The red feathers

The little brown owl waited in the woods, near the village, until close upon midnight. All was quiet when he at last flew to the lodge to which he had seen Red Eye retire, hours before. He perched on the peak of the lodge, and, cocking his head, brought one yellow eye to bear on the dark interior. Pitch black though it was, he could see dimly.

“Red Eye,” he called, guardedly. The words were man-words, but the voice was thin and rasping. He heard a sound of stealthy movements below, within the lodge. Then a voice whispered, “Who speaks my name?”

“It is Bright Robe,” replied the owl, still in his owlish voice. But he could not remedy the tone of his voice, no matter how he tried.

“Nay, ’tis not the voice of Bright Robe,” returned the man in the lodge.

“I have changed my voice and also my form,” said the owl, with wonderful patience for him. “I am sitting here on the peak of your lodge, waiting to be let in. I am not used to waiting. Listen, and you will not doubt that I am Bright Robe.” And he whispered some facts concerning the past life of Red Eye and of his dead brother, Fang.

Red Eye immediately untied the opening of his wigwam, and the owl floated from his perch and drifted inside with a soft murmur of wings. Red Eye closed and fastened the doorway again and then welcomed his visitor with much humility and many great names. He could see nothing but the yellow eyes in the darkness.

“I know all that has happened in the village,” said the owl, making good use of his wits and of what he had heard before the boy fired the arrow at him. “I have but just arrived, from the frozen ends of the world,” he lied, “and I want food. Give me some raw meat.”

Red Eye had the carcass of a hare in the lodge, already skinned, and this he placed on a dish of bark and held toward the yellow eyes, muttering apologies all the while for the unfortunate state of his larder. He explained that his fellow-villagers had threatened him so, that very day, that he was afraid to leave his lodge.

“You need not tell me about it,” lied the owl, “for I know as much as you do of the matter, though I was an hundred miles away, at the time.”

Then he fell upon the raw carcass, holding it with his claws and tearing with his beak. Red Eye trembled at the sound of the awful feeding.

At last, when he had eaten his fill, the owl spoke again. “Fang is dead,” he said. “He struck too soon. I told him to wait until I came again.”

There was not a grain of truth in this statement; but Red Eye believed it.

“He thought himself strong enough to overthrow the chief, without my help,” continued the owl. “And now? Well, you know what came of it. Let it be a lesson to you, Red Eye.”

“I hear you, chief,” whined the brother of Fang.

The owl snapped his upper and lower bills together, for the flavour of the meal was still with him. He blinked his yellow eyes and stared at the man more fiercely and roundly than ever. He could see quite well now; but the man could see nothing but the yellow eyes.

“I have been on a long journey,” said the owl, “even to the land which lies beyond the last mountain of ice. I travelled with the moccasins of the wind on my feet. Wise-as-a-she-wolf had possession of those wonderful moccasins; but I met that weakling in battle, not long ago, and took them away from him. Also, I turned him into a mouse.”

Was there ever such a teller of false tales as the little brown owl? And yet Red Eye believed every word he said, for he was stupid as well as evil. He bowed his head before the yellow eyes and chanted, low in his throat, a song of praise. The owl listened with pleasure, for it was a long time since he had heard anything of the kind addressed to him.

“I talked with my friends, the gods,” he continued, presently, “and they were glad of my victory over Wise-as-a-she-wolf. They told me to go about quietly, in the form and manner of an owl, and take note of such as are my friends and still more particularly of such as are my enemies. And in three moons’ times, I openly proclaim myself master of this whole island, my enemies shall fall, to the last man, and to the last old woman.”

“Hah,” gasped Red Eye. “You mean Hot Tongue, great chief?”

“Yes, Hot Tongue, among many,” replied the owl. He supposed that Hot Tongue was the old woman whom he had in his mind, at the moment,—the old woman who had spoken so freely of him, that day,—but, however that might be, he must appear to be quite certain of everything.

“Those who prove themselves my friends shall have villages under them, and great stores of furs and food and wampum,” he said.

By this time Red Eye was prostrate on the floor of the lodge.

“I have always been faithful to you, great chief,” he cried. The owl snapped his beak again. He was sure of Red Eye’s stupidity, at any rate.

“Whatever you have been in the past,” he said, “I want you to prove your devotion now. This lodge suits me well. You may move into another. And in the morning you may bring me food and water, and later, the warriors of the village. I wish to speak with them.”

“I fear that no other lodge will receive me, great chief,” whined Red Eye. “Should I stir from here to-night, ’twould be at peril of my life, for the hearts of the warriors are turned against me without cause.”

The owl was angry at the fellow’s disobedience; but he realized that it would not be politic for him to show his anger. He was only an owl, after all, and a very small one at that. Suppose he again ordered Red Eye from the lodge, and Red Eye, for fear of the villagers, again refused to obey? He had no power of magic, as he had no power of body, to enforce the command. He would simply have to flutter, and snap his beak, and even the dull-witted Red Eye would wonder at that. No, he must be magnanimous.

“Nay, I did not mean to turn you from your lodge to-night, good friend,” said the owl, in a voice that sounded like the utterance of neither man nor bird in its attempt at soft and gentle tones. “Sleep here, faithful Red Eye, here on your own couch. In the morning, after I have spoken to these hot-headed warriors, you may take up your abode in Fang’s lodge and I shall inhabit that of the dead chief.”

Red Eye grovelled in his gratitude, and stammered many words of thanks and praise; and at the end of it all he added, artlessly, “Never before did I hear of such a thing, great chief, of such a thing as Bright Robe’s mercy.”

The owl had to close his eyes, for a few seconds, fearing that the hate and rage within him might flash visibly in those yellow orbs. Oh, for but a shade of his old power! Oh, for but the strength of a man, and the spirit of that blundering, grovelling Red Eye should soon be footing the dark trail.

“Peace,” exclaimed the owl, in a voice that trembled. “Do not put my mercy to any further test. Go to your couch, and sleep.”

Red Eye awoke at a very early hour in the morning, and began to wonder what strange dream had possessed him in the night. Fragments of it shook about in his poor skull.

“Something about an owl,” he muttered. “Something about a miserable little owl, and I thought it was Bright Robe, the wicked one. Ho, ho, what a foolish dream. And I fed it with—with—” but his soliloquy ended in a gasping cry. From the shadows beyond the foot of his couch glared two yellow eyes, full upon him.

“Silence, crack-brain,” snapped the owl, “and bring me some good fresh meat. Bring me the best in the village, fellow, or I will turn you into a mouse and devour you.”

“I thought it was a dream, great chief. I thought it was only a dream, oh master of magicians,” babbled Red Eye.

The owl ruffled his feathers, fluttered his wings, and snapped his beak; and Red Eye, taking the hint, tore open the flap that covered the doorway and fled from the lodge. He was instantly captured by two or three of his fellow-villagers, and handled none too gently.

“No more of your nonsense, Red Eye,” cried one. “We’ve divided the goods, and set aside a share for you, and if you raise any more disturbances we’ll break your empty skull.”

They shook him violently, and jerked him this way and that between them, as if he were an article of value which each was eager to possess, until he bawled for mercy. At that, they redoubled their efforts.

“We heard enough from you, yesterday,” they cried; and the louder he howled against their treatment the more lustily did they knock him about, informing him all the while that he was no longer of any importance in their estimation.

“My lodge! My lodge! Bright Robe is in my lodge,” yelled Red Eye, at last. The voicing of this information proved a fortunate move for him.

“What do you mean, you punk-head?” cried the tormentors, pulling and hauling at him with less vigour.

“He is there—the great magician,” gasped Red Eye. “He came last night in the form of an owl.”

“You’ve been dreaming, feather-wit,” said one of the warriors, shaking him back and forth as if in hopes of curing his mental infirmities.

“Look for yourselves,” groaned Red Eye. “He wants meat. He wants the best meat in the village, and raw, at that.”

They released him and dashed for the lodge. They crowded and jostled one another in the entrance, each eager to have first look at whatever had put that crazy idea in Red Eye’s head. Sure enough, there perched a little brown owl on a heap of Red Eye’s spears. They stared, open-mouthed, at the bird, amazed to find even this much of Red Eye’s story to be true.

“When you have done with looking at me,” said the owl, in a horrible, rusty voice, “go and get me some fresh meat.”

In their efforts to escape from the baleful glare of those yellow eyes, they trod on each other’s toes, tripped and sprawled and very nearly overturned the lodge. But they got away at last and dashed toward Red Eye, whom they saw approaching with a slice of raw caribou meat and a vessel of water. Strong Hunter, one of the flying group, knew that the meat must have been cut from the carcass of an animal which he had killed on the previous day; but he did not give it a thought. He halted in front of Red Eye, and the others gathered around. They were joined by a dozen more of the villagers, old Hot Tongue among them.

“What is it? Who is it?” gasped Strong Hunter. “He spoke to us—he, the little owl—and his eyes were enough to crack one’s bones.”

“It is as I have already told you,” said Red Eye, with an assumption of dignity. “He is Bright Robe. He came to my lodge, last night, of all the fine lodges in the village. He talked with me of many things. Stand aside now, I carry food and drink to the great magician.”

All except Hot Tongue were deeply impressed. Red Eye strode on, and just as he was about to enter the lodge the old woman cried after him, “There is a dead beaver, ten days dead, down by the river. Would not your master like a piece of that; he seems such a dainty feeder?”

Red Eye stepped from sight, and the warriors and women and old men turned upon Hot Tongue and vented their wrath loudly and violently. They wanted to be heard by the inmate of the lodge, for they knew that he was a magician of some sort. No true owl ever talked the human language, or had such terrifying eyes. They shouted at Hot Tongue, calling her wicked, and rash, and many other things. And Hot Tongue’s spirit was shaken, not by the anger of the people (for she knew what that was worth), but by her own words. She had seen magicians and their workings, and feared them. Cursing her foolish tongue, she turned and ran into the forest.

When the little brown owl had eaten the caribou meat, and dipped his beak into the vessel of water a few times, and cleaned the feathers of his breast, he told Red Eye to bring three of the chief men of the village into the lodge. So Red Eye went out and called for the three chief men to come to the lodge and hear the words of the great Bright Robe; and the modesty of the warriors and the old men was wonderful to behold.

Everyone urged his own unimportance. By their own account, there was not a person of any consequence in the village. Strong Hunter, who had spent hours the night before in explaining his fitness for the position of chief, was now entirely of another mind; and Seven Knives, who had then been loudest of all in denying his argument, now proclaimed Strong Hunter as the perfection of manhood. Strong Hunter protested.

“I am only a poor hunter,” he cried. “But you are a man of brains, Seven Knives, as you told us last night. The great Bright Robe would find wisdom in your talk.”

“This is foolishness,” said a woman. “Your talk is all turned backward in your mouths, for fear of the owl. Here are two old men, who have lived long enough to be of great importance, and are too weak to resist the honour. As for a third,—why, surely Red Eye is one of our chief men.”

The warriors were delighted with the woman’s wit, and in a moment the two poor old great-grandfathers, both deaf and more than half blind, were being pushed gently toward the owl’s lodge, close on the heels of Red Eye. Every villager,—man, woman, and child—joined in the procession; but they moved cautiously, and no voice was raised save that of one of the old men. He, poor ancient, having heard nothing of his election to a belated honour, protested shrilly against the indignity of being hustled through the village.

The crowd halted at a distance of about five paces from the lodge in which the bird was waiting to hold audience. Red Eye took charge of his fellow dignitaries, at this point, and dragged them into the lodge in short order.

“What is the meaning of this?” cried the owl.

“I have done your bidding, Mighty One,” stammered Red Eye. “Here are the three chief men of the village, as chosen by all the people but a minute ago.”

“And you are one of the leaders of the village?” asked the owl.

“It is even so, great chief, now that you abide in my poor lodge,” replied Red Eye, who had guessed the reason of his sudden rise in the estimation of the village, despite his dullness of wit, and yet was too stupid to keep it to himself.

“And why these old cripples?” asked the owl.

“Because of their exceeding age were they chosen, great chief; for it was thought that they would be wise enough to understand your wisdom, having lived so many years,” replied Red Eye.

“You are too simple, Red Eye,” said the owl. “Shake your dry brain and find me another reason.”

“The warriors are afraid to enter this lodge,” cried Red Eye, delighted at his penetration into the matter. “Yes, great chief, they are afraid, for they know that they deserve no mercy. Only the innocent are without fear.”

“You have a wonderful mind. I shall certainly make you chief of this village,” said the owl. “Now you may let these old cripples depart,” he added.

Red Eye pushed the old men from the lodge; and off they hobbled, muttering angrily. They had not seen the owl, because of their blindness, and they had not heard his voice, because of their deafness; so they were still at a loss to know what all the trouble was about.

“Now tell me the names of some of the most cunning and strong warriors in this village,” said the owl.

“Seven Knives is a powerful man,” replied Red Eye. “And so is Strong Hunter. Yellow Fox is also loud at the council fire, and Mighty Hand thinks himself as great as any.”

“Yes,” said the owl. “I know them all. I have watched them, even when they thought me a thousand miles away. They are not as great as they appear to be; and they will be even of less importance before many days. But, for a little while, we must let them think they are deserving of honour, so that we may read every design in their hearts.”

Red Eye was deeply impressed.

“I am your servant, mighty magician,” he replied. “I live but to obey your commands.”

“’Tis well,” said the owl. “Go cautiously, and repeat nothing of what I say to you in private concerning the greatness to which I intend to raise you so soon. Now order Strong Hunter to come to me, alone. I would read his very soul.”

Red Eye backed from the lodge, and found the people clustered outside, eagerly waiting for him. He approached them, and pointed a finger at Strong Hunter.

“The mighty Bright Robe has sent for you,” he said.