Book: The Shagganappi

E >> E. Pauline Johnson >> The Shagganappi




As he stepped from the great canoe, Ta-la-pus thought he felt a strange
thrill pass through the soles of his feet. They had touched the mainland
of the vast continent of North America for the first time; his feet
seemed to become sensitive, soft, furry, cushioned like those of a wild
animal. Then, all at once, a strange inspiration seized him. Why not try
to make his footsteps "pad" like the noiseless paws of a prairie wolf?
"pad" in the little dance he had invented, instead of "shuffling" in
his moccasins, as all the grown men did? He made up his mind that when
he was alone in his tent he would practise it, but just now the great
Squamish chief was coming towards them with outstretched greeting hands,
and presently he was patting little Ta-la-pus on the shoulder, and
saying, "Oh, ho, my good Tillicum Mowitch, I am glad you have brought
this boy. I have a son of the same size. They will play together, and
perhaps this Tenas Tyee (Little Chief) will dance for me some night."

"My brother does not dance our tribal dances," began Lapool, but
Ta-la-pus spoke up bravely.

"Thank you, O Great Tyee (Chief), I shall dance when you ask me."

His father and brother both stared at him in amazement. Then Chief
Mowitch laughed, and said, "If he says he will dance, he will do it. He
never promises what he cannot do, but I did not know he could do the
steps. Ah! he is a little hoolool (mouse) this boy of mine; he keeps
very quiet, and does not boast what he can do."

Little Ta-la-pus was wonderfully encouraged by his father's notice of
him and his words of praise. Never before had he seemed so close to
manhood, for, being the youngest boy of the family, he had but little
companionship with any at home except his mother and the little sisters
that now seemed so far behind him in their island home. All that evening
the old chiefs and the stalwart young braves were gravely shaking hands
with his father, his brother Lapool, and himself, welcoming them to the
great festival and saying pleasant things about peace and brotherhood
prevailing between the various tribes instead of war and bloodshed, as
in the olden times. It was late when the great supper of boiled salmon
was over, and the immense bonfires began to blaze on the shore where the
falling tides of the Pacific left the beaches dry and pebbly. The young
men stretched themselves on the cool sands, and the old men lighted
their peace pipes, and talked of the days when they hunted the mountain
sheep and black bear on these very heights overlooking the sea.
Ta-la-pus listened to everything. He could learn so much from the older
men, and hour by hour he gained confidence. No more he thought of his
dance with fear and shyness, for all these people were kindly and
hospitable even to a boy of eleven. At midnight there was another feast,
this time of clams, and luscious crabs, with much steaming black tea.
Then came the great Squamish chief, saying more welcoming words, and
inviting his guests to begin their tribal dances. Ta-la-pus never forgot
the brilliant sight that he looked on for the next few hours. Scores of
young men and women went through the most graceful figures of beautiful
dances, their shell ornaments jingling merrily in perfect time to each
twist and turn of their bodies. The wild music from the beat of Indian
drums and shell "rattles" arose weirdly, half sadly, drifting up the
mountain heights, until it lost itself in the timber line of giant firs
that crested the summits. The red blaze from the camp fires flitted
and flickered across the supple figures that circled around, in and
out between the three hundred canoes beached on the sands, and the
smoke-tipped tents and log lodges beyond the reach of tide water. Above
it all a million stars shone down from the cloudless heavens of a
perfect British Columbian night. After a while little Ta-la-pus fell
asleep, and when he awoke, dawn was just breaking. Someone had covered
him with a beautiful, white, new blanket, and as his young eyes opened
they looked straight into the kindly face of the great Squamish chief.

"We are all aweary, 'Tenas Tyee' (Little Chief)," he said. "The dancers
are tired, and we shall all sleep until the sun reaches midday, but my
guests cry for one more dance before sunrise. Will you dance for us, oh,
little Ta-la-pus?"

The boy sprang up, every muscle and sinew and nerve on the alert. The
moment of his triumph or failure had come.

"You have made me, even a boy like me, very welcome, O Great Tyee," he
said, standing erect as an arrow, with his slender, dark chin raised
manfully. "I have eaten of your kloshe muck-a-muck (very good food),
and it has made my heart and my feet very skookum (strong). I shall do
my best to dance and please you." The boy was already dressed in the
brilliant buckskin costume his mother had spent so many hours in making,
and his precious wolfskin was flung over his arm. The great Squamish
chief now took him by the hand and led him towards the blazing fires
round which the tired dancers, the old men and women, sat in huge
circles where the chill of dawn could not penetrate.

"One more dance, then we sleep," said the chief to the great circle of
spectators. "This Tenas Tyee will do his best to amuse us."

Then Ta-la-pus felt the chief's hand unclasp, and he realized that he
was standing absolutely alone before a great crowd of strangers, and
that every eye was upon him.

"Oh, my brother," he whispered, smoothing the prairie wolf skin, "help
me to be like you, help me to be worthy of your name." Then he pulled
the wolf's head over his own, twisted the fore legs about his throat,
and stepped into the great circle of sand between the crouching
multitude and the fires.

Stealthily he began to pick his way in the full red flare from the
flames. He heard many voices whispering, "Tenas," "Tenas," meaning "He
is little, he is young," but his step only grew more stealthy, until he
"padded" into a strange, silent trot in exact imitation of a prairie
wolf. As he swung the second time round the fires, his young voice
arose, in a thin, wild, wonderful barking tone, so weird and wolf-like
that half the spectators leaped up to their knees, or feet, the better
to watch and listen. Another moment, and he was putting his chant into
words.

"They call me Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf,
And wild and free am I.
I cannot swim like Eh-ko-lie, the whale,
Nor like the eagle, Chack-chack, can I fly.

"I cannot talk as does the great Ty-ee,
Nor like the o-tel-agh* shine in the sky.
I am but Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf,
And wild and free am I."

[*Sun.]


With every word, every step, he became more like the wolf he was
describing. Across his chanting and his "padding" in the sand came
murmurs from the crowd. He could hear "Tenas, tenas," "To-ke-tie Tenas"
(pretty boy), "Skookum-tanse," (good strong dance). Then at last, "Ow,"
"Ow," meaning "Our young brother." On and on went Ta-la-pus. The wolf
feeling crept into his legs, his soft young feet, his clutching fingers,
his wonderful dark eyes that now gleamed red and lustrous in the
firelight. He was as one inspired, giving a beautiful and marvellous
portrait of the wild vagabonds of the plains. For fully ten minutes he
circled and sang, then suddenly crouched on his haunches, then, lifting
his head, he turned to the east, his young throat voiced one long,
strange note, wolf-like he howled to the rising sun, which at that
moment looked over the crest of the mountains, its first golden shaft
falling full upon his face.

His chant and his strange wolf-dance were ended. Then one loud clamor
arose from the crowd. "Tenas Tyee," "Tenas Tyee," they shouted, and
Ta-la-pus knew that he had not failed. But the great Squamish chief was
beside him.

"Tillicums,"* he said, facing the crowd, "this boy has danced no
tribal dance learned from his people or his parents. This is his own
dance, which he has made to deserve his name. He shall get the first
gifts of our great Potlatch. Go," he added, to one of the young men,
"bring ten dollars of the white man's chicamin (money), and ten new
blankets as white as that snow on the mountain top."

[*Friends, my people.]


The crowd was delighted. They approved the boy and rejoiced to see the
real Potlatch was begun. When the blankets were piled up beside him they
reached to the top of Ta-la-pus' head. Then the chief put ten dollars in
the boy's hand with the simple words, "I am glad to give it. You won it
well, my Tenas Tyee."

That was the beginning of a great week of games, feasting and tribal
dances, but not a night passed but the participants called for the wild
"wolf-dance" of the little boy from the island. When the Potlatch was
over, old Chief Mowitch and Lapool and Ta-la-pus returned to Vancouver
Island, but no more the boy sat alone on the isolated rock, watching the
mainland through a mist of yearning. He had set foot in the wider world,
he had won his name, and now honored it, instead of hating it, as in the
old days when his brothers taunted him, for the great Squamish chief, in
bidding good-bye to him, had said:

"Little Ta-la-pus, remember a name means much to a man. You despised
your name, but you have made it great and honorable by your own act,
your own courage. Keep that name honorable, little Ta-la-pus; it will
be worth far more to you than many blankets or much of the white man's
chicamin."



The Scarlet Eye


"I tell you that fellow is an Indian! You can't fool me! Look at the way
he walks! He doesn't _step_; he _pads_ like a panther!"

Billy ceased speaking, but still pointed an excited forefinger along the
half-obliterated buffalo trail that swung up the prairie, out of the
southern horizon. The two boys craned their necks, watching the coming
figure, that advanced at a half-trot, half-stride. Billy was right. The
man seemed to be moving on cushioned feet. Nothing could give that slow,
springing swing except a moccasin.

"Any man is welcome," almost groaned little Jerry, "but, oh, how much
more welcome an Indian man, eh, Billy?"

"You bet!" said Billy. "He'll show us a way out of this. Yes, he's
Indian. I can see his long hair now. Look! I can see the fringe up the
sleeves of his shirt; it is buckskin!"

"Do you think he sees us?" questioned Jerry.

Billy laughed contemptuously. "Sees us! Why, he saw us long before we
saw him, you can bet on that!"

Then Billy raised his arm, and whirled about his head the big bandanna
handkerchief which he had snatched from his neck. The man responded to
the signal by lifting aloft for a single instant his open palm with
fingers outstretched.

"Yes, he's Indian! A white man would have wiggled his wrist at us!"
sighed Jerry contentedly. "He'll help us out, Billy. There's nothing he
won't know how to do!" And the little boy's eyes grew moist with the
relief of knowing help was at last at hand.

Ten minutes more and the man slowed up beside them. He was a tall,
splendidly made Cree, with eyes like jewels and hands as slender and
small as a woman's.

"You savvy English?" asked Billy.

"Little," answered the Indian, never looking at Billy, but keeping his
wonderful eyes on the outstretched figure, the pallid face, of young
Jerry, whose forehead was wrinkled with evident pain.

"We have met with an accident," explained Billy. "My little brother's
horse loped into a badger hole and broke its leg. I had to shoot it."
Here Billy's voice choked, and his fingers touched the big revolver at
his belt. "My brother was thrown. He landed badly; something's wrong
with his ankle, his leg; he can't walk; can't go on, even on my horse.
It happened over there, about two miles." Here Billy pointed across the
prairie to where a slight hump showed where the dead horse lay. "I got
him over here," he continued, looking about at the scrub poplar and
cottonwood trees, "where there was shelter and slough water, but he
can't go on. Our father is Mr. MacIntyre, the Hudson's Bay Factor at
Fort o' Farewell."

As Billy ceased speaking the Indian kneeled beside Jerry, feeling with
tender fingers his hurts. As the dark hand touched his ankle, the boy
screamed and cried out, "Oh, don't! Oh, don't!" The Indian arose,
shaking his head solemnly, then said softly, "Hudson's Bay boys, eh?
Good boys! You good boy to bring him here to trees. We make camp! Your
brother's ankle is broken."

"But we must get him home," urged Billy. "We ought to have a doctor.
He'll be lame all his life if we don't!" And poor big Billy's voice
shook.

"No. No lame. I doctor him," said the Indian. "I good doctor. My name
Five Feathers--me."

"Five Feathers!" exclaimed Billy. "Oh, I've often heard father speak of
you. Father loves you. He says you are the best Indian in the whole
Hudson's Bay country."

Five Feathers smiled. "Your father and me good friends," he said simply.
Then added, "How you come here?"

"Why, you see," said Billy, "we were returning from school at Winnipeg;
it's holiday now, you know. Father sent the two ponies to 'the front'
for us to ride home. Some Indians brought them over for us. It's a
hundred and sixty miles. We started yesterday morning, and slept last
night at Black Jack Pete's place. We must be a full hundred miles from
home now." Billy stopped speaking. His voice simply _would_ not go on.

"More miles than hundred," said the Indian. "You got something eat?"

Billy went over to where his horse was staked to a cottonwood, hauled
off his saddlebags, and, returning, emptied them on the brown grass.
They made a good showing. Six boxes of matches, a half side of bacon,
two pounds of hardtack, a package of tea, four tins of sardines, a big
roll of cooked smoked antelope, sugar, three loaves of bread, one can of
tongue, one of salmon, a small tin teapot, two tin cups, one big knife,
and one tin pie plate, to be used in lieu of a frying-pan. "I wish we
had more," said the boy, surveying the outfit ruefully.

"Plenty," said the Indian; "we get prairie chicken and rabbit plenty."
But his keen eyes scarcely glanced at the food. He was busy slitting one
of the sleeves from his buckskin shirt, cutting it into bandages. His
knife was already shaping splints from the scrub poplar. Little Jerry,
his eyes full of pain, watched him, knowing of the agony to come,
when even those gentle Indian fingers could not save his poor ankle
from torture while they set the broken bone. Suddenly the misery of
anticipation was arrested by a great and glad cry from the Indian, who
had discovered and pounced upon a small scarlet blossom that was growing
down near the slough. He caught up the flower, root and all, carrying
it triumphantly to where the injured boy lay. Within ten minutes he had
made a little fire, placed the scarlet flower, stem and root, in the
teapot, half filled it up with water, and set it boiling. Then he turned
to Billy.

"Sleeping medicine," he said, pointing to the teapot. "He not have pain.
You stay until he awake, then you ride on to Fort o' Farewell. You take
some food. You leave some for us. You send wagon, take him home. I stay
with him. Maybe four, five days before you get there and send wagon
back. You trust me? I give him sleeping medicine. I watch him. You trust
me--Five Feathers?"

But Jerry's hand was already clasping the Indian's, and Billy was
interrupting.

"Trust you? Trust Five Feathers, the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay
country? I should think I will trust you!"

The Indian nodded quietly; and, taking the teapot from the fire, poured
the liquid into one of the cups, cooling it by dripping from one cup to
the other over and over again. Presently it began to thicken, almost
like a jelly, and turned a dull red color, then brighter, clearer,
redder. Suddenly the Indian snatched up the prostrate boy to a sitting
posture. One hand was around the boy's shoulder, the other held the tin
cup, brimming with reddening, glue-like stuff.

"Quick!" he said, looking at Billy. "You trust me?"

"Yes," said the boy, very quietly. "Give it to him."

"Yes," said Jerry; "give it to me."

The Indian held the cup to the little chap's lips. One, two, three
minutes passed. The boy had swallowed every drop. Then the Indian laid
him flat on the grass. For a moment his suffering eyes looked into those
of his brother, then he glanced at the sky, the trees, the far horizon,
the half-obliterated buffalo trail. Then his lids drooped, his hands
twitched, he lay utterly unconscious.

With a rapidity hardly believable in an Indian, Five Feathers skinned
off the boy's sock, ran his lithe fingers about the ankle, clicked the
bone into place, splinted and bandaged it like an expert surgeon; but,
with all his haste, it was completed none too soon. Jerry's eyes slowly
opened, to see Billy smiling down at him, and Five Feathers standing
calmly by his side.

"Bully, Jerry! Your ankle is all set and bandaged. How do you feel?"
asked his brother, a little shakily.

"Just tired," said the boy. "Tired, but no pain. Oh, I wish I could have
stayed!"

"Stayed where?" demanded Billy.

"With the scarlet flowers!" whispered Jerry. "I've been dreaming, I
think," he continued. "I thought I was walking among fields and fields
of scarlet flowers. They were so pretty."

Five Feathers sprang to his feet. "Good! Good!" he exclaimed. "I scared
he would not see them. If he see red flowers, he all right. Sometimes,
when they don't see it, they not get well soon." Then, under his breath,
"The Scarlet Eye!"

"I saw them all right!" almost laughed the boy. "Miles of them. I could
see and smell them. They smelled like smoke--like prairie fires."

"Get well right away!" chuckled the Indian. "_Very_ good to smell them."
Then to Billy: "You eat. You get ready. You ride now to Fort o'
Farewell."

So they built up the dying fire, made tea, cooked a little bacon, and
all three ate heartily.

"I'll leave you the teapot, of course," said Billy, taking a dozen
hardtack and one tin of sardines. "Slough water's good enough for me."

But Five Feathers gripped him by the arm--an iron grip--not at all with
the gentle fingers that had so recently dressed the other boy's wounded
ankle. "You not go that way!" he glared, his fine eyes dark and
scowling. "Yes, we keep teapot, but you take bread, and antelope, and
more fat fish," pointing to the sardines. "Fat fish very good for long
ride. You take, or I not let you go!"

There was such a strange severity in his dark face that Billy did not
argue the matter, but quietly obeyed, taking one loaf of bread, half
the antelope, and three tins of the "fat fish."

"Plenty prairie chicken here," explained the Indian. "I make good soup
for Little Brave."

"What a nice name to call me, Five Feathers!" smiled Jerry.

"Yes, you Little Brave," replied the Indian. "Little boy, but very big
brave."

At the last moment Jerry and his brother clasped hands. "I hate to leave
you, old man," said Billy, a little unsteadily.

"Why, I'm not afraid," answered the boy. "You and father and I all know
that I am with the best Indian in the Hudson's Bay country--we _do_ know
it, don't we, Billy?"

"I'll stake my life on that," replied Billy, swinging into his saddle.
"Remember, Jerry, it's only a hundred miles. I'll be there in two days,
and the wagon will be here in another two."

"Yes, I'll remember," replied the sick boy.

Then Billy struck rather abruptly up the half-obliterated buffalo trail.
Several times he turned in his saddle, looking back and waving his
bandanna, and each time the Indian stood erect and lifted his open palm.
The receding horse and rider grew smaller, less, fainter, then they
blurred into the horizon. The sick boy closed his eyes, that ached from
watching the fading figure. He was utterly alone, with leagues of
untracked prairie about him, alone with Five Feathers, a strange Indian,
who sat silently nearby.

When Jerry awoke, the sun was almost setting, and Five Feathers was
in precisely the same place and in precisely the same attitude. Once,
in his dreams, wherein he still wandered through fields of scarlet
flowers, he watched a bud unfolding. It opened with a sound like a
revolver shot, or was it really a revolver? The boy turned over on his
side, for a savory odor greeted his nostrils, and he looked wonderingly
around. Five Feathers had evidently not been sitting there throughout
that long June afternoon, for, within an arm's length was the jolliest
little tepee made of many branches of poplar and cottonwood, sides and
roof all one thick mass of green leaves and branches woven together like
basketwork, a bed of short, dry prairie grass, fragrant and brown, his
own saddlebags and single blanket for pillow and mattress. And on the
fire the teapot, steaming with that delicious savory odor.

"What is it?" asked the boy, indicating the cooking.

"Prairie chicken," smiled the Indian. "I shoot while you sleep."

So _that_ was the bursting of the scarlet bud!

"Very good chicken," continued the Indian. "Very fat--good for eat, good
soup, both."

So they made their supper off the tender stew, and soaked some hardtack
in the soup. It seemed to Jerry a royal meal, and he made up his mind
that, when he arrived home, he would get his mother to stew a prairie
hen in the teapot some day; it tasted so much better than anything he
had ever eaten before.

The sun had set, and the long, long twilight of the north was gathering.
Five Feathers built up the fire, for the prairie night brings a chill,
even in June.

"Did you see them again, the red flowers, while you slept?" he asked the
boy.

"Yes; fields of them," replied Jerry. Then added, "Why?"

"It is good," said the Indian. "Very good. You will now have what we
call 'The Scarlet Eye.'"

"What's that?" asked Jerry, half frightened.

"It's very good. You will yourself be a great medicine man--what you
white men call 'doctor.' You like to be that?"

"I never thought of studying medicine until to-day," said the boy,
excitedly; "but, just as Billy rode away, something seemed to grip me.
I made up my mind then and there to be a doctor."

"That is because you have seen 'The Scarlet Eye,'" said the Indian,
quietly.

"Tell me of it, will you, Five Feathers?" asked the boy, gently.

"Yes, but first I lift you on to bed." And, gathering Jerry in his
strong, lean arms, he laid him on the grass couch in the green tepee,
looked at his foot, loosened all his clothing, spread the one blanket
over him, stirred up the fire, and, sitting at the tepee door, began
the story.


THE SCARLET EYE

"Only the great, the good, the kindly people ever see it. One must live
well, must be manly and brave, and talk straight without lies, without
meanness, or 'The Scarlet Eye' will never come to them. They tell me
that, over the great salt water, in your white man's big camping-ground
named London, in far-off England, the medicine man hangs before his
tepee door a scarlet lamp, so that all who are sick may see it, even in
the darkness.* It is the sign that a good man lives within that tepee,
a man whose life is given to help and heal sick bodies. We redskins of
the North-West have heard this story, so we, too, want a sign of a
scarlet lamp, to show where lives a great, good man. The blood of the
red flower shows us this. If you drink it and see no red flowers, you
are selfish, unkind; your talk is not true; your life is not clear; but,
if you see the flowers, as you did to-day, you are good, kind, noble.
You will be a great and humane medicine man. You have seen the Scarlet
Eye. It is the sign of kindness to your fellowmen."

[*Some of the Indian tribes of the Canadian North-West are familiar
with the fact that in London, England, the sign of a physician's
office is a scarlet lamp suspended outside the street door.]


The voice of Five Feathers ceased, but his fingers were clasping the
small hand of the white boy, clasping it very gently.

"Thank you, Five Feathers," Jerry said, softly. "Yes, I shall study
medicine. Father always said it was the noblest of all the professions,
and I know to-night that it is."

A moment later, Jerry lay sleeping like a very little child. For a while
the Indian watched him silently. Then, arising, he took off his buckskin
shirt, folded it neatly, and, lifting the sleeping boy's head, arranged
it as a pillow. Then, naked to the waist, he laid himself down outside
near the fire--and he, too, slept.

The third day a tiny speck loomed across the rim of sky and prairie. It
grew larger with the hours--nearer, clearer. The Indian, shading his
keen eyes with his palm, peered over the miles.

"Little brave," he said, after some silent moments, "they are coming,
one day sooner than we hoped. Your brother, he must have ride like the
prairie wind. Yes, one, no, two buckboards--Hudson's Bay horses. I know
them, those horses."

The boy sat up, staring into the distance. "I don't know whether I'm
glad or sorry," he said. "Father will be driving one buckboard, I know,
and I'd like to see him, but, oh, I don't want to leave you, Five
Feathers!"

"You not leave me, not for long," said the Indian. "You come back some
day, when you great doctor. Maybe you doctor my own people. I wait for
that time."

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