrel in my hand, and struck him with my axe, and knocked him off his horse. Then I rode on, holding his gun in my hand. Before the two men whom I had struck could get on their horses again, my friends had overtaken and killed them.

We traveled on further, but found no more enemies, and at last we gave up, and returned to our village. All the time, as we were journeying about, and going back, I kept feeling better and better. I grew stronger slowly. The swelling on my knee began to go down, so that before we reached the village I could rest my weight on that foot a little. At last we arrived, and when we came in sight of the camp, we could see people looking from the lodges to see who were coming.

As we rode down the hill to charge upon the village, the leader told me to ride far in front, "For," he said, "you are the bravest of all." When we came into the village the men and the women and the children came out to meet us. All of them shouted out my name, and my heart grew big in my breast, for I felt that all the people thought that I had done well. Among the women who came out to meet us, I saw Standing Alone, running along by my mother, and both were singing a glad song. And when I saw this, I came near to crying.

At last I reached my lodge, and before it stood my uncle; and as I rode toward him he called out in a loud voice, and asked a certain man named Brave Wolf to come to his lodge and see his son who had given his body to the enemy, desiring to be killed, but who had done great things and had survived. And when Brave Wolf came to the lodge, my uncle gave to him the best horse that he had, a spotted war pony, handsome and long-winded and fleet.