The red feathers

While Bright Robe was yet a little brown owl, watching the pine-tree in which he had hidden the red feathers, far away in the Land of Giants, old Whispering Grass had gathered her herbs and roots together, and gone down into a valley where some families of her own kin had built themselves a village. Little Heron, the chief of this village, was her grandson. He was a quiet man, of a good heart and contented mind, and he received the old medicine-woman with warmth and respect, and gave her a fine lodge in which to brew her doses and dream her ancient dreams.

“I am an old woman now,” Whispering Grass had told him, on the day of her arrival, “and my blood has so little of glow in it that the winds on the mountain shake me with the fear of death. Also, it is hard for me to travel in the forests and gather the leaves and roots, and the very cooking of food has become a weariness. So I have crawled from my lonely house, with much labour and pain, to this warm valley, that I may teach my knowledge of curing human ills to some one who will live many years. And I want to die warm, with women of my own clan beside me, and a bright fire before the doorway of the lodge.”

Little Heron and his people treated the old woman with kindness and respect. Her lodge was warm with the pelts of animals, and all her food was cooked for her by the wife of the chief. Little children came about her, to hear the wonderful stories that were half of memory and half of invention. And to several of the young women of the village she taught all that she knew of the science of medicine. One day she told Little Heron the story of the battle between Wise-as-a-she-wolf and Bright Robe, and of how Bright Robe had been stripped of his powers for five seasons, and turned into the shape of a little owl, by the good magician. She told of Bright Robe’s hate of her, and of her fear that he should seek her and kill her when his evil power was returned to him.

For a winter and a summer she lived in peace and comfort with her kinsfolk; and before she died she warned Little Heron once more against Bright Robe, and gave to Star Flower, the chief’s little daughter, a whistle made of willow, small and wrinkled; and with her last breath she told the child the virtue of the whistle.

When the clans were rising on every side, the strong to raid, and the weaker to defend their homes, Little Heron remained quietly in his valley and told his people that warfare was more dangerous than any form of labour and utterly without profit to the greatest warriors. His people listened and nodded their heads, for they believed Little Heron to be one of the wisest men in the world. Later, when a fugitive from some distant battle staggered into their valley and told them of the bloodshed and ruin, and of the evil advice of Bright Robe, they were doubly convinced of their chief’s wisdom. And the women who had learned the science of medicine from Whispering Grass, cured the stranger of his hurts; and he, poor warrior, was so charmed with the treatment and the quiet, that he married one of his doctors and became a member of Little Heron’s village. That was wise of him, for even while he lay sick of his wounds the lodges of his own people were blazing like a hundred torches.

Though the horrors of war passed by the village in the secluded valley, Bright Robe found his way to it. And this was the manner of his coming and his going. As soon as the fighting was well commenced and every man slaying or being slain, robbing or being robbed, in a satisfactory manner, the evil magician retired to secluded places, and desisted from flying above the tree-tops, except at night, for fear of Wise-as-a-she-wolf, of whose whereabouts he knew nothing. While he skulked about, trying to decide upon some plan of action, he remembered his old grudge against Whispering Grass. So he made his way straight to the little clearing on the mountain, the scene of his ignoble defeat five seasons before. But he found nothing but an empty lodge with tattered sides and rotted poles. Moss was creeping over the floor of beaten earth, and the thousand little fires at which the old woman had brewed her medicines were covered with forest growth.

“Death has cheated me of my revenge,” reflected Bright Robe.

Wandering aimlessly about, he happened upon the valley in which dwelt the peace-loving Little Heron and his contented people. Here, perhaps, he could rest for awhile in safety and make trouble before stealing away. It looked, to his wicked eye, like a place sadly in need of trouble. He descended into the valley and the cluster of lodges, and was met by the chief.

“I am a poor hunter, who lived alone beside the River of the Beavers,” he said. “Six nights ago I was attacked by a party of fighting-men, and fled for my life. Ever since then I have wandered, homeless. My lodge is flat on the ground and my stores and furs are stolen.”

Little Heron gazed at the evil black eyes of the stranger, and, remembering Whispering Grass’s descriptions of Bright Robe, knew him for the evil magician. He showed nothing of this in face or manner, but invited the stranger into his lodge and called for food of the best to be brought, and a little of the liquor of crushed berries. Bright Robe ate and drank with zest, and in his heart chuckled at the simplicity of Little Heron. He glanced about him with his keen eyes, noting every sign of peace and prosperity with delight.

“What a change shall be here, in the space of a few days,” he thought, and forcing a smile, congratulated the chief on his good food and comfortable condition.

“The war has not touched you,” he said. “You are fortunate, chief; for here am I, a lover of peace and honesty, ruined and a fugitive. The gods are blind when the strong clans go forth with their war-shields. If one does not kill, then must he be killed, or else run away.”

“You speak truth,” replied Little Heron, as he removed a broiled snipe from the fire and placed it before his guest. “When the clans go to war, urged on by the lust in their blood and the evil tongues of wicked magicians, then ’tis a sad time for the peaceful and honest. But this is a small village, well hidden, and far from the great chief’s, and my people are a quiet, home-staying folk. And having escaped for so long, I have nothing to fear, for Wise-as-a-she-wolf, the good magician, who visited me seven nights ago, and promised to come again in eight days’ time, which will be to-morrow, will soon quiet the fighting. He is also in quest of a magician called Bright Robe.”

The stranger glanced furtively at his imaginative host; but in the face of Little Heron there was nothing to be read but simplicity and contentment.

“I have heard of that great magician, Wise-as-a-she-wolf, and shall remain with you, if you will keep me, to enjoy the honour of seeing him,” replied Bright Robe. But his appetite was gone, and he ate very little of the snipe. In spite of his power of dissembling, he showed considerable uneasiness during the afternoon; and Little Heron was quick to note it. When the men gathered together, in the evening, to tell stories of past adventures, Bright Robe had little to say. Pleading weariness, he retired early to a lodge courteously placed at his disposal by the chief. In the morning, much to the wonder of the villagers, the lodge was empty. But when they ran to Little Heron with the news, that great chief smiled knowingly.

“The stranger was Bright Robe, the evil magician,” he said, calmly. “I knew him; so I had to warn him to pass on.”

Bright Robe flew from the village in the secluded valley as soon as every one had retired and the lodges were quiet, and raced westward at his best speed. The island of his birth was no place for him while Wise-as-a-she-wolf was stirring about. He knew that another meeting with his powerful rival could mean nothing but five seasons more of undignified retirement for him, to say nothing of the painful wounds which he would be sure to receive before he was reduced to submission. Without his silver robe, he knew that he could not hide for long from the keen-eyed, invisible Wise-as-a-she-wolf. So he flew westward across the darkness, determined to remain in the far places of the earth until he had acquired sufficient strength to return and overthrow his rival. He crossed the Narrow Sea, and before dawn was at the edge of a village of the mountaineers.