The red feathers

“I am hungry and weary,” said Wise-as-a-she-wolf.

“My cooking-pot is full,” replied the other, “and I have many soft skins for bedding; but I fear me, chief, that to sleep in my lodge you will first have to practise magic on the throat of the new warrior, or on your own ears.”

“Nay, friend, a couch in the open will suit my taste,” replied the youth. “So that the young warrior is not in pain, let him yell. ’Tis the great spirit of him giving voice against the littleness of his body and the weakness of his legs.”

So they set out for the fisherman’s wigwam, each carrying a load of the silver fish. The cooking-fire was burning brightly when they stepped from the woods, and the slender form of Singing Bird, eldest child of Run-all-day and Red Willow, was seen bending above the tree stump, that had been hollowed to serve as a pot, which stood near the fire. The stew in the pot was boiling vigorously, for the girl had dropped stones into it which she had first heated near to the bursting-point among the coals of the fire. Two smaller figures—and these of boys—skipped about in the ruddy glow and shouted that they were quite ready for their meal; still another was seen dabbling in the shallow water at the edge of the river; and from the interior of the pointed lodge sounded the crying of an infant.

Wise-as-a-she-wolf let his string of fish slip to the grass, and looked at the scene before him with something of amusement and something of consternation in his face.

“A fine family,” he remarked. “And surely that littlest warrior has the voice of a great chief.”

Run-all-day was highly delighted at these words, being as foolish in such matters as are the fathers of our own time. With a self-satisfied grunt, he led the stranger to a seat by the fire and fetched him a bark cup full of spring water, that he might quench his thirst before eating.

The magician ate very little for a hungry youth, and yet the stew was excellent. Before he touched the food, he was seen to cast aside from his waist a girdle of white leather painted with many wonderful figures of gods and men and beasts. He slept well that night, on a couch of bear skins, in the shelter of a spruce which stood midway between the lodge and the fire. He was awakened, in the early morning, by the voice of Singing Bird. Opening his eyes, he beheld her busy at the cooking-fire, singing as she worked.

The breakfast was as good as the evening meal; and the magician, pointing to the belt which hung loosely above his hips, said, “You are fortunate, my friend. You have no need, with such a cook, of a magic Hunger-Belt like this.” His gaze rested kindly on Singing Bird.

“But the meat must first be caught, chief,” replied Run-all-day.

When Wise-as-a-she-wolf was ready to continue his journey, the fisherman walked from the camp with him, for a short distance.

“I am going northward,” said the magician, “on very urgent business. I have had dealings with many great people—even with the gods—and so I have awakened envy in more than one dark heart. For all my magic, friend, my life is not so good a one as yours. You love and are loved. You keep your family fed and are at peace with the world. No evil magic is worked against you and the wrath of the gods is aimed so high that it goes over your head. I have my days of glory and my victories; but strange weapons are ever being shaped for my undoing.”

“Yes, chief, I am content with my humble life,” replied Run-all-day.

The young man placed two small red feathers in the other’s hand.

“These are for the littlest warrior,” he said. “They are great magic—great for good or evil, as the heart prompts. When he is large enough to run here and there, place one of these feathers in each of his moccasins, flat on the sole of his foot. Let him cherish them, for they will help him in his play, and, later, in the chase, and they have the power to save him even from death.”

At the last word he stepped aside from the trail and was gone, with no more noise than the slipping away of a shadow.

Run-all-day continued to stare at the spot where Wise-as-a-she-wolf had so lately stood, for fully a minute. This magic was no light thing. Courageous though he was, his legs shook under him as if with cold. A dozen sea-eagles could not have made him flinch; but he trembled at the touch of the two little feathers in his hand.

“He is a great man,” he said at last, “and possessed of wonderful magic; but perhaps he was not wise in his gift to the littlest warrior. Magic is for gods and mighty chieftains; it is too potent a thing for humble folks like me and mine. Did he not say himself, but a moment ago, that power breeds powerful enemies and that even the gods bend their ears to the affairs of magicians?”

He gazed fearfully at the bright feathers in his hand.

“He is a great chief; a kind and a good young man, a cousin of the gods, I do not doubt,—but I fear he has made a mistake. He has been too generous.”

He let the feathers fall from his hand to the moss at the side of the trail, turned quickly and hastened back to the clearing and the lodge.

He found Red Willow lying on a couch of soft skins, well and happy. Old Blowing Fog, her mother, squatted beside her with the baby in her wrinkled arms.

“The stranger has gone,” said Run-all-day. “He is a great magician and his name is Wise-as-a-she-wolf. But he envied me my humble contentment, for all of that. He gave me two red feathers, for a gift for that little warrior, and said that they are possessed of magic power; and then he was gone, like the first whiff of smoke from a newly lighted fire.”

“Where are the feathers?” inquired Red Willow, her face aglow with interest.

The brave shook his head and smiled wisely.

“The gift was meant well,” he said; “but a man must judge of some things for himself, even if he be but a hunter and fisherman. Magic may be well enough for the great men whose feet are set in high places; though I think even they would be safer without it. They may hunt with the gods and the north-lights if they please; but the meat of the caribou and beaver is better suited to my taste.”

“And what does all this grand talk lead to?” asked old Blowing Fog.

“I dropped the feathers on the ground and let them lie,” said the man.

“Then what do I see in your belt?” asked the old woman, peering between half-closed lids.

Run-all-day put his hand to his leather girdle—and drew out the two red feathers. He gasped. His swarthy cheeks turned white as the bark of the birch. Had one of those little, fat savages from the frozen west (who sometimes crossed the Narrow Sea and fought with the islanders) appeared and stuck a spear into his flesh, he could not have looked more horrified.

“Give them to me. I do not fear their magic,” cried Red Willow.

Run-all-day obeyed her with a sigh of relief. He would face the magician himself—but those little, slim, red feathers—ah, they made his blood run cold as ice. Red Willow took them fearlessly and admired their bright colour; and yet she was in the habit of fleeing, with covered head, from bats flickering in the twilight. She laughed at her big, trembling husband.

“It is foolish to throw away a gift,” she said. “And it is even more foolish to run away from two little feathers that were given you by a friend.”

Old Blowing Fog laughed, as she rocked the baby in her arms.

“When I was young we saw greater magic than that, almost every day,” said she. “My father once worked such magic on his bow that it shot the arrows so high into the air that they never came down.”

“But I’ve heard that he couldn’t shoot a standing caribou, for all that,” replied the man, recovering something of his assurance. He often argued with Blowing Fog.

“Give me honest arrows, honest muscles and honest feathers sticking in the tails of honest birds,” he continued. “I do not need any magic, old or new, to keep the pot full of meat and fish and the rain out of my lodge. And I’d feel like a fool shooting my arrows so high in the air that they’d never come down.”

Both the women laughed at him.

“Oh, I am wiser than you think,” said he, and stalked out of the lodge. But he left the two magic feathers in Red Willow’s hand.