The red feathers

The home in which the baby had been born was only a hut, built of poles and sheets of bark. It was a fine house, though, for the time and country. Its door was the hide of a caribou,—and how fearfully that great hide flapped and bulged inward at the pressure of the night winds. Fortunately the season was June, when the air was warm and the sun shone almost every day.

When the littlest warrior was a few weeks old, he was put into a bag of furry skins fastened to a light framework of wood. In this he rested all day, in an upright position, sometimes against one of the poles of the lodge, and sometimes on the back of his mother, or Blowing Fog, or little Singing Bird.

He was a good baby, crying only when he was very hungry or when he was bathed in the cold water of the river. He spent the greater part of his time in sleep. Even when awake he did not seem to take much interest in what went on around him; but this indifference to the world was apparent in him only in his earliest days. At the age of two months he began to show signs (so said his mother and Blowing Fog) of an exceptional spirit and intellect; but, to the casual observer, it would have seemed that he but howled with a more powerful voice and kicked and struggled with lustier limbs.

It was only during the summer months—from May to October—that Run-all-day and his family lived in the little clearing beside the River of Three Fires. There was no other wigwam within ten miles of them; for at this time the small tribes, or clans, of the north and south, the east and west, were at peace with one another and so the people did not have to band together, in villages, in self-defence. Sometimes, during the summer, people of their own tribe passed up or down the stream in front of their lodge, in skin-covered canoes of unwieldy shapes.

Many of Run-all-day’s friends spent the summer months on the coast of the great sea-bays, where they caught cod-fish to cure for winter use. Some lived close to the great salt water all the year round, and slaughtered a few of the hosts of seals that floated down from the north, on the grinding ice-floes, early in the spring. Others, like Run-all-day, pitched their summer lodges on the rivers and ponds, moving southward and further inland, with the great herds of caribou, at the approach of winter.

The hunting of the caribou began early in September, when the calves of that year had grown strong enough to live independently of their mothers. Several of the families returning from the bays, halted for awhile in their journey and joined Run-all-day in the chase. Now the youngest baby heard more noise than usual. Strange faces bent above him and strange arms lifted him to feel his weight. Several cooking-fires burned before the lodge; canoes of many models were drawn up on the bank; everybody seemed to be happy and busy. But soon the caribou began to travel southward, across the great barrens and through the low, dark timber. Then dried fish and meat, skins and weapons were made into packs, and canoes were launched and headed up stream.

Now the littlest warrior opened his eyes with more concern for the everyday affairs of life. He cried less than ever before in his brief career and smiled more readily. Even when he was placed in a canoe, still in his fur bag, beside his mother, he did not make any violent signs of objection. His father and all the family effects were at his back. Close in front sat his three small brothers, and Singing Bird, and in the bow old Blowing Fog plied a broad paddle.

Fortunately for all concerned, the canoe was both large and strong and steady—a masterpiece among canoes. Run-all-day had built it during the previous winter. He had planned a model for the frame to suit the size of his family and had constructed it of light, well-seasoned spruce. Being short of hides at the time, he had covered the frame with great sheets of tough, white bark from the birch trees of the forest. This bark was much lighter than caribou hides, and he had felt angry with himself for never having thought to use it before in boat building. For years, he had known that it was proof against water, for had it not sheltered him ever since his birth, from rain and sleet? He had stitched the seams with root-fibres and daubed them thoroughly with a mixture of gum and fat.

Run-all-day’s friends had laughed at the new canoe and its builder, and had advised the brave not to venture on the river in so novel a craft. The whole world, they said, covered its canoes with skin; then why should he do otherwise? But Run-all-day had hardened his heart against their warnings and jeers and gone his own way; and it had proved to be a right way.

Now a little fleet of six canoes toiled steadily up the river. Though Run-all-day’s craft was larger and more heavily loaded than any, it soon outdistanced them all. The brave, standing upright in the stern, used a long pole and Blowing Fog dug vigorously at the water with her broad paddle. Sometimes swift rapids churned and snarled in front of them, defying them to ascend. Then all the bundles of fish and meat and skins, the weapons and the children, had to be unloaded. Then the canoe was lifted from the stream and carried along the shore, to the top of the swift water, by Run-all-day and Blowing Fog. Everyone but the baby helped to portage the cargo.

Shortly after sunset, Run-all-day’s canoe was run ashore at the edge of a little meadow, again unloaded and lifted out of the water. Soon a fire was lighted and the comforting fragrance of broiling venison stole wide on the air. Dusk had fallen by the time the other voyagers reached the camp.