The red feathers

Of all the great magicians in the north, Wise-as-a-she-wolf alone worked solely for the welfare of mankind; and, as his reputation for virtue grew, so did his enemies multiply. But, with the exception of Bright Robe, not one of them could compare with him for cleverness, or courage, or knowledge of the secret arts. Few of them possessed either brain or determination enough to master more than the simplest lessons in magic! Having attained so far, they were content to practise their little arts covertly, to serve their own ambitions. They overthrew their enemies by provoking stronger people against them, working slyly, with many false tales and foolish antics. They had been at the bottom of most of the wars in the big island, and, though they seldom fought in the front of the battle (not possessing the mastery over death, as did Bright Robe and Wise-as-a-she-wolf), yet they usually gained power and wealth at the cost of the warriors’ lives.

These people hated Wise-as-a-she-wolf, because he had always worked against them. When he was at home, the island was at peace; but no sooner was it known that he had gone to some distant land than a dozen little wars sprang up, every village was turned against its neighbour and battle and starvation ravaged the country. But, of late years, the island had been quiet and prosperous. Bright Robe had been so long in exile that he had become little more than a figure of legend, and Wise-as-a-she-wolf had spent enough of his time in the island to keep the designers of evil in constant fear. Then the news of Bright Robe’s return, in all his old power and wickedness, reached the little magicians. They heard that he was intent on the overthrow of Wise-as-a-she-wolf, and at that their black hearts rejoiced, and they began to plan murders and battles and thefts on their enemies. A few of them had even seen Bright Robe and offered him their services; and he was as great and terrible as their fathers had told them. And then, of a sudden, he had disappeared and they feared that their wicked master had deserted them, and had offended the gods afresh.

Now, with Bright Robe again reduced to a term of inactivity, the good magician had time to devote himself to an important task of a rather more private nature than that of keeping his countrymen in order; and this was the building of a stronghold in a forest in the very heart of the island. This forest was fenced, on the south and west, by a bend of the Purple Hills. Northward and eastward of it lay trackless marshes and naked barrens. The forest was of pine-trees for the most part, standing tall and thick over miles of gently rolling country; and in the centre of it lay a pond, fed by hidden springs of pure, ice-cold water. The good magician’s lodge stood beside this pond. He had commenced it when he first began to learn magic, and year by year he had worked at it; and still it was not entirely finished. There was ever some new beauty to be added to roof or walls. Only the Crimson Wigwam, beyond the western edge of the world, and other homes of the gods beyond the walls of ice, surpassed this magic lodge which Wise-as-a-she-wolf had built with his own brains and hands. To begin with, one might stare straight at it for hours, or for a hundred years, and see nothing but pine-trees. There was not so much as a sign of a clearing to lead one to think that a great lodge stood there. And yet, if one were able to reach that particular portion of forest where the lodge was, and pass the walls, he would find that he could walk straight through the tree-trunks, as if they were as immaterial as shafts of sunlight. And so they were. For the sturdy pines that seemed to crowd so close in the compass of the lodge were but images of the trees that had stood there before the magician had cut them down, spellbound there to deceive the common eye. Nothing but the greatest magic could have accomplished such a miracle. But the builder had guarded against the chance of any one blundering against the invisible walls and thereby discovering their magic quality, by encircling the immediate vicinity with enchantment so potent that it would lead a traveller ever to one side or the other and yet let him believe that he was walking straight ahead.

This forest was occasionally visited by wandering hunters, and more than one party of adventurous braves had camped, for a night or two, beside the crystal pond; but none had ever suspected that Wise-as-a-she-wolf’s home was so near at hand.

To eyes that could see it, the lodge was a fascinating and beautiful place. Every stone, and log and sheet of bark that had been used in the building of it, had been converted, inside or out, into something rare and wonderful. Bark had been taken from a thousand birch trees and half as many fir trees to cover the roof, which was higher than the top of the tallest pine and painted like the roof of the world; painted so cunningly, with magic pigments, that it changed in colour, hour by hour through the days and the nights and the seasons, with all the colours of the sky. It was as beautiful as the sky; and yet neither rain nor snow could pierce it, and clouds could not hide its charms from the dweller beneath it. At night it shone with stars, made of rare jewels which the builder had brought from a distant land. They flashed an hundred colours in the light which shone from the big lamps in golden vessels that gave forth no smoke in the burning.

The outer walls (invisible to the eyes of every one but Wise-as-a-she-wolf) were dull and plain, save for the windows of crystal as clear as ice. They were built of great fragments of granite, and pine logs, set skilfully and firmly together. But within, the rough materials had been smoothed to fine surfaces whereon the master had painted hunters and beasts, warriors, lovers and battles, spring and summer and winter, children and gods, in living colours. Never had there been such a picture before; and never, I fear, will there be such an one again. He had wrought on it for years. To stand in the midst of those four walls was to have life, and all the men and wonders of the world, within the glance of your eye. Here stood two young lovers in a sunlit glade; and there sat a group of old story-tellers around a cooking-fire. Here a hunter stooped above a fallen stag, his red knife in one hand, his slackened bow in the other; and there a young mother washed her babe in a clear stream. Here a god stood huge and black against a sunset sky, looking out across a darkening world of pigmy villages and wide forests; here a naked child sat in the sunlight and played with toys of carved wood; here were fields of ice, and a gray sea, and innumerable seals; and there ran a great wolf with his thin red tongue hanging from his jaws. Here was a girl weaving a basket of split willows, her face bent demurely above her work; and you had but to turn your head to behold five-score warriors in battle, dealing blows and shedding blood.

As these pictures grew under the hand of the good magician, it seemed to him a pity—great work selfishly done—if no one but himself should be allowed to enjoy them. So he went out from his magic house, and travelled among his people with this thought in his mind. And, first of all, he found a man called Wounded Hawk, who was crippled and sick and a burden to the village in which he lived. The man was tired of life, for he had always been active and adventurous, and now his hunting days were over because of an injury he had received in a fight with a bear. So the magician took him from his poor wigwam, in the dead of night, and carried him to his own magic lodge.

For twenty days, Wounded Hawk lived in that house of wonder; and not once, in that time, did he see his unknown host, though food and drink were always at his hand. He lived as one in a dream, and was happy from dawn till dark in the contemplation of the pictures, all valour and romance and tenderness and adventure and sheer delight; and yet he knew that they were but drawings of a real world and common things. So his old zest in life returned to him, and his face grew rosier and his eyes brighter. Stories of the battles and the huntings and the homelier incidents, stirred in his brain. On the night of the twentieth day, as he lay in a sound sleep, Wise-as-a-she-wolf lifted him in his arms and carried him back to his poor wigwam. When he awoke, he looked about him at the sloping walls of bark and rubbed his eyes. Then he laughed, thinking of the wonderful dream he had enjoyed and of the pleasure he would have in telling it to his friends. Though he was still lame in one leg, he felt vigorous and happy, and left his lodge and greeted his friends with a merry face.

Of course they stared at him in amazement. “Where have you been?” they cried. “You look as if you had found a good hunting-ground.”

“I have had a good sleep, and a fine dream,” replied Wounded Hawk.

“Have you been sleeping ever since you went away?” they asked. “Have you been dreaming for twenty days?”

“Twenty days?” queried Wounded Hawk, opening his eyes wide.

“Did you think that we would not look inside your wigwam, when we missed you?” asked the chief of the village. “Come, now, tell us what mischief you were about?”

Wounded Hawk shouted with joy. “Then it must be true,” he cried, “and not a dream after all.”

They continued to question him, and he told them a little part of the wonder of the magic lodge and magic pictures. At first they thought he was deceiving them; then they crowded about him to hear his stories. They built him a comfortable lodge and gave him furs and food; and his fame went abroad as the master of story-tellers, the maddest of dreamers.

And from then, to the day of his death, life seemed a fine thing to him and the world a delightful place. The wonders of the pictures and the magic lodge were always green in his memory and his stories carried the fame of the Pictures of Life far and wide. Warriors and children came to his lodge and begged him to talk, and he told them great stories. He even painted pictures, with coloured earths and dyes, on bark and dressed hide, making them as much like the pictures in his mind as he was able. And he was always striving to make them better, and to tell finer stories. Love and honour were his; and when he died, people mourned him as the mightiest warrior is not mourned. And his soul (which was not crippled) went gladly out on an eternal quest of valorous and beautiful things.

Another had seen the magic lodge. An old woman, whom the good magician had found in a deserted camp, had ended her days there, thinking herself beyond the black river of death.