Part 1 (2/2)

”I have a medicine,” replied White Otter. ”I have the little brown bat which came from G.o.d.”

”He-eye, he-eye! Where is your little brown bat? You do not speak the truth--you have no little brown bat from G.o.d. Come with us, White Otter.” With this, one of the spirit-men strode forward and seized White Otter, who sprang to his feet to grapple with him. They clinched and strained for the mastery, White Otter and the camp-soldier of the spirit-people.

”Come to me, little brown bat,” shouted the resisting savage, but the ghostly crowd yelled, ”Your little brown bat will not come to you, White Otter.”

Still he fought successfully with the spirit-soldier. He strained and twisted, now felling the ghost, now being felled in turn, but they staggered again to their feet. Neither was able to conquer. Hour after hour he resisted the taking of his body from off the earth to be deposited on the inglorious desert island in the shadow-land. At times he grew exhausted and seemed to lie still under the spirit's clutches, but reviving, continued the struggle with what energy he could summon.

The westering sun began lengthening the shadows on the Inyan-kara, and with the cool of evening his strength began to revive. Now he fought the ghost with renewed spirit, calling from time to time on his medicine-bat, till at last when all the shadows had merged and gone together, with a whir came the little brown bat, crying ”Na-hoin” [I come].

Suddenly all the ghost-people flew away, scattering over the Inyan-kara, screaming, ”Hoho, hoho, hoho!” and White Otter sat up on his robe.

The stone giants echoed in clattering chorus, the spirit-birds swished through the air with a whis-s-s-tling noise, and the whole of the bad demons came back to prowl, since the light had left the world, and they were no longer afraid. They all sought to circ.u.mvent the poor Indian, but the little brown bat circled around and around his head, and he kept saying: ”Come to me, little brown bat. Let White Otter put his hand on you; come to my hand.”

But the bat said nothing, though it continued to fly around his head. He waved his arms widely at it, trying to reach it. With a fortunate sweep it struck his hand, his fingers clutched around it, and as he drew back his arm he found his little brown bat dead in the vise-like grip. White Otter's medicine had come to him.

Folding himself in his robe, and still grasping the symbol of the Good G.o.d's protection, he lay down to sleep. The stone giants ceased their clamors, and all the world grew still.

White Otter was sleeping.

In his dreams came the voice of G.o.d, saying: ”I have given it, given you the little brown bat. Wear it always on your scalp-lock, and never let it away from you for a moment. Talk to it, ask of it all manner of questions, tell it the secrets of your shadow-self, and it will take you through battle so fast that no arrow or bullet can hit you. It will steal you away from the spirits which haunt the night. It will whisper to you concerning the intentions of the women, and your enemies, and it will make you wise in the council when you are older. If you adhere to it and follow its dictation, it will give you the white hair of old age on this earth, and bring you to the shadow-land when your turn comes.”

The next day, when the sun had come again, White Otter walked down the mountain, and at the foot met his father with ponies and buffalo meat.

The old man had followed on his trail, but had gone no farther.

”I am strong now, father. I can protect my body and my shadow--the Good G.o.d has come to Wo-pe-ni-in.”

II. The Brown Bat Proves Itself

Big Hair and his son, White Otter, rode home slowly, back through the coulees and the pines and the sage-brush to the camp of the Chis-chis-chash. The squaws took their ponies when they came to their lodge.

Days of listless longing followed the journey to the Inyan-kara in search of the offices of the Good G.o.d, and the worn body and fevered mind of White Otter recovered their normal placidity. The red warrior on his resting-mat sinks in a torpor which a sunning mud-turtle on a log only hopes to attain, but he stores up energy, which must sooner or later find expression in the most extended physical effort.

Thus during the days did White Otter eat and sleep, or lie under the cottonwoods by the creek with his chum, the boy Red Arrow--lying together on the same robe and dreaming as boys will, and talking also, as is the wont of youth, about the things which make a man. They both had their medicine--they were good hunters, whom the camp soldiers allowed to accompany the parties in the buffalo-surround. They both had a few ponies, which they had stolen from the Absaroke hunters the preceding autumn, and which had given them a certain boyish distinction in the camp. But their eager minds yearned for the time to come when they should do the deed which would allow them to pa.s.s from the boy to the warrior stage, before which the Indian is in embryo.

Betaking themselves oft to deserted places, they each consulted his own medicine. White Otter had skinned and dried and tanned the skin of the little brown bat, and covered it with gaudy porcupine decorations. This he had tied to his carefully cultivated scalp-lock, where it switched in the pa.s.sing breeze. People in the camp were beginning to say ”the little brown bat boy” as he pa.s.sed them by.

But their medicine conformed to their wishes, as an Indian's medicine mostly has to do, so that they were promised success in their undertaking.

Old Big Hair, who sat blinking, knew that the inevitable was going to happen, but he said no word. He did not advise or admonish. He doted on his son, and did not want him killed, but that was better than no eagle-plume.

Still the boys did not consult their relatives in the matter, but on the appointed evening neither turned up at the ancestral tepee, and Big Hair knew that his son had gone out into the world to win his feather. Again he consulted the medicine-pouch and sang dolorously to lull the spirits of the night as his boy pa.s.sed him on his war-trail.

Having traveled over the tableland and through the pines for a few miles, White Otter stopped, saying: ”Let us rest here. My medicine says not to go farther, as there is danger ahead. The demons of the night are waiting for us beyond, but my medicine says that if we build a fire the demons will not come near, and in the morning they will be gone.”

They made a small fire of dead pine sticks and sat around it wrapped in the skins of the gray wolf, with the head and ears of that fearful animal capping theirs--unearthly enough to frighten even the monsters of the night.

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