“The man’s gone,” said Chamberlin; “he departed Monday morning.”
“And whither?”
“Home to Last Chance.”
“What did he go home for?”
“That dinner broke him, I guess. It cost about eighteen hundred dollars, and he only had a little over a hundred when the bill was paid.”
The Statesman from Tupelo mused, while clouds of regret began to gather on his brow. His conscience had him by the collar; his conscience was avenging that bankruptcy of Jim Britt.
The Statesman from Tupelo received Jim Britt’s address from the hands of Chamberlin’s clerk. The next day the Statesman from Tupelo wrote Jim Britt a letter. It ran thus:
Chamberlin’s Hotel.
My Dear Sir:—
Don’t come back. Write me in full the exact story of what you want and why you want it. I’ve got a copy of your bill from the Document Room, and so soon as I hear from you, shall urge the business before the proper committee.
When Jim Britt’s reply came to hand, the Statesman from Tupelo—whom nobody could resist—prevailed on the committee to report the bill. Then he got the Speaker, who while iron with others was as wax in the hands of the Statesman from Tupelo, to recognize him to bring up the bill. The House, equally under his spell, gave the Statesman from Tupelo its unanimous consent, and the bill was carried in the blink of a moment to its third reading and put upon its passage. Then the Statesman from Tupelo made a speech; he said it was a confession.
The Statesman from Tupelo talked for fifteen minutes while the House howled. He told the destruction of Jim Britt. He painted the dinner and pointed to those members of the House who attended; he reminded them of the desolation which their appetites had worked. He said the House was disgraced in the downfall of Jim Britt, and admitted that he and his fellow diners were culpable to a last extreme. But there was a way to repair all. The bill must be passed, the stain on the House must be washed away, Jim Britt must stand again on his fiscal feet, and then he, the Statesman from Tupelo, and his fellow conspirators, might once more look mankind in the eye.
There be those who will do for laughter what they would not do for right. The House passed Jim Britt’s bill unanimously.
The Statesman from Tupelo carried it to the Senate. He explained the painful situation and described the remedy. Would the Senate unbend from its stern dignity as the greatest deliberative body of any clime or age, and come to the rescue of the Statesman from Tupelo and the House of Representatives now wallowing in infamy?
The Senate would; by virtue of a kink in Senate rules which permitted the feat, the Jim Britt Bill was instantly and unanimously adopted without the intervention of a committee, the ordering a reference or a roll-call. The Statesman from Tupelo thanked the Senate and withdrew, pretending emotion.
There was one more journey to make, one more power to consult, and the mighty work would be accomplished. The President must sign the bill. The Statesman from Tupelo walked in on that tremendous officer of state and told him the tale of injury done Jim Britt. The Statesman from Tupelo, by way of metaphor, called himself and his fellow sinners, cannibals, and showed how they had eaten Jim Britt. Then he reminded the President how he had once before gone to the rescue of cannibals in the case of Queen Lil. Would he now come to the relief of the Statesman from Tupelo and his fellow Anthropophagi of the House?
The President was overcome with the word and the idea; he scribbled his name in cramped copperplate, and the deed was done. The Jim Britt Bill was a law, and Jim Britt saved from the life-long taunts of Samantha, the retentive. The road from Last Chance to the lead mine was built, and on hearing of its completion the Statesman from Tupelo wrote for an annual pass.
“Then it was luck after all,” said the Red
Nosed Gentleman, “rather than management to save the day for your Jim Britt.”
“Entirely so,” conceded the Jolly Doctor.
“There’s a mighty deal in luck,” observed the Red Nosed Gentleman, sagely. “Certainly, it’s the major part in gambling, and I think, too, luck is a decisive element in every victory or defeat a man experiences.”
“And, now,” observed the Sour Gentleman, “now that you mention gambling, suppose you redeem your promise and give us the story of ‘How to Tell the Last Four.’ The phrase is dark to me and has no meaning, but I inferred from what you were saying when you used it, that you alluded to some game of chance. Assuredly, I crave pardon if I be in error,” and now the Sour Gentleman bowed with vast politeness.
“You are not in error,” returned the Red Nosed Gentleman, “and I did refer to gambling. Casino, however, when played by Casino Joe was no game of chance, but of science; his secret, he said in explanation, lay in ‘How to Tell the Last Four.’”
Casino Joe, when thirty years ago he came about the Bowery, was in manner and speech a complete expression of the rustical. His brow was high and fine and wise; but lank hair of yellow spoiled with its ragged fringe his face—a sallow face, wide of mouth and with high cheek bones. His garb was farmerish; kip-skin boots, coat and trousers of gray jeans, hickory shirt, and soft shapeless hat. Nor was Casino Joe in disguise; these habiliments made up the uniform of his ancestral New Hampshire. Countryman all over, was Casino Joe, and this look of the uncouth served him in his chosen profession.
Possibly “chosen” as a term is indiscreet. Gamblers are born and not made; they occur and they do not choose; they are, compared with more conservative and lawful men, what wolves are to honest dogs—cousins, truly, but tameless depredators, living lean and hard, and dying when die they do, neglected, lone and poor. Yet it is fate; they are born to it as much as is the Ishmael wolf and must run their midnight downhill courses.
Gamblers, that is true gamblers, are folk of specialties. Casino Joe’s was the game which gave to him his name—at casino he throve invincibly.
“It is my gift,” he said.
Two things were with Casino Joe at birth; the genius for casino and that jack-knife talent to whittle which belongs with true-born Yankees. Of this latter I had proof long after poor Casino Joe wras dead and nourishing the grass. The races were in Boston; it was when Goldsmith Maid reigned Queen of the trotting turf. Her owner came to me at the Adams House and told how the aged sire of Goldsmith Maid, the great Henry Clay, was in his equine, joint-stiffened dotage pastured on a not too distant farm. He was eager to have a look at the old horse; and I went with him for this pilgrimage.
As we drove up to the tavern which the farmstead we sought surrounded, my curious eye was caught by a fluttering windmill contrivance perched upon the gable. It was the figure of a woman done in pine and perhaps four feet of height, carved in the somewhat airy character of a ballet dancer. Instead of a dance, however, the lady contented herself with an exhibition of Indian Club swinging—one in each pine palm; the breeze offering the whirling impulse—in the execution wherof she poised herself with one foot on a wooden ball not unlike the arrowing bronze Diana of Madison Square. This figure, twirling clubs, as a mere windmill would have been amazing enough; but as though this were not sufficiently wondrous, at regular intervals our ballet dancer shifted her feet on the ball, replacing the right with the left and again the left with the right in measured alternation. The miracle of it held me transfixed.
The host came fatly to his front stoop and smiled upon my wide-eyed interest.
“Where did you get it?” I asked.
“That was carved with a jack-knife,” replied mine host, “by a party called ‘Casino Joe.’ It took him’most a year; he got it mounted and goin’ jest before he died.”
For long I had lost trace of Casino Joe; it was now at this change house I blundered on the news how my old gambling friend of the Bowery came with his consumption and some eight thousand dollars—enough to end one’s life with—and made this place home until his death. His grave lay across a field in the little rural burying ground where he had played when a boy, for Casino Joe was native of these parts.
There were no cheatings or tricky illicitisms hidden in Joe’s supremacies of casino. They were works of a wax-like memory which kept the story of the cards as one makes entries in a ledger. When the last hands were out between Joe and an adversary, a glance at his mental entries of cards already played, and another at his own hand, unerringly informed him of what cards his opponent held. This he called “Telling the last four.”
It was as an advantage more than enough to enable Joe to win; and while I lived in his company, I never knew him to be out of pocket by that divertisement. The marvel was that he could keep accurate track of fifty-two cards as they fell one after the other into play, and do these feats of memory in noise-ridden bar-rooms and amid a swirl of conversation in which he more or less bore part.
Those quick folk of the fraternity whom he encountered and who from time to time lost money to Casino Joe, never once suspected his victories to be a result of mere memory. They held that some cheat took place. But as it was not detectable and no man might point it out, no word of fault was uttered. Joe took the money and never a protest; for it is as much an axiom of the gaming table as it is of the law that “Fraud must be proved and will never be presumed or inferred.” With no evidence, therefore, the losing gamblers made no protesting charge, and Joe went forward collecting the wealth of any and all who fought with him at his favorite science.
Casino Joe, as I have said, accounted for his mastery at casino by his power to “Tell the last four,” and laid it all to memory.
“And yet,” said Joe one evening as I urged him to impart to me his secret more in detail, “it may depend on something else. As I’ve told you, it’s my gift. Folk have their gifts. Once when I was in the town of Warrensburg in Western Missouri, I was shown a man who had gifts for mathematics that were unaccountable. He was a coarse, animalish creature, this mathematician; a half idiot and utterly without education. A sullen, unclean beast of a being, he shuffled about in a queer, plantigrade fashion like a bear. He was ill-natured, yet too timid to do harm; and besides a genius for figures, his distinguishing characteristics were hunger measured by four men’s rations and an appetite for whiskey which to call swinish would be marking a weakness on one’s own part in the art of simile. Yet this witless creature, unable to read his own printed name, knew as by an instinct every mathematical or geometrical term. You might propose nothing as a problem that he would not instantly solve. He could tell you like winking, the area of a seven or eight-angled figure so you but gave him the dimensions; he would announce the surface measurements of a sphere when told either its diameter or circumference. Once, as a poser, a learned teacher proposed a supposititious cone seven feet in altitude and with a diameter of three feet at the base, and asked at what distance from the apex it should be divided to make both parts equal of bulk and weight. The gross, growling being made correct, unhesitating reply. This monster of mathematics seemed also to carry a chronometer in his stomach, for day or night, he could and would—for a drink of rum—tell you the hour to any splinter of a second. You might set your watch by him as if he were the steeple clock. I don’t profess,” concluded Casino Joe, “to either the habits or the imbecility of this genius of figures, yet it may well be that my abilities to keep track of fifty-two Cards as they appear in play and know at every moment—as a bookkeeper does a balance—what cards are yet to come, are not of cultivation or acquirement, but were extant within me at my birth.” When Casino Joe appeared in the Bowery he came to gamble at cards. That buzzing thoroughfare was then the promenade of the watchful brotherhood of chance. In that hour, too, it stood more the fashion—for there are fashions in gambling as in everything else—to win and lose money at short-cards, and casino enjoyed particular vogue. There were scores of eminent practitioners about New York, and Joe had little trouble in securing recognition. Indeed, he might have played the full twenty-four hours of every day could he have held up his head to such labors.
There was at the advent of our rural Joe into metropolitan circles none more alert or breathless for pastmastery in unholy speculation than myself. About twenty-one should have been my years, and I carried that bubbling spirit for success common to the youth of every walk. Aut Cosar aut nullus! was my warcry, and I did not consider Joe and his career for long before I was slave to the one hope of finally gaining his secret. One might found fortune on it; like the philosopher’s stone it turned everything to gold.
With those others who fell before Joe I also believed his success to be offspring of some cheat. And while the rustic Joe was engaged against some fellow immoralist, I’ve sat and watched for hours upon end to discover what winding thing Joe did. There was no villainy of double dealing or chicane of cut-shifting or of marked cards at which I was not adept. And what I could so darkly perform I was equally quick to discover when another attempted it. But, albeit I eyed poor Joe with a cat’s vigilance—a vigilance to have saved the life of Argus had he but emulated it with his hundred eyes—I noted nothing. And the reason was a simple one. There was literally nothing to discover; Joe played honestly enough; his advantage dwelt in his memory and that lay hidden within his head.
Despairing of a discovery by dint of watching, I made friendly overtures to Joe, hoping to wheedle a secret which I could not surprise. My proffers of comradeship were met more than half way. Joe was a kindly though a lonely soul and had few friends; his queer garb of the cowpastures together with his unfailing domination at casino kept others of the fraternity at a distance. Also I had been much educated of books by Father Glennon, and put in my spare time with reading. As Joe himself had dived somewhat into books, we were doubly drawn to each other. Hours have we sat together in Joe’s nobly furnished rooms—for he lived well if he did not dress well—and overhauled for our mutual amusement the literature of the centuries back to Chaucer and his Tabard Inn.
At this time Joe was already in the coils of that consumption whereof at last he died. And what with a racking cough and an inability to breathe while lying down, Joe seldom slept in a bed. The best he might do was to gain what snatches of slumber he could while propped in an arm-chair. It thus befell that at his suggestion and to tell the whole truth, at his generous expense, I came finally to room with Joe. Somebody should utilize the bed. Being young and sound of nerves, his restless night-roamings about the floors disturbed not me; I slept serenely through as I doubtless would through the crack of doom had such calamity surprised us at that time, and Joe and I prospered bravely in company.
Beseech and plead as I might, however, Joe would not impart to me that hidden casino strength beyond his word that no fraud was practiced—a fact whereof my watchings had made me sure—and curtly describing it as an ability to “Tell the last four.”
While Joe housed me as his guest for many months and paid the bills, one is not to argue therefrom any unhappy pauperism on my boyish part. In good sooth! I was more than rich during those days, with a fortune of anywhere from five hundred to as many as four thousand dollars. Like all disciples of chance I had these riches ever ready in my pocket for what prey might offer.
It was now and then well for Joe that I went thus provided. That badly garbed squire of good dame Fortune, who failed not of a profit at casino, had withal an overpowering taste to play faro; and as if by some law of compensation and to preserve an equilibrium, he would seem to sit down to a faro layout only to lose.
Time and again he came to his rooms stripped of the last dollar. On these harrowing occasions Joe would borrow a round-number stake from me and so return to the legitimate sure harvests of casino, vowing never to lose himself and his money in any quicksands of farobank again.
It must be admitted that these anti-faro vows were never kept; once firm on his feet by virtue of casino renewed, it was not over long ere he “tried it just once more,” to lose again. These faro bankruptcies would overtake Joe about once a month.
One day I made a mild plot; I had foregone all hope of coaxing Joe’s secret from him; now I resolved to bring against him the pressure of a small intrigue. I lay in ambush for Joe, waylaid him as it were in the weak hour of his destitution and ravished from him at the point of his necessities that which I could come by in no other way.
It was following a disastrous night at faro when Joe appeared without so much silver in his pockets as might serve to keep the fiends from dancing there. Having related his losses he asked for the usual five hundred wherewith to re-enter the sure lists of casino and begin the combat anew.
To his sore amazement and chagrin—and somewhat to his alarm, for at first he thought me as poor as himself from my refusal—I shook my sage young head.
“Haven’t you got it?” asked Joe anxiously.
“Oh, yes,” I replied, “I’ve got it; and it’s yours on one condition. Teach me how to ‘Tell the last four,’ and you may have five hundred and five hundred with it.”
Then I pointed out to Joe his mean unfairness in not equipping me with this resistless knowledge. Save for that one pregnant secret I was as perfect at casino as any sharper on the Bowery. Likewise, were the situation reversed, I’d be quick to instruct him. I’d lend no more; there would come no further five hundred save as the price of that touchstone—the golden secret of how to “Tell the last four.” This I set forth jealously.
“Why, then,” said Joe, “I’ll do my best to teach you. But it will cost a deal of work. You’ll have to put in hours of practice and curry and groom and train your memory as if it were a horse for a great race. I tell you the more readily—for I could elsewhere easily get the five hundred and for that matter five thousand other dollars to keep it company—since I believe I’ve not many months to live at best”—here, as if in confirmation, a gust of coughing shook him—“and this secret shall be your legacy.”
With these words, Joe got a deck of cards and began a game of casino with me as an adversary. Slowly playing the cards, he explained and strove to illustrate those mental methods by which he kept account and tabbed them as they were played. If I could lay bare this system here I would; but its very elaboration forbids. It was as though Joe owned a blackboard in his head with the fifty-two cards told off by numbers in column, and from which he erased a card the moment it appeared in play. By processes of elimination, he came finally to “Tell the last four,” and as the last hands were dealt knew those held by his opposite as much as ever he knew his own. This advantage, with even luck and perfect skill made him not to be conquered.
It took many sittings with many lessons many hours long; but in time because of my young faculties—not too much cumbered of those thousand and one concerns to come with years and clamor for remembrance—I grew as perfect as Joe.
And it was well I learned the secret when I did. Soon after, I became separated from Joe; I went southward to New Orleans and when I was next to New York Joe had disappeared. Nor could I find trace or sign of his whereabouts. He went in truth to his old village, and my earliest information thereof came only when the tavern host told the origin of the club-swinging ballet dancer then toeing it so gallantly on his gables.
But while I parted with my friend, I never forgot him. The knowledge he gave double-armed me at the game. It became the reason of often riches in my hands, and was ever a resort when I erred over horse races or was beaten down by some storm of faro. Then it was profitably I recalled Casino Joe and his instructions; and his invincible secret of “How to tell the last four.”
“Is it not strange,” said the Jolly Doctor, when the Red Nosed Gentleman had finished, “that I who never cared to gamble, should listen with delight to a story of gamblers and gambling? But so it is; I’ve heard scores such in my time and always with utmost zest. I’ll even tell one myself—as it was told me—when it again becomes my duty to furnish this good company entertainment. Meanwhile, unless my memory fails, it should be the task of our descendant of Hiawatha”—here the Jolly Doctor turned smilingly to Sioux Sam—“to take up the burden of the evening.”
The Old Cattleman, joining with the Jolly Doctor in the suggestion, and Sioux Sam being in no wise loth to be heard, our half-savage friend related “How Moh-Kwa Fed the Catfish.”
One day Moh-Kwa, the Wise Bear, had a quarrel with Ish-koo-dah, the Fire. Moh-Kwa was gone from home two days, for Moh-Kwa had found a large patch of ripe blackberries, an’ he said it was prudent to stay an’ eat them all up lest some other man find them. So Moh-Kwa stayed; an’ though he ate very hard the whole time an’ never slept, so many an’ fat were the blackberries, it took two suns to eat them.
When Moh-Kwa came into his cavern, he found Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, grown small an’ hot an’ angry, for he had not been fed for two days. Moh-Kwa gave the Fire a bundle of dry wood to eat, an’ when the Fire’s stomach was full an’ he had grown big an’ bright with plenty, he sat up on his bed of coals an’ found fault with Moh-Kwa for his neglect.
“An’ should you neglect me again for two days,” said the Fire, “I will know I am not wanted an’ shall go away.”
Moh-Kwa was much tired with no sleep, so he answered Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, sharply.
“You are always hungry,” said Moh-Kwa; “also you are hard to suit. If I give you green wood, you will not eat it; if the wood be wet, you turn away. Nothing but old dry wood will you accept. Beggars like you should not own such fine tastes. An’ do you think, Fire, that I who have much to do an’ say an’ many places to go—I, Moh-Kwa, who am as busy as the bees in the Moon of Blossoms, have time to stay ever by your side to pass you new dry wood to eat? Go to; you are more trouble that a papoose!”
Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, did not say anything to this, for the Fire’s feelings were hurt; an’ Moh-Kwa who was heavy with his labors over the blackberries lay down an’ took a big sleep.
When Moh-Kwa awoke, he sat blinking in the darkness of his cavern, for Ish-koo-dah, while Moh-Kwa slept, had gone out an’ left night behind.
For five days Moh-Kwa had no fire an’ it gave him a bad heart; for while Moh-Kwa could eat his food raw an’ never cared for that, he could not smoke his kinnikinick unless Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, was there to light his pipe for him.
For five days Moh-Kwa smoked no kinnikinick; an’ Moh-Kwa got angry because of it an’ roared an’ shouted up an’ down the canyons, an’ to show he did not care, Moh-Kwa smashed his redstone pipe on a rock. But in his stomach Moh-Kwa cared, an’ would have traded Ish-koodah, the Fire, four armsful of dry cedar just to have him light his kinnikinick but once. But Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, was gone out an’ would not come back.
Openhand, the good Sioux an’ great hunter, heard Moh-Kwa roaring for his kinnikinick. An’ Openhand told him he behaved badly, like a young squaw who wants new feathers an’ cannot get them. Then Openhand gave Moh-Kwa another pine, an’ brought the Fire from his own lodge; an’ again Moh-Kwa’s cavern blazed with Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, in the middle of the floor, an’ Moh-Kwa smoked his kinnikinick. An’ Moh-Kwa’s heart felt good an’ soft an’ pleasant like the sunset in the Moon of Fruit. Also, he gave Ish-koo-dah plenty of wood to eat an’ never scolded him for being always hungry.
All the Sioux loved Openhand; for no one went by his lodge empty but Openhand gave him a piece of buffalo meat; an’ if a Sioux was cold, he put a blanket about his shoulders. An’ for this he was named “Openhand,” an’ the Sioux were never tired of talking good talk of Open-hand, an’ the noise of his praises never died out.
Coldheart hated Openhand because he was so much loved. Coldheart was himself sulky an’ hard, an’ his hand was shut tight like a beaver-trap that is sprung, an’ it would not open to give anything away. Those who came hungry went hungry for all of Coldheart; an’ if they were cold, they were cold. Coldheart wrapped his robes the closer, an’ was the warmest whenever he thought the frost-wolf was gnawing others.
“I do not rule the ice,” said Coldheart; “hunger does not come or go on its war-trail by my orders. An’ if the Sioux freeze or starve, an’ Pau-guk, the Death, walks among the lodges, it is because the time is Pau-guk’s an’ I cannot help it.”
So Coldheart kept his blankets an’ his buffalo meat for himself an’ his son, the Blackbird, an’ gave nothing away. An’ for these things, Coldheart was hated while Openhand was praised; an’ the breast of Coldheart was so eaten with his wrath against Openhand that it seemed as though Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, had gone into Coldheart’s bosom an’ made a camp.
Coldheart would have called Pau-guk to his elbow an’ killed Openhand; but Coldheart was not sure. The Openhand moved as quick as a fish in the Yellowstone, an’ stood as tall an’ strong as the big pine on the hill; there were no three warriors, the bravest of the Sioux, who could have gone on the trail of Openhand an’ shown his skelp on their return, for Openhand was a mighty fighter an’ had a big heart, so that even Fear himself was afraid of Openhand an’ never dared come where he was.
Coldheart knew well that he could not fight with Openhand; for to find this out, he made his strongest medicine an’ called Jee-bi, the Spirit; an’ Jee-bi talked with Pau-guk, the Death, an’ asked Pau-guk if Coldheart went on the trail of Openhand to take his skelp, which one Pau-guk would have at the trail’s end. An’ Pau-guk said he would have Coldheart, for Openhand would surely kill him. When Jee-bi, the Spirit, told Coldheart the word of Pau-guk, Coldheart saw then that he must go a new trail with his hate.
Coldheart smoked an’ smoked many pipes; but the thoughts of Openhand an’ how he was loved by the Sioux made his kinnikinick bitter. Still Coldheart smoked; an’ at last the thought came that if he could not kill Openhand, he would kill the Young Wolf, who was Openhand’s son. When this thought folded its wings an’ perched in the breast of Coldheart, he called for the evil Lynx, who was Coldheart’s friend, an’ since he was the wickedest of the Sioux, would do what Coldheart said.
The Lynx came an’ sat with Coldheart in his lodge; an’ the lodge was closed tight so that none might listen, an’ because it was cold. The Coldheart told the Lynx to go with his war-axe when the next sun was up an’ beat out the brains of the Young Wolf.
“An’ when he is dead,” said Coldheart, “you must bring me the Young Wolf’s heart to eat. Then I will have my revenge on Openhand, his father, whom I hate; an’ whenever I meet the Openhand I will laugh with the thought that I have eaten his son’s heart.”
But there was one who listened to Coldheart while he gave his orders to the evil Lynx, although she was no Sioux. This was the Widow of the Great Rattlesnake of the Rocks who had long before been slain by Yellow Face, his brother medicine. The Widow having hunted long an’ hard had crawled into the lodge of Cold-heart to warm herself while she rested. An’ as she slept beneath a buffalo robe, the noise of Coldheart talking to the evil Lynx woke the Widow up; an’ so she sat up under her buffalo robe an’ heard every word, for a squaw is always curious an’ would sooner hear new talk than find a string of beads.
That night as Moh-Kwa smoked by Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, an’ fed him dry sticks so he would not leave him again, the Widow came an’ warmed herself by Moh-Kwa’s side. An’ Moh-Kwa asked the Widow how she fared; an’ the Widow while hungry said she was well, only that her heart was made heavy by the words of Coldheart. Then the Widow told Moh-Kwa what Coldheart had asked the evil Lynx to do, an’ how for his revenge against Openhand he would eat the Young Wolf’s heart.
Moh-Kwa listened to the Widow with his head on one side, for he would not lose a word; an’ when she had done, Moh-Kwa was so pleased that he put down his pipe an’ went to a nest which the owls had built on the side of the cavern an’ took down a young owl an’ gave it to the Widow to eat. An’ the Widow thanked Moh-Kwa an’ swallowed the little owl, while the old owl flew all about the cavern telling the other owls what Moh-Kwa had done. The owls were angry an’ shouted at Moh-Kwa.
“The Catfish people said you were a Pawnee! But you are worse; you are a Shoshone, Moh-Kwa; yes, you are a Siwash! Bird-robber, little owl-killer, you an’ your Rattlesnake Widow are both Siwashes!”
But Moh-Kwa paid no heed; he did not like the owls, for they stole his meat; an’ when he would sleep, a company of the older owls would get together an’ hold a big talk that was like thunder in Moh-Kwa’s cavern an’ kept him awake. Moh-Kwa said at last that if the owls called the Widow who was his guest a Siwash again, he would give her two more baby owls. With that the old owls perched on their points of rocks an’ were silent, for they feared Moh-Kwa an’ knew he was not their friend.
When the Widow had eaten her little owl, she curled up to sleep two weeks, for such was the Widow’s habit when she had eaten enough. An’ as she snored pleasantly, feathers an’ owl-down were blown out through her nose, but the young owl was gone forever.
Moh-Kwa left the Widow sleeping an’ went down the canyon in the morning to meet the evil Lynx where he knew he would pass close by the bank of the Yellowstone. An’ when Moh-Kwa saw the evil Lynx creeping along with his war-axe in his hand on the trail of the Young Wolf’s heart, he gave a great shout: “Ah! Lynx, I’ve got you!” An’ then he started for the Lynx with his paws spread. For Moh-Kwa loved the Open-hand, who brought back to him Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, when he had gone out of Moh-Kwa’s cavern an’ would not return.
But Moh-Kwa did not reach the Lynx, for up a tree swarmed the Lynx out of Moh-Kwa’s reach.
When Moh-Kwa saw the evil Lynx hugging close to the tree, the new thought made Moh-Kwa laugh. An’ with that he reached up with his great arms an’ began to bend down the tree like a whip. When Moh-Kwa had bent the tree enough, he let it go free; an’ the tree sprang straight like an osage-orange bow. It was so swift an’ like a whip that the Lynx could not hold on, but went whirling out over the river like a wild duck when its wing is broken by an arrow; an’ then the Lynx splashed into the Yellowstone.
When the Lynx struck splashing into the Yellowstone, all the Catfish people rushed for him with the Big Chief of the Catfish at their head. Also, Ah-meek, the Beaver, was angry; for Ahmeek was crossing the Yellowstone with a bundle of bulrushes in his mouth to help build his winter house on the bank, an’ the Lynx struck so near to Ah-meek that the waves washed his face an’ whiskers, an’ he was startled an’ lost the bulrushes out of his mouth an’ they were washed away.
Ah-meek who was angry, an’ the Catfish people who were hungry, charged on the Lynx; but the Lynx was not far enough from the shore for them, an’ while the Catfish people pinched him an’ Ah-meek, the Beaver, clawed him, the Lynx crawled out on the bank an’ was safe.
But Moh-Ivwa met the Lynx when he crawled out of the Yellowstone looking like Dah-hin-dah, the Bull-frog, an’ Moh-Kwa picked him up with his paws to throw him back.
But a second new thought came; an’ although the Catfish people screamed at him an’ Ah-meek who had lost his bulrushes was black with anger, Moh-Kwa did not throw the Lynx back into the river but stood him on his feet an’ told him what to do. An’ when Moh-Kwa gave him the orders, the Lynx promised to obey.
Moh-Kwa killed a fawn; an’ the Lynx took its heart in his hand an’ went with it to Coldheart an’ said it was the heart of Young Wolf. An’ Coldheart roasted it an’ ate it, thinking it was Young Wolf’s heart.
For a day was the Coldheart glad, for he felt strong an’ warm with the thought that now he was revenged against Openhand; an’ Coldheart longed to tell Openhand that he had eaten his son’s heart. But Coldheart was too wise to make this boast; he knew that Openhand whether with knife or lance or arrow would give him at once to Pau-guk, an’ that would end his revenge.
Still Coldheart thought he would go to Open-hand’s lodge an’ feed his eyes an’ ears with Open-hand’s groans an’ mournings when now his son, the Young Wolf, was gone. But when Coldheart came to the lodge of Openhand, he was made sore to meet the Young Wolf who was starting forth to hunt. Coldheart spoke with the Young Wolf to make sure he had been cheated; an’ then he went back to kill the Lynx.
But Coldheart was too late; the Lynx had not waited; now he was gone with his squaws an’ his ponies an’ his blankets to become a Pawnee. The Lynx was tired of being a Sioux.
When the Widow’s sleep was out, Moh-Kwa sent her to hide in the lodge of Coldheart to hear what next he would plan. The Widow went gladly, for Moh-Kwa promised four more small young owls just out of the egg. The Widow lay under the buffalo robe an’ heard the words of Coldheart. In a week, she came back to Moh-Kwa an’ told him what Coldheart planned.
Coldheart had sent twenty ponies to the Black-foot chief, Dull Knife, where he lived on the banks of the Little Bighorn. Also, Coldheart sent these words in the mouth of his runner:
“My son and the son of my enemy will come to your camp in one moon. You will marry the Rosebud, your daughter, to my son, while the son of my enemy you will tie an’ give to your young men to shoot at with their arrows until he be dead, an’ afterward until they have had enough sport. My son will bring you a white arrow; the son of my enemy will bring you a black arrow.” Moh-Kwa laughed when he heard this from the Widow’s lips; an’ because she had been faithful, Moh-Kwa gave her the four small owls just from the egg. An’ the older owls took it quietly an’ only whispered their anger; for Moh-Kwa said that if they screamed an’ shouted when now he must sit an’ think until his head ached, he would knock down every nest.
When his plan was ripe, Coldheart put on a good face an’ went to the lodge of Openhand an’ gave him a red blanket an’ said he was Openhand’s friend. An’ Openhand an’ all the Sioux said this must be true talk because of the red blanket; for Coldheart was never known to give anything away before.
Openhand an’ Coldheart sat down an’ smoked; for Moh-Kwa had never told how Coldheart had sent the Lynx for the Young Wolf’s heart. Moh-Kwa never told tales; moreover Moh-Kwa had also his own plans as well as Coldheart.
When Openhand an’ Coldheart came to part, an’ Coldheart was to go again to his own lodge, he asked that Openhand send his son, Young Wolf, with the Blackbird who would go to wed the young squaw, Rosebud, where she dwelt with Dull Knife, her father, in their camp on the Little Bighorn. An’ Openhand did not hesitate, but said, “Yes;” an’ the Young Wolf himself was glad to go, like all boys who hope to see new scenes.
As Young Wolf an’ the Blackbird next day rode away, Coldheart stuck a black arrow in the cow-skin quiver of Young Wolf, an’ a white arrow in that of the Blackbird, saying:
“Give these to the Dull Knife that he may know you are my sons an’ come from me, an’ treat you with much love.”
Many days the young men traveled to reach Dull Knife’s camp on the Little Bighorn. In the night of their last camp, Moh-Kwa came silently, an’ while the young men slept swapped Coldheart’s arrows; an’ when they rode to the lodge of Dull Knife, an’ while the scowling Blackfeet gathered about—for the sight of a Sioux gives a Blackfoot a hot heart—the black arrow was in the quiver of the Blackbird an’ the white arrow in that of Young Wolf.
“How!” said the young men to Dull Knife. “How! how!” said Dull Knife. “An’ now, my sons, where are the arrows which are your countersigns?”
When the young men took out the arrows they saw that they had been changed; but they knew not their message an’ thought no difference would come. So they made no talk since that would lose time; an’ Young Wolf gave Dull Knife the white arrow while the Blackbird gave him the black arrow.
An’ holding an arrow in each hand—one white, one black—Dull Knife said:
“For the twenty ponies which we have got, the Blackfeet will carry forth the word of Cold-heart; for the Blackfeet keep their treaties, being honest men.”
An’ so it turns that the Blackbird is shot full of arrows until he bristles like the quills on the back of Kagh, the Hedgepig. But Young Wolf is taken to the Rosebud, an’ they are married. The Young Wolf would have said: “No!” for he did not understand; but Dull Knife showed him first a war-axe an’ next the Rosebud. An’ the Rosebud was more beautiful in the eye of youth than any war-axe; besides Young Wolf was many days march from the lodge of his father, Openhand, an’ marriage is better than death. Thinking all of which, the Young Wolf did not say “no” but said “yes,” an’ at the wedding there was a great feast, for the Dull Knife was a big chief an’ rich.
Ma-ma, the Woodpecker, stood on the top of a dead tree an’ saw the wedding; an’ when it was over, he flew straight an’ told Moh-Kwa so that Moh-Kwa might know.
When Young Wolf an’ the Rosebud on their return were a day’s ride from the Sioux, Moh-Kwa went to the lodge of Coldheart an’ said:
“Come, great plotter, an’ meet your son an’ his new squaw.”
An’ Coldheart came because Moh-Kwa took him by his belts an’ ran with him; for Moh-Kwa was so big an’ strong he could run with a pony an’ its rider in his mouth.
Moh-Kwa told Coldheart how the Blackbird gave Dull Knife the black arrow an’ was shot with all the arrows of five quivers. Coldheart groaned like the buffalo when he dies. Then Moh-Kwa showed him where Young Wolf came on with the beautiful Rosebud; and that he was followed by twenty pack-ponies which carried the presents of Dull Knife for his daughter an’ his new son.
“An’ now,” said Moh-Kwa, “you have seen enough; for you have seen that you have made your foe happy an’ killed your own son. Also, I have cheated the Catfish people twice; once with the Big Medicine Elk an’ once with the Lynx, both of whom I gave to the Catfish people an’ took back. It is true, I have cheated the good Catfish folk who were once my friends, an’ now they speak hard of me an’ call me a ‘Pawnee,’ the whole length of the Yellowstone from the Missouri to the Falls. However, Moh Kwa has something for the Catfish people this time which he will not take back, an’ by to-morrow’s sun, the river will ring with Moh-Kwa’s praises.”
Moh-Kwa carried Coldheart to the Yellowstone, an’ he sang an’ shouted for all the Catfish people to come. Then Moh-Kwa took Coldheart to a deep place in the river a long way from the bank. An’ Moh-Kwa held Coldheart while the Chief of the Catfish got a strong hold, an’ his squaw—who was four times bigger than the Catfish Chief—got also a strong hold; an’ then what others of the Catfish people were there took their holds. When every catfish was ready Moh-Kwa let Coldheart slip from between his paws, an’ with a swish an’ a swirl, the Catfish people snatched Coldheart under the water an’ tore him to pieces. For many days the Yellowstone was bank-full of good words for Moh-Kwa; an’ all the Catfish people said he was a Sioux an’ no cheat of a Pawnee who gives only to take back.
That night in his cavern Moh-Kwa sat by Ish-koo-dah, the Fire, an’ smoked an’ told the Widow the story, an’ how it all began by Openhand bringing the Fire back to be his friend when they had quarreled an’ the Fire had gone out an’ would not return. An’ while Moh-Kwa told the tale to the Widow, not an owl said a word or even whispered, but blinked in silence each on his perch; for the Widow seemed lean an’ slim as she lay by the fire an’ listened; an’ the owls thought it would be foolish to remind Moh-Kwa of their presence.
“Now, do you know,” said the Red Nosed Gentleman, with his head on one side as one who would be deemed deeply the critic, “these Indian stories are by no means bad.” Then leaning across to the Old Cattleman, he asked: “Does our Sioux friend make them up?”
“Them tales,” said the Old Cattleman, lighting a new cigar, “is most likely as old as the Yellowstone itse’f. The squaws an’ the old bucks tell ’em to the children, an’ so they gets passed along the line. Sioux Sam only repeats what he’s done heard from his mother.”
“And now,” remarked the Jolly Doctor, addressing the Sour Gentleman, “what say you? How about that story of the Customs concerning which you whetted our interest by giving us the name. It is strange, too, that while my interest is still as strong as ever, the name itself has clean slipped through the fingers of my memory.” At this the Jolly Doctor glared about the circle as though in wonder at the phenomenon of an interest which remained when the reason of it had faded away.
“I will willingly give you the story,” said the Sour Gentleman. “That name you search for is ‘The Emperor’s Cigars.’”