The Trail Book | Page 7

I had killed her husband; and the lad stood where she had pushed
him, not making any noise at all but a sharp, steady breathing. So I took
him up in my trunk, for, indeed, I did not know what to do, and as I
held him at the level of my eyes, I saw a strange thing,--that the boy
was not afraid. He was not in the least afraid, but very angry.
"'I hate you, Arrumpa,' he said, 'because you have killed my father. I
am too little to kill you for it now, but when I am a man I shall kill you.'
He struck me with his fists. 'Put me down, Man-Killer!'
"So I put him down. What else was there to do? And there was a
sensation in my breast, a sensation as of bending the knees and bowing
the neck--not at all unpleasant--He stood where I placed him, between
my tusks, and one of the hunters, who was a man in authority, called
out to him to come away while they killed me.
"'That you shall not,' said my manling, 'for he has killed my father,
therefore he is mine to kill according to the custom of killing.'
"Then the man was angry.
"'Come away, little fool,' he said. 'He is our meat. Have we not
followed him for three days and trapped him?'
"The boy looked at him under his brows, drawn level.
"'That was my father's spear that stuck in him, Opata,' he said.
"Now, as the man spoke, I began to see what they had done to me these
three days, for there was no way out of the ravine, and the women had
brought their fleshing-knives and baskets: but the boy was quicker even
than my anger. He reached up a hand to either of my tusks,--he could
barely lay hands on them,--and his voice shook, though I do not think it
was with anger. 'He is mine to kill,' he said, 'according to custom. He is
my Arrumpa, and I call the tribe to witness. Not one of you shall lay

hands on him until one of us has killed the other.'
"Then I lifted up my trunk over him, for my heart swelled against the
hunters, and I gave voice as a bull should when he walks by himself.
"'Arr-rr-ump!' I said. And the people were all silent with astonishment.
"Finally the man who had first spoken, spoke again, very humbly,
'Great Chief, give us leave to take away your father.' So we gave them
leave. They took the hurt man--his back was broken--away by the vine
ladders, and my young man went and lay face down where his father
had lain, and shook with many strange noises while water came out of
his eyes. When he sat up at last and saw me blowing dust on the
spear-cut in my side to stop the bleeding, he gathered broad leaves,
dipped them in pine gum, and laid them on the cut. Then I blew dust on
these, and seeing that I was more comfortable, Taku-Wakin--that was
what I learned to call him--saluted with both hands to his head, palms
outward. 'Friend,' he said,--'for if you are not my friend I think I have
not one other in the world,--besides, I am too little to kill you,--I go to
bury my father.'
"For three days I bathed my knee in the spring, and saw faces come to
peer about the edge of it and heard the beat of the village drums. The
third day my young man came, wearing his father's collar of bear's
teeth, with neither fire-stick nor food nor weapon upon him. "'Now I
am all the man my mother has,' he said; 'I must do what is necessary to
become a tribesman.'
"I did not know then what he meant, but it seems it was a custom."
All the Indians in the group that had gathered about the Mastodon,
nodded at this.
"It was so in my time," said the Mound-Builder. "When a youth has
come to the age where he is counted a man, he goes apart and neither
eats nor drinks until, in the shape of some living thing, the Great
Mystery has revealed itself to him.

"It was so he explained it to me," agreed Arrumpa; "and for three days
he ate and drank nothing, but walked by himself talking to his god.
Other times he would talk to me, scratching my hurts and taking the
ticks out of my ears, until--I do not know what it was, but between me
and Taku-Wakin it happened that we understood, each of us, what the
other was thinking in his heart as well as if we had words--Is this also a
custom?"
A look of intelligence passed between