Po-No-Kah Part 4

VIII.

BOUNCER'S WORK.

There was another person in the settlement besides the captives, who was not likely to forget Bouncer very soon. This was an Indian who, wounded and exhausted, had reached the settlement four days after the arrival of the prisoners. He had an ugly mark upon his throat, and another on his chest, and he sulked aside from the rest of his tribe as though he felt that his wounds were ign.o.ble, and a dishonor to his Indian birth. It was his blood that Farmer Hedden had seen on that fearful night; and when more than once the agonized father had listened to what seemed to be the tread of some skulking wolf, he had heard this very Indian, who, half dead with pain and loss of blood, was dragging himself slowly through the depths of the forest.

This discomfited warrior had looked upon Tom and the two little pale-faces with dislike, from the hour when he first saw them as prisoners in the encampment. They were constant reminders to him of his mortifying struggle with the dog. He felt it all the more because, though his jacket and leggings were trimmed with the scalps of his enemies, he had lately been forced to receive charity from the white man's hand, This was when, starving and nearly frozen, he had fallen helpless in the forest, after an unlucky trapping excursion; a settler had found him there, given him food and drink and sent him on his way with a bountiful supply of provisions.

Big Tom saw the dark looks of this Indian, and regarded him with suspicion; but little Kitty was quite unconscious of the resentful feelings of "the sick man," as she called him. In fact, as soon as she grew more familiar with the Indians, she often sought him in preference to the rest, and loved to sit upon the ground beside him, and trace with her tiny fingers the patterns worked upon his leggings and moccasins.

At first the grim warrior repulsed these familiarities; but when, as he began to mingle with his tribe, he heard her sweet voice calling him by name, and saw her day after day display her store of beads and feathers at his feet, his feelings gradually softened. Before long he ceased to scowl upon her when she lifted her sunny face to his, and, on rare occasions, he even allowed her to count his arrows.

Once, when Rudolph had shot a wild turkey, he rushed to Ka-te-qua's wigwam with his prize, for he had learned to love the strange old squaw, though he feared her, too, sometimes. Kitty clapped her hands with delight at her brother's skill, and begged him to go with her and show the dead bird to her favorite Indian.

"Come, Rudolph; come show 'Nokah,'" she pleaded, pulling the young hunter by the arm. "Come twick! he goin' away."

Rudolph suffered himself to be led. They found Po-no-kah standing alone by a tree, fully equipped for the hunt.

He looked at the turkey and gave a grunt, not particularly flattering to Rudolph's vanity.

"I've shot THREE!" said the boy, holding up three fingers to make his meaning clearer.

"Ugh!" grunted the savage again. "Paleface no shoot much."

"But I'm growing," persisted Rudolph. "When I'm big, I'm going to shoot bears and bison. Did you kill the bears to get all these claws?" he added, pointing up to Po-no-kah's necklace, which was formed entirely of huge bear-claws, strung through the thickest end.

"Ugh," replied the Indian, nodding his plumed head, "me shoot him."

"And these scalps," said Rudolph, shuddering as he pointed to the fringe of human hair hanging from the buckskin leggings; "did _you_ get all these?"

"Ugh," he answered grimly, nodding the plumes again.

"You are bad, then," exclaimed Rudolph, looking fearlessly into Po-no-kah's eyes. "I know _you_," he added suddenly, after gazing at him intently for an instant. "Father brought you into our kitchen last winter, and I ran behind the door. Mother gave you meat and hot drink, and father warmed you and gave you a bag of potatoes. Oh!" he continued, clasping Po-no-kah's knee, "_you_ know where our home is. Nearly every night I dream that mother is calling us. Show me the way, please do.

Ka-te-qua says there are dreadful things in the forest that will eat me up, but I am not afraid. Oh, do tell us the way home!"

The Indian gave a sharp look at the sobbing boy, and seemed in part to understand his words. Stooping, he whispered in a stern tone: "No speak; no tell Ka-te-qua;"--and without one glance of encouragement, he stalked away to the spot where the other Indians had a.s.sembled, preparing for the hunt.

The children saw him no more for weeks. Rudolph remembered his parting words, and though he could not fully understand Po-no-kah's motive, he faithfully obeyed his command. Not even to Tom did he relate what had occurred.

IX.

INDIAN LIFE.

Rudolph and Kitty learned many things from the Indians that they never would have studied in the rough school-house near their pretty home; and they soon became familiar with many singular customs that at first filled them with wonder.

For instance: when they, or any of the little papooses, were naughty or disobedient, they were put under what might be called the water-cure treatment. Instead of being whipped or locked up in a dark pantry--as was, I am sorry to say, the custom among some white people--they were simply "ducked" under water until they became manageable. Winter or summer, it was all the same. A bad child would very soon become a wet child, if there were any water within a mile.

There are bright sides, as well as dark, to the Indian character; and in considering their cruelties and inhuman practices, we must remember that the white man has not always been just to him or set a good example to his uncivilized brother, or been careful not to provoke him to deeds of resentment and wrong. An Indian rarely forgets a kindness, and he never tells a lie. He is heroic, and deems it beneath a man's dignity to exhibit the slightest sign of pain under any circ.u.mstances. Among the Sioux tribe of that time, the boys were trained from the first to bear as much hards.h.i.+p as possible. They had a ceremony called the Straw Dance, in which children were forced to maintain a stately and measured step, while bunches of loose straws tied to their naked bodies were lighted and allowed to burn slowly away. Any poor little creature who flinched or "broke step" was sorely punished and held in disgrace.

There were certain dances among the Indians performed by the warriors, before going either to battle or to the hunt. If to battle, they spent hours, and often whole days and nights together, in the fearful war-dance, accompanied by clas.h.i.+ng on their drumlike instruments, and whoops that rang long and loud amid the echoing hills. If to the hunt, the Bear-Dance or the Buffalo-Dance was kept up nights and days before starting, in order to propitiate the Bear Spirit or Buffalo Spirit, whichever it might be. They had a funeral dance also, which was very solemn and impressive. And if a chieftain was to be buried, either in the river, or, as among the Mandans, on a rough platform erected on poles high up from the ground, the warriors danced before his wigwam, and a.s.signed to a few of their number the duty of seeing that his widow and children, if he left any, should never be without food and shelter.

Kitty and Rudolph often looked on with, mingled feelings of terror and delight, while some of these strange ceremonies were being enacted. It was curious to see the stalwart warriors, with bent backs and glum faces, and many a grunt or whoop, stamp through the measured dance.

Often Kitty would clutch her brother's arm in terror, when, in strange concert, the savages would suddenly halt, and with fiendish look and stealthy gesture, seem to be listening to the approach of an enemy.

Sometimes, too, the women danced, but always apart from the men. Even in their games the warriors and squaws never played together. Among the Crow Indians, famous for their long black hair, it was not uncommon for a thousand young men to play in one game of ball for three or four consecutive days without interruption. As soon as one player retired, exhausted, another took his place. Often hundreds of women played together, and they were generally as expert as the men in throwing and catching the ball.

Another strange feature among Indian customs, was the importance attached to the _medicine-bag_. Every warrior had one, and would no sooner hunt, or go to battle, or appear among his tribe without it, than he would neglect to wear his bow or his scalping-knife. Not that the bag contained any medicine, such as we understand by the word--for it was nothing but a small piece of skin sewed like a bag, curiously ornamented, and stuffed with straw or leaves--but because he regarded it as a _charm_. With him, "medicine" meant some mysterious power that would protect and guide him, and propitiate the unseen powers in his favor. When about to obtain his medicine, the young Indian went alone to some solitary river or lake in the depths of the forest, or mounted to some lonely peak. Here he fasted, and remained until, sleeping, he dreamed. The first animal he dreamed about, whether it were a bear, buffalo, deer, weasel, or bird or reptile of any kind, became his "medicine" forever. He at once hunted until he found one, and obtained its skin for a bag.

Rudolph and Kitty looked with awe upon many of the rare medicine-bags of the tribe, though they were never on any account allowed to touch them.

Indeed, Kitty had managed to make a rough little one for Rudolph, dotted with clumps of beads, and he wore it next his heart with secret pride.

The little fellow had once, while tramping through the forest with Katequa, seen a number of deer gathered around a spring, or salt-lick, as it is called, and had quivered with frightened delight to see the finest one fall wounded by her arrow. When the large eyes of the wounded creature had turned plaintively toward him, he had tried not to feel sorry, but his heart ached in spite of his efforts,

"I shall be a mighty hunter one of these days," he said to Kitty on his return; "but I won't shoot deer, for they look at you just as if they wanted to speak. I'll get bears though, lots of 'em, and buffalo; and I'll have a fine trap when I get home, and catch badgers and foxes, just as the Indians do."

Tom and Rudolph saw with indignation that, throughout the village, the labor and drudgery were forced upon the squaws, while the warriors stretched themselves lazily upon the ground, or smoked their pipes under the spreading trees. As for Kitty, she was too busy watching the women cook, dig, chop, and carry, to make any moral reflections.

She loved, also, to sit beside them when they prepared the skins brought in from the hunt, or while they were busy with their curious sewing, so different from that with which she had seen her mother occupied.

Bright-colored rags, feathers, beads, porcupine-quills, and even sc.r.a.ps of tin, were the ornaments upon which the squaws relied to make the toilets of their tribe "stylish" and beautiful; and Kitty--tiny little woman that she was--soon grew to agree with them perfectly in matters of taste.

To be sure, the Indian women never did anything quite so barbarous as to put their little girls' feet into narrow shoes with high heels, nor fasten tight belts about their waists, so that the G.o.d-given machinery within could hardly work. But they did many preposterous things, for all that. They painted their bodies and tattooed their skins, by p.r.i.c.king figures on the flesh and rubbing in some staining juice when the blood appeared. They even pierced their noses so that bright rings could dangle from them. Many, too, hung bits of metal from their ears in a similar way--but that may not strike my civilized readers as being a very barbarous custom.

X.

KA-TE-QUA'S "GOOD NIGHT."

Thus weeks and months pa.s.sed away, not so wearily to the prisoners, as to the poor, sorrowing hearts that mourned for them at home. Tom's brain was always busy in planning some mode of escape for himself and his little charges. But, as he was still closely guarded, never being left alone for an instant, night or day, and as the children slept in the wigwam of Ka-te-qua, whose eyes seemed never intended to close, he concluded to wait patiently rather than to risk the lives of all three by an unsuccessful attempt.

Meantime, Ka-te-qua's strong arms grew feeble, her arrow became less fatal in its aim, and her strange fits of moodiness filled Rudolph and Kitty with dread.

For hours she would sit at the entrance of her wigwam, chanting mournfully in the Indian tongue. At such times she would compel the children to remain within,--becoming frantic with crazy rage should they attempt to force past her into the pleasant suns.h.i.+ne; and they would sit together in the shadow, hoping that by some whim she would walk away, or that the long, long chant would cease. One afternoon she kept them waiting in this way for hours. The sun sank lower and lower into the distant prairie, and the crimson clouds faded to a dull gray. Rudolph and Kitty sat listening to the wailing tones of Ka-te-qua's voice until, as the evening grew dark and chilly, they found for themselves a scanty supper of parched corn, and after whispering their simple prayer, groped their way to bed.

The strange old creature ceased singing after a while, and entered the wigwam. They could distinguish her form as she slowly moved about, before throwing herself down near the entrance to indulge in her usual cat-like sleep. Afraid to speak to her, for they were not quite sure in what mood she might be, they watched her movements as well as they could, and at last felt sure that she was tottering slowly toward them.

Kitty clasped Rudolph's neck more tightly, and broke into a frightened sob. In an instant, they felt her hand steal very gently over their tumbled curls.

"Night! night!" she whispered softly.