The Last Protest | Page 3

man who sells as much hay as does Little
Wolf -- should talk much when the talk is to him."
Still, Little Wolf gazed stolidly over the fire, apparently mute and deaf.
"Come, Little Wolf, you do not answer," continued Young Moon,
sweetly. "Have the fences of the white man run across our great chief's
mouth that he is dead of tongue as well as of heart?"
Little Wolf took the pipe from his mouth and arose.
"Listen, boy," said he, solemnly, "to one who saw your father die ere
you could speak. Your talk is the talk that all the bucks utter when their
years are of a certain number. So have I heard many talk; but all who
have done as they talked are dead now. Listen to my speech, Young
Moon, and the rest of you, for I know of what I speak. I, too, was once
of the age when the thirst for the white man's scalp was strong. But the
white man still has his scalp, and I -- I am thankful to raise corn on the
land he leaves to me."
The young men, as they looked, saw only a senile old man gabbling
aimlessly, while in Young Moon was their ideal of youthful strength
and leadership.

Then Young Moon threw off all caution. He was wild now -- wild with
the old red desire for strife and bloody violence which had become
almost atrophied in him -- and he would make the other young men
wild also. He threw back his head and gave vent to a cry such as had
never in his day echoed through the tepees of the peaceful Crows. With
shaking, twisting body he began to lope slowly toward Little Wolf.
With a shout he swung out into a semi-circle, and passing before the
old men, returned to his starting-point.
"Young Moon! Young Moon! What is it you do?" cried Little Wolf, in
alarm. "It is not the moon of the dance; it is not the time for the feathers.
The white man is not a child for boys to make war upon. 'T is better to
stay in the camp, where the food and the women are plenty."
Young Moon was looping toward him again.
"For you is the tepee made to stay in, Little Wolf," he shouted
derisively. "Go there, stay there with the women. You are old; that is
your place now."
He loped back in a slightly more pronounced curve. "You are old, Little
Wolf," he called again. "Your time has passed. The old, withered stalk
must move to one side when the strong young shoot comes forth."
Another brave sprang suddenly into his wake. The old squaw squatted
herself suddenly and began the ugly, monotonous "Ay-yah, a-anah,
ah-ya" of the dance-chant. Young Moon sprang forward as if spurred
by some unseen power. His course now became a circle around the fire
-- a magic path on the ground for others to follow. One by one the
bucks fell in behind. The young women came and chanted; the dance
was on.
The old men deliberately placed their belongings and women in
wagons and moved away to a new camp, leaving the old one in
possession of the young men and their women.
Far into the night the fires of the camp showed the weird, dancing
figures of Young Moon and his followers. Also, Young Moon, by

reason of the knowledge of certain strange things acquired at the school,
performed many wonderful miracles, and the young men also hailed
him as the great medicine-man, and acknowledged him their leader.
Early on the morning of the next day they rode to the camp of their
elders. Before their tepees they sat mounted, and mocked the old men,
voicing their praises of the wonderful medicine of Young Moon.
"So may it be," muttered one old man. "Good may his medicine be; but
bad -- bad for crazy young colts -- will they find the medicine of the
white man."
The young men laughingly turned and rode down the valley toward the
Creek of the Rotten Grass, following which they would quickly find the
white man -- and strife. The young women, roughly discarded, marched
shamefacedly to the new camp; but some who had remained with the
bucks, although their husbands were not yet chosen, were driven in
disgrace from the tepees they sought to enter. II
"TEDDY" COLLINS, who rode range for the "2 O & E" Ranch, had
come north toward the head-waters of the Creek of the Rotten Grass to
head off a bunch of strays that had persisted in running off the range
and was wandering far north toward the reservation. Collins had the
herd headed southward again, and was driving it with language that
was picturesque