The Hunters of the Hills | Page 8

comrade.
"One arrow was enough, Tayoga," said Robert, "and I knew before you shot that another would not be needed."
"The distance was not great," said Tayoga modestly. "I should have been a poor marksman had I missed."
He pulled his arrow with a great effort from the body of the deer, wiped it carefully upon the grass, and returned it to gadasha, the quiver. Arrows required time and labor for the making, but unlike the powder and bullet in a rifle, they could be used often, and hence at times the bow had its advantage.
Then the two worked rapidly and skillfully with their great hunting knives, skinning and removing all the choicer portions of the deer, and before they finished they heard the pattering of light feet in the woods, accompanied now and then by an evil whine.
"The wolves come early," said Tayoga.
"And they're over hungry," said Robert, "or they wouldn't let us know so soon that they're in the thickets."
"It is told sometimes, among my people, that the soul of a wicked man has gone into the wolf," said Tayoga, not ceasing in his work, his shining blade flashing back and forth. "Then the wolf can understand what we say, although he may not speak himself."
"And suppose we kill such a wolf, Tayoga, what becomes of the wicked soul?"
"It goes at once into the body of another wolf, and passes on from wolf to wolf, being condemned to live in that foul home forever. Such a punishment is only for the most vile, and they are few. It is but the hundredth among the wicked who suffers thus."
"The other ninety-nine go after death to Hanegoategeh, the land of perpetual darkness, where they suffer in proportion to the crimes they committed on earth, but Hawenneyu, the Divine Being, takes pity on them and gives them another chance. When they have suffered long enough in Hanegoategeh to be purified he calls them before him and looks into their souls. Nothing can be hidden from him. He sees the evil thought, Lennox, as you or I would see a leaf upon the water, and then he judges. And he is merciful. He does not condemn and send to everlasting torture, because evil may yet be left in the soul, but if the good outweighs the bad the good shall prevail and the suffering soul is sent to Hawenneyugeh, the home of the just, where it suffers no more. But if the bad still outweighs the good then its chance is lost and it is sent to Hanishaonogeh, the home of the wicked, where it is condemned to torture forever."
"A reasonable religion, Tayoga. Your Hanegoategeh is like the purgatory, in which the Catholic church believes. Your God like ours is merciful, and the more I learn about your religion the more similar it seems to ours."
"I think your God and our Manitou are the same, Lennox, we only see him through different glasses, but our religion is old, old, very old, perhaps older than yours."
Although Tayoga did not raise his voice or change the inflection Robert knew that he spoke with great pride. The young Onondaga did not believe his religion resembled the white man's but that the white man's resembled his. Robert respected him though, and knowing the reasons for his pride, said nothing in contradiction.
"The whining wolf is hungry," said Tayoga, "and since the soul of a warrior may dwell in his body I will feed him."
He took a discarded piece of the deer and threw it far into the bushes. A fearful growling, and the noise of struggling ensued at once.
"The wolf with the wicked soul in him may be there," said Robert, "but even so he has to fight with the other wolves for the meat you flung."
"It is a part of his fate," said Tayoga gravely. "Seeing and thinking as a man, he must yet bite and claw with beasts for his food. Now I think we have all of the deer we wish."
As they could not take it with them for tanning, they cut the skin in half, and each wrapped in his piece a goodly portion of the body to be carried to the canoe. Both were fastidious, wishing to get no stain upon their clothing, and, their task completed, they carefully washed their hands and knives at the edge of a brook. Then as they lifted up their burdens the whining and growling in the bushes increased rapidly.
"They see that we are going," said Tayoga. "The wolf even without the soul of a warrior in it knows much. It is the wisest of all the animals, unless the fox be its equal. The foolish bear and the mad panther fight alone, but the wolf, who is too small to face either, bands with his brothers into a