Part 34 (1/2)
It's the changeablest kind of a layout for livin' in. Real hot weather the thing looks like a spider with skirts on and held high, an' I tell you ye got to know the weather for a teepee. Many a hot night on the plains I've been woke up by hearing 'Tap-tap-tap' all around me in the still black night and wondered why all the squaws was working, but they was up to drop the cover and drive all the pegs deeper, an'
within a half hour there never failed to come up a big storm. How they knew it was a-comin' I never could tell. One old woman said a Coyote told her, an' maybe that's true, for they do change their song for trouble ahead; another said it was the flowers lookin' queer at sundown, an' another had a bad dream. Maybe they're all true; it comes o' watchin' little things.”
”Do they never get fooled?” asked Little Beaver
'Oncet in awhile, but not near as often as a White-man would.
”I mind once seeing an artist chap, one of them there portygraf takers. He come out to the village with a machine an' took some of the little teepees. Then I said, 'Why don't you get Bull-calf's squaw to put up their big teepee? I tell you that's a howler.' So off he goes, and after d.i.c.kering awhile he got the squaw to put it up for three dollars. You bet it was a stunner, sure--all painted red, with green an' yaller--animals an' birds an' scalps galore. It made that feller's eyes bug out to see it. He started in to make some portygrafs, then was taking another by hand, so as to get the colours, an' I bet it would have crowded him to do it, but jest when he got a-going the old squaw yelled to the other--the Chief hed two of them--an' lighted out to take down that there teepee. That artist he hollered to stop, said he had hired it to stay up an' a bargain was a bargain. But the old squaw she jest kept on a-jabberin' an' pintin' at the west. Pretty soon they had the hull thing down and rolled up an'
that artist a-cussin' like a cow-puncher. Well, I mind it was a fine day, but awful hot, an' before five minutes there come a little dark cloud in the west, then in ten minutes come a-whoopin' a regular small cyclone, an' it went through that village and wrecked all the teepees of any size. That red one would surely have gone only for that smart old squaw.”
[Ill.u.s.tration: Bull-Calf's Teepee.]
Under Caleb's directions the breezy side of the cover was now raised a little, and the shady side much more. This changed the teepee from a stifling hothouse into a cool, breezy shade.
”An' when ye want to know which way is the wind, if it's light, ye wet your finger so, an' hold it up. The windy side feels cool at once, and by that ye can set your smoke-flaps.”
”I want to know about war bonnets,” Yan now put in. ”I mean about things to do to wear feathers--that is, things _we_ can do.”
”Ye kin have races, an' swimmin' an bownarrer shootin'. I should say if you kin send one o' them arrers two hundred yards that would kill a Buffalo at twenty feet. I'd think that was pretty good. Yes, I'd call that way up.”
”What--a _grand coup?_”
”Yes, I reckon; an' if you fell short on'y fifty yards that'd still kill a Deer, an' we could call that a _coup_. If,” continued Caleb, ”you kin hit that old gunny-sack buck plunk in the heart at fifty yards first shot I'd call that away up; an' if you hit it at seventy-five yards in the heart no matter how many tries, I'd call you a shot. If you kin hit a nine-inch bull's-eye two out of three at forty yards every time an' no fluke, you'd hold your own among Injuns though I must say they don't go in much for shooting at a target. They shoot at 'most anything they see in the woods. I've seen the little copper-coloured kids shooting away at b.u.t.terflies. Then they have matches--they try who can have most arrers in the air at one time. To have five in the air at once is considered good. It means powerful fast work and far shooting. You got to hold a bunch handy in the left hand fur that. The most I ever seen one man have up at once was eight.
That was reckoned 'big medicine,' an' any one that can keep up seven is considered swell.”
”Do you know any other things besides bows and arrows that would do?”
”I think that a rubbing-stick fire ought to count,” interrupted Sam.
”I want that in coz Guy can't do it. Any one who kin do it at all gets a feather, an' any one who kin do it in one minute gets a swagger feather, or whatever you call it; that takes care of Yan and me an'
leaves Guy out in the cold.”
”I'll bet I kin hunt Deer all round you both, I kin.”
”Oh, shut up, Sappy; we're tired a-hearing about your Deer hunting.
We're going to abolish that game.” Then Sam continued, apparently addressing Caleb, ”Do you know any Injun games?”
But Caleb took no notice.
Presently Yan said, ”Don't the Injuns play games, Mr. Clark?
”Well, yes, I kin show you two Injun games that will test your eyesight.”
”I bet I kin beat any one at it,” Guy made haste to tell. ”Why, I seen that Deer before Yan could--”
”Oh, shut up, Guy,” Yan now exclaimed. A peculiar sound--”_Wheet--wheet--wheet_”--made Sappy turn. He saw Sam with an immense knife, whetting it most vigorously and casting a hungry, fishy glance from time to time to the ”yaller moss-tuft” on Guy's neck.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Archery Coup Feathers Their Special Marks Target Coup Feather Long-distance Five-in-air-at once]
”Time has came,” he said to n.o.body in particular.