The Way of an Indian | Page 8

and it was late in the evening.
"Stay here with the ponies, Red Arrow, and I will go into my father's
lodge and get red paint for us. We will not enter until to-morrow."
So White Otter stole into his own tepee by night--told his father of his
triumph--got a quantity of vermilion and returned to the hills. When he
and Red Arrow had bedaubed themselves and their ponies most
liberally, they wrapped the scalp to a lance which he had brought out,
then moved slowly forward in the morning light on their jaded ponies
to the village, yelling the long, high notes of the war-whoop. The
people ran out to see them come, many young men riding to meet them.
The yelling procession came to the masses of the people, who shrilled

in answer, the dogs ki-yied, and old trade-guns boomed. White Otter's
chin was high, his eyes burned with a devilish light through the red
paint, as he waved the lance slowly, emitting from time to time above
the din his battle-cry.
It was thus that White Otter became a man.

III
The Bat Devises Mischief Among the Yellow-Eyes
White Otter the boy had been superseded by the man with the upright
eagle-feather, whom people now spoke of as Ho-to-kee-mat-sin, the
Bat. The young women of the Chis-chis-chash threw approving glances
after the Bat as he strode proudly about the camp. He was possessed of
all desirable things conceivable to the red mind. Nothing that ever
bestrode a horse was more exquisitely supple than the well-laid form of
this young Indian man; his fame as a hunter was great, but the taking of
the Absaroke scalp was transcendent. Still, it was not possible to realize
any matrimonial hopes which he was led to entertain, for his four
ponies would buy no girl fit for him. The captured war-pony, too, was
one of these, and not to be transferred for any woman.
The Bat had conjured with himself and conceived the plan of a trip to
the far south--to the land of many horses--but the time was not yet.
As the year drew on, the Chis-chis-chash moved to the west--to the
great fall buffalo-hunt--to the mountains where they could gather fresh
tepee-poles, and with the hope of trade with the wandering trapper
bands. To be sure, the Bat had no skins of ponies to barter with them,
but good fortune is believed to stand in the path of every young man,
somewhere, some time, as he wanders on to meet it. Delayed ambition
did not sour the days for the Indian. He knew that the ponies and the
women and the chieftainship would come in the natural way; besides
which, was he not already a warrior worth pointing at?
He accompanied the hunters when they made the buffalo-surround,

where the bellowing herds shook the dusty air and made the land to
thunder while the Bat flew in swift spirals like his prototype. Many a
carcass lay with his arrows driven deep, while the squaws of Big Hair's
lodge sought the private mark of the Bat on them.
The big moving camp of the Chis-chis-chash was strung over the
plains--squaws, dogs, fat little boys toddling after possible prairie dogs,
tepee ponies, pack-animals with gaudy squaw trappings, old chiefs
stalking along in their dignified buffalo-robes--and a swarm of young
warriors riding far on either side.
The Bat and Red Arrow's lusty fire had carried them far in the front,
and as they slowly raised the brow of a hill they saw in the shimmer of
the distance a cavalcade with many two-wheeled carts--all dragging
wearily over the country.
"The Yellow-Eyes!" said the Bat.
"Yes," replied Red Arrow. "They always march in the way the wild
ducks fly--going hither and yon to see what is happening in the land.
But their medicine is very strong; I have heard the old men say it."
"Hough! it may be, but is not the medicine of the Chis-chis-chash also
strong? Why do we not strike them, Red Arrow? That I could never
understand. They have many guns, blankets, paints, many strong ponies
and the strong water, which we might take," added the Bat, in
perplexity.
"Yes, true, we might take all, but the old men say that the Yellow-Eyes
would not come again next green grass--we would make them afraid.
They would no more bring us the powder and guns or the knives. What
could we do without iron arrow-heads? Do you remember how hard it
was to make bone arrowheads, when we were boys and could not get
the iron? Then, the Yellow-Eyes are not so many as the
Chis-chis-chash, and they are afraid of us. No, we must not make them
more timid," replied the wise Red Arrow.
"But we may steal a gun