The red feathers

The brief but sanguinary uprising of the clans was followed by nine years of peace. Featherfoot spent a great deal of his time with his own people, and the rest of it in Wise-as-a-she-wolf’s service. He travelled about the island, visiting the camps and villages, watchful for any signs of uneasiness among the people. He continued to grow, both mentally and physically, as he had begun in the magic lodge; and though he was still without the red feathers, he had the silver robe which had once belonged to the evil magician, which his master had given him. He was of a kind and merry disposition, and wonderfully modest for one so young and yet so powerful. The good magician had purged him of the selfish vanity of youth, without despoiling him of anything of the glory, romance, and faith of that brave season. So his wisdom sat easily upon him, and he made friends at every fire. He perfected himself in wood-craft and all manly sports, entering in friendly contest in the same, with the young men, on an equal footing with them; for he considered his magic a thing to use only on needful occasions, and not to display boastfully in the eyes of his friends. His natural strength, and size of limb and bone, were already equal to those of a hardened and well-grown youth of sixteen years. He was a great story-teller, a weaver of narratives that held his listeners entranced; and he had learned a great deal of the master’s skill in painting, and could mix pigments as bright as sunshine. With these pigments he drew the portraits of his friends, and pictures of their deeds in the chase, on the dressed skins of caribou and seal. His pleasant fame grew throughout the island until it came near to rivalling that of the good magician, Wise-as-a-she-wolf.

During the nine years that followed the fighting among the clans, Run-all-day grew steadily in power, thanks to his honesty and energy, his wife’s sane counsel, and the especial friendship of Wise-as-a-she-wolf. People gathered to him from the smaller villages, and strong chiefs and warriors took service with him, until his clan was the largest and strongest in the island. His people were soon so numerous that he had to establish a dozen villages, scattered over a great region; and these villages were strongly situated, and each commanded by a chief whom he trusted. He made laws, by which thieves and murderers were to be dealt with, and these were proclaimed in every village of his clan, after they had received the sanction of the good magician. The chief of each village was judge of petty offences among his own people; and if one man stole from another, the chief saw that he either made good the amount of the theft by double its value, either in skins, provisions, or service, or left the village in disgrace. In cases of murder, Run-all-day delivered judgment, after hearing what the prisoner, and every one else concerned, had to say. There had been laws before, in the history of the island; but never before the same laws in force over so large a territory, nor half the conscientiousness shown in their observance.

There were many who objected to this new order of things, maintaining that every warrior had a right to settle his private affairs (even if they included the braining of a fellow-villager or the stealing of a few robes) without the interference of the chiefs. It was for the injured parties themselves to retaliate, in the second case, and for their relatives, in the first, they said. What business the village chiefs, and Run-all-day, had to thrust their hands in such small matters they could not see, at least for some time. But after a few of these exponents of the Rights of Man had suffered death for slaying people against whom they nursed private grudges, the complaints ceased, and the laws were respected.

Wise-as-a-she-wolf during this time was much abroad, searching the far places of the earth for his old enemy. Sometimes he felt that he was close upon the flying heels of his quarry; for Bright Robe had made a long journey southward, travelling always under cover of darkness, and had proclaimed himself among many foreign people. Then he had returned to his friends the mountaineers, and continued quietly about his affairs.

The very nearness of Black Eagle’s village to Wise-as-a-she-wolf’s own country was in its favour as a hiding-place. And now he did less plundering than of old, in spite of the complaints of the mountaineers, for he wanted the tales of his depredations to fade from men’s talk. When he did hunt, it was always far a-field, distant many nights’ flight from Black Eagle’s village. And thus, by taking toll of the distant tribes, flashing his name here and there in far countries, and letting the nearer people rest in peace and security, he set false trails for his enemy to follow. His longest journey had extended even to the sea islands where it is always summer, and where tribes of strange little people, with long tails and furred bodies, and the faces of old men, chatter in the tree-tops. There, also, are men of duskier complexions than the blubber-eaters, and hair as straight and black as the mountaineers, who shape canoes out of great tree-trunks and make voyages of several days’ duration between island and island. To these people he showed his magic, and told his name and a fine tale of how he intended to build a great lodge in some southern forest; and then he returned, under cover of night, to his cave above Black Eagle’s village.

While the silent struggle of cunning went on between the two magicians, with the whole world for their battleground, and in the ninth summer of peace among the islanders, young Featherfoot came to the village of Little Heron, in the secluded valley. When he told his name, he was welcomed as a great chief, for his fame had travelled before him. Little Heron led him to his own lodge, set the best of food before him, and afterward begged him to tell one of his delightful stories. So the youth told the story of the Crimson Wigwam, as he had heard it in his own heart, and it sang with the adventures and happy emotions of a young warrior and a maiden. As he talked, he felt the grave, bright eyes of Star Flower, the chief’s daughter, upon him, and his glance met hers, and lo, they both looked downward and the trend of Featherfoot’s narrative wavered for the space of a heart-beat.

The tale was well received by the chief and his wife and his old mother. Star Flower alone of the company did not lift her voice in praise; but her eyes again met those of the young chief, and were hidden again as swiftly by the dark lashes. After the evening meal, the entire village gathered about a great fire, and Featherfoot told the stories of the Wallet of Plenty, and the Magic of the Red Arrow; and though he was but vaguely conscious of the acclamations of the hunters, his eyes glanced frequently, yet furtively, toward Star Flower, reading the shy signs of her approval with inward delight.

Featherfoot spent ten days in the village of Little Heron, and told stories, and painted wonderful pictures, and dreamed a glorious dream in his heart. Star Flower told him the magic of the whistle that had been given her by old Whispering Grass; how Wise-as-a-she-wolf had given it to the medicine-maker, and how its possessor, if in peril, had but to sound a note on it and the good magician would hear, though he were at the world’s end, and would hasten to the rescue.

“I, too, would hear the sound, if you were in danger,” replied the youth.

He knew this was so, for his heart said it and his heart was never mistaken; but he believed that it was so because of his love for the girl, and that it had nothing to do with the magic he had been taught by Wise-as-a-she-wolf. He told her how old Whispering Grass had saved his life with her medicines, when he was a very little baby; and how his father, Run-all-day, had made the journey to the old woman’s lodge and home again on the red feathers,—all of which he had heard from his mother. In return, she told him of her childhood; and the old people were quick to remark all this whispering, and meeting and beaming of eyes, and nodded their heads wisely at one another. On the tenth day after his arrival, Featherfoot left the village, to continue the work that the master had given him to do.

“I shall return, when I have proved myself a strong warrior,” he said to Little Heron.

But to Star Flower he whispered that he would return before the coming of another summer, whether men called him a strong warrior or no. And she blushed, and replied that indeed it would matter little what men said of him who was already the greatest chief, and warrior, and magician in the world.

The summer waned, and again the berries ripened on the barrens, the birds took wing and the caribou moved to sheltered pastures; and Wise-as-a-she-wolf, in whose heart a restless aching for new sights and adventures was ever present, left the island again and flew on the long trails of the plover and snipe and honking geese. He had no fear for Featherfoot’s safety or for the welfare of the people in general, for he knew that Run-all-day’s clans would maintain order while he was away, and he did not think that Bright Robe was within thousands of miles of his native place. In truth, he was beginning to hope that his enemy had either given up all thought of revenge, or suffered some new reverse of fortune. And yet, if such were the case, what had become of the red feathers? Perhaps he had met and been vanquished by some foreign magician. If so, the feathers should be easily found, for the new owner would make use of them openly; and if he were not too strong—but the good magician would follow the vague suppositions no further. The world held what he desired to know, and he was keen to read; and when the secret was disclosed would be the time to act.

Wise-as-a-she-wolf visited the islands of the southern seas, where frosts and seasons of unfruitlessness are unknown, and there, for the second time, found the false trail of Bright Robe. He journeyed westward and southward, into a land of vast and tangled forests. In those dark and stagnant places, lit only by the blooms of poisoned vines, and inscrutable as the heart of a god, a fugitive might well find a secret dwelling. So thought the good magician; and after a day’s flight above those millions and millions of crowded tree-tops, he felt that here, if anywhere, was his enemy hidden. He descended through the roof of vivid, tangled green, and looked about him, somewhat daunted at the gloom, the netted vegetation on all sides, and the strange noises overhead. “A thousand thieves might hide securely for a thousand years in this jungle,” he exclaimed, and felt a pang of hopelessness. He stood motionless for a little while, staring about him. Then, drawing his axe of magic workmanship, he began to cut his way through the vines and creepers and smaller growth that surrounded him. Intent on his labour, he relaxed that effort of will by which he made and maintained his invisibility. He struck lustily, to right and left, advancing steadily after every stroke. Already he felt in better spirits, reflecting that here would be found some great, new things to learn and unfamiliar aspects of truth, even if Bright Robe should continue to slip through his fingers. The fire of the explorer burned within him.

For never before, in all his wanderings, had he descended into these forests. He would pierce to the heart of this vivid, inscrutable country, and lay bare all its secrets.