The Hunters of the Hills | Page 8

which blew from him toward Tayoga, brought
no warning. Nor did the squirrel chattering in the tree or the bird
singing on the bough just over his head tell him that the hunter was

near. Tayoga looked again down the arrow at the chosen place on the
gleaming body of the deer, and with a sudden and powerful contraction
of the muscles, bending the bow a little further, loosed the shaft.
The arrow flew singing through the air as swift and deadly as a steel
dart and was buried in the heart of the stag, which, leaping upward, fell,
writhed convulsively a moment or two, and died. The young Onondaga
regarded his work a moment with satisfaction, and then walked forward,
followed by his white 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