The red feathers

Run-all-day was very much ashamed, and very angry, at the loss of the magic feathers which the good Wise-as-a-she-wolf had trusted to his care. So hot was his anger at first, that it clouded his wits, and he set out in pursuit of the thief and ran for fully six miles before he realized that he might just as well chase a hawk as Spotted Seal. When that thought came to him, he immediately leaned against a tree, to recover his breath and plan some other means of regaining possession of the red feathers. He had not filled his lungs more than a dozen times before Jumping Wolf, who had followed close on his heels, halted before him. The chief eyed the youth mournfully.

“We are mighty runners, lad,” he said, “but only the moccasins of the wind can overtake the feet that are shod with the red feathers.”

“He flew southward,” replied Jumping Wolf, “and if I follow, day and night, I may come upon him while he sleeps, or see him in the air and bring him down with an arrow. All I need is a wallet of pemmican and a quiver of arrows, and then I am ready for the journey. I have hit hawks and eagles while they flew above the tree-tops, so surely I can put an arrow into Spotted Seal.”

The chief shook his head dejectedly.

“Let us go home. I must ask Red Willow what is to be done,” he said.

So the two swift runners returned to the village, meeting the other warriors breathless and still staggering forward, scattered along the way. So they returned to the lodge, together, all depressed by the loss of the feathers and ill tempered from having run so far on empty stomachs.

The chief went straight to Red Willow, and confessed to her that he could think of no way of recovering the precious feathers.

“Wise-as-a-she-wolf must be told about it,” said she, after a moment’s reflection. “He will be able to get them back again; and I do not think he will be angry with us when he knows how Spotted Seal crept into our lodge, in the night-time, and stole them.”

“But even if he is not angry, he will not trust me with the feathers again,” said the chief.

“’Twill be better so, I believe,” replied the woman, “for now that people know about them, and of the great virtue they possess, they will be a dangerous possession for any man save a magician.”

“But how am I to tell him about it?” asked Run-all-day. “’Tis a long journey to his lodge, and even when the journey is made a man cannot see the lodge until the master charms his eyes. This is the truth, for he told us so. And I cannot leave the village, for the warriors would soon begin to argue about this and that, and all my good work would be blown away as the ashes of a dead fire are scattered by the wind.”

“And still must the good magician be told the whole story, or his enemies may use the feathers against him while he thinks them safe in your keeping,” said Red Willow.

At that moment Jumping Wolf looked in at the door of the lodge.

“Here is a messenger for you to send,” said Red Willow. “He is swift and strong, and worthy of trust. Come in,” she added, to the young man, “and hear what the chief has to ask you.”

Jumping Wolf entered immediately and looked at Run-all-day with eager inquiry in his glance.

“Will you go a long journey for me?” asked the chief. “I think it is a three-days’ journey, for one who walks, from here to the lodge of Wise-as-a-she-wolf.”

“Tell me the road and I will go,” replied the young man.

So the chief told him the way, as well as he could from the memory of what he had seen in his flights. He told him that the magician’s lodge lay to the westward, beyond two large rivers and many streams, a great barren and many wooded hills. He told him of the pine wood and the high mountains, and how he must search the pine wood for a little pond and then shout that he had a message for Wise-as-a-she-wolf from Run-all-day.

“And the message?” asked Jumping Wolf.

“Tell him that the red feathers have been stolen from my lodge, and describe to him the face and figure of the thief,” replied Run-all-day.

“And beg him to tell you of my baby. Even ask him to let you see him,” said the woman.

After supplying himself with a small bag of food, and arming himself with a knife, a bow and a dozen of his best arrows, Jumping Wolf set out on his long journey. He was proud that he, a man from the south, had been chosen, from all the warriors of the village, for the task of finding the magic lodge and giving the chief’s message. He had no fear of the hardships of the journey, for he loved adventure as duller men love soft couches and the warmth of the cooking-fire. So swiftly did he travel that he came to the shore of the first of the big rivers that lay in his path at just about the time of sunset. Heavy forests clothed both banks of the stream, which was fully a mile in width. He could see no smoke of fires, or any sign of human life, in any direction. After eating a little of the pemmican from his bag, he made a couch of spruce-branches and lay down to sleep, without building a fire.

Jumping Wolf slept soundly until midnight, when he was awakened by the noise of something moving close beside him. He did not spring to his feet, or even sit up; but he put his hand on his knife and waited, with every sense on the alert. Again he heard the sounds that had awakened him, and he knew that a bear was close by but moving slowly away. He strained his eyes in the dim starlight, and managed, at last, to detect the vague shape of the animal against the surrounding shadows. Well, a bear was nothing to be afraid of. Now it had ceased to move; but by the sounds it made it was evidently engaged in devouring something, with ponderous relish.

“I wonder what the black glutton has found?” muttered Jumping Wolf, at the same time feeling about, with his right hand, in the moss beside his couch. On finding a good-sized stone, he threw it at the disturber of his slumbers. It was well aimed; and the bear uttered a protesting grunt and shambled into the woods. The young man listened to the sounds of the beast’s retreat until they faded away in the distance; then he closed his eyes and returned to his slumbers.

When Jumping Wolf opened his eyes again, with the first flush of morning light, he discovered that the bag of pemmican was gone from where he had placed it close beside his couch, the evening before. Then he remembered the visit of the bear, and sprang to his feet, and ran to where he had seen the animal during the night. There lay the bag, ripped open and empty; but a few scraps of the pemmican remained, scattered about on the ground. At first the young man was angry and somewhat dismayed. But presently he laughed aloud.

“If I had known what you were eating, old glutton,” he said, “I would have disturbed your meal with an arrow instead of with a harmless little stone. But I am glad to see that you were so polite as to leave me enough for my breakfast.”

And with that he stooped down, gathered the fragments of pemmican in his hands, and ate them with relish; after which he slaked his thirst at a little spring which trickled from the mossy rocks close beside him. Then he fastened his bow and quiver of arrows securely together, tied them high across his shoulders, and stepped down the shore and into the river. The water felt chilly at first; but the sun was shining brightly and the mists were quickly dispersing from the wide current. He waded in, deeper and deeper at every stride, and when the water was half-way up his breast he leaned forward and struck out with hands and feet. The strokes of his swimming were long, slow, and powerful, propelling him easily and steadily across the current. Now his blood was in a glow, for he was strong and young. The surface of the river was bright as gold with the level rays of the sun, and the swimmer rejoiced in the freshness and glory of the morning. Sometimes he lowered his head so that the bright refreshing water might wash over it.

When Jumping Wolf landed on the farther shore, he felt no fatigue from his long swim, but began immediately to leap about, and swing his arms, so as to shake some of the weight of water from his leather clothing. He unfastened his bow and arrows from his shoulders, returned the quiver to the left side of his girdle, and replaced the wet bow-string with a dry one from a water-tight wallet which was attached to his belt. The restringing of the bow was no more than completed when he heard the whistle of wings, and on looking up saw three ducks hurtling toward him with outstretched necks. They saw him, and swerved to one side; but the bow-string twanged, an arrow swished in the air, and one of the ducks quacked loudly and fell into the shallow water at the edge of the river.

“Here is my dinner; and it is better than musty pemmican,” said the young man, as he drew forth the arrow and fastened the dead bird to his belt. Then, very well satisfied with himself, and the world in general, he continued on the second stage of his westward journey.

Jumping Wolf travelled steadily until noon, then lit a fire by means of friction—a laborious method of grinding one stick into another—and broiled the fat duck. He was now at the edge of a great barren, a vast plain of rocky hummocks, mellow, berry-swarded levels and occasional clumps of stunted spruces.

The season of the wild harvest was over the land, the days of ripe berries and falling seeds, and the flocking birds. Snipe and plover from the farther north, and coveys of ptarmigan, and flocks of snow birds, fed along the ground and started up on quick wings, on every side. The sun, wheeling high in the blue, touched that wide, treeless place with a mellow enchantment that stole into the heart of Jumping Wolf with pleasant languor—a suggestion of idleness and dreams. The berry-starred moss on which he reclined was warm as a couch of fox-skins, and the soft bird-calls, sounding indolently from hummock and hollow, made music in his ears. A sweet, elusive fragrance, that was the breath of the warmth and ripeness of the barren, stole into his brain. Millions of red berries, millions of little, tinted leaves, innumerable pockets of warm, brown loam, loosed that fragrance on the air at the soft entreaty of the sun. And the warmth of the sun penetrated also to the very bones of the young hunter, until he lay at full length on the moss and sighed with the comfort of it. His eyelids fluttered down. He had travelled far and swiftly, and crossed a river full of chilly water; then why should he not lie here for a little while, basking in the sun, and dream a little of Singing Bird, the daughter of the chief?

The temptation to rest and dream was strong; but not strong enough to deaden for long Jumping Wolf’s sense of duty. Had not his benefactor, Run-all-day, trusted him to carry an important message with all speed? Then how could he throw away good hours of daylight in idle dreaming? So he forced himself to arise from the warm moss and harden his heart against the drowsiness of the noon.

By nightfall the youth had reached the western margin of the barren, and made his resting-place for the night beside a brook that ran through groves of pines and spruces. He had killed two grouse on the way, and had halted several times to refresh himself with handfuls of the tart, juicy partridge berries. Again he gathered little fragments of wood, dry as tinder, laboriously created the speck of red flame and enlarged it to a cooking-fire. He cooked both the birds, so that he would not lose time in the morning in preparing his breakfast.

Jumping Wolf reached the great forest of pine, in which stood the lodge of Wise-as-a-she-wolf, early in the afternoon of the third day of his journey. He climbed a high tree at the edge of the wood, and from its top looked far and wide on all sides, studying the features of the landscape. After a short survey he felt satisfied that this was the place which the chief had described to him; so, without further hesitation, he descended to the ground and struck into the wood in search of the pond of crystal water.

The sun had dipped below the tree-tops, and the western sky was red as fire, when Jumping Wolf issued from the ranks of straight pine boles and halted on the margin of the little lake. The oval surface of water was red with the reflection of the sky, and lay there like a warrior’s shield of painted hide. On every side towered the pines, ancient, gigantic, brooding above the secrets of their still hearts. They were robed in dusk, and their wide branches were heavy with massed shadows; but their tops were aflame with the light of the hidden sun. Jumping Wolf breathed softly. He could hear nothing; there was no sound in all that enchanted forest save the beating of his own heart. The red faded from the sky and slipped from the spires of the trees. The lake shone duskily, lost its glow, clouded and lay like dead ice.

Then the spirit of Jumping Wolf shook itself from the spell that had stolen about it. He raised his head and shouted the name of the great magician. The echoes rang quickly back to him, just beyond the narrow water, in among the pines. The name he had cried clanged about him, clanged and leaped, shattering the brooding silence of the place with a note of menace, then dropped to silence again. The young man’s heart was shaken. He glanced backward, over his shoulder, and his muscles grew tense, as if for a great effort. But what had he to fear in the wood of the kind magician? His courage returned at that thought, and again he lifted his voice.

“I am Jumping Wolf,” he cried, “and I bring word from Run-all-day.”

His voice rang clear across the little water. But he drew back, as if threatened by a blow, when the silence closed instantly over the words he had shouted so bravely. There was no echo. The sound of his voice had rung high, and fallen dead. And yet the place had clashed with echo at his first cry. He trembled with a horror of something vague, gigantic, imminent. He would have turned and fled, dashed blindly away from this power that loosed and choked the echoes at its will, but he had no strength to lift his feet from the ground.

A voice spoke to him, by name, from the other side of the dark pond. It was the voice of the good magician, calm and gentle, as he remembered having heard it in the village of Run-all-day.

“Have no fear, Jumping Wolf. My friends are safe in this forest. Bring me the message,” said the voice.

The young man fought down the terror that still shook him, and with a great effort of will forced his craven feet to the master’s bidding.