The Lonesome Trail. John G. Neihardt

of his song, for he told of a good fight and a strong arm, and he had been great in battle.

      Then, amid the shouting, another came forth to dance and sing, for he too had done great things. It was White Cloud, and he was great among his people. Round and round the circle he danced to the tune of the drums, dodging imaginary arrows, leaping upon imaginary foes, striking huge blows at the heads of warriors hidden in the shadow.

      “See!” he shouted in his song, and his voice was loud and masterful, for a murmur of praise had passed among the people. “See! White Cloud brings the scalp lock of a chief. He took it alone with his strong hand. The scalp lock of a big Sioux chief! Who has done a greater deed than White Cloud? Then let the old men place the eagle feather in his hair that he may be known among his people.”

      Once again the dancing stopped and the drums ceased their droning. White Cloud approached the old men, who slowly placed the eagle feather in his hair.

      But one among the assembled braves did not give his voice to the shout that ensued.

      His gaze narrowed with hatred as he looked upon White Cloud, and his body trembled as a strong tree that stands alone in the path of a tempest.

      Then as White Cloud strode proudly to the inner rim of the circle of braves, with the tall eagle feather in his hair, another came forth bearing with him his bow and his arrows. It was he who had found no voice in which to celebrate White Cloud’s valour.

      He was tall and sinewy, and he had the clear-cut, cruel face of a hawk, now dark with a darkness deeper than the shadow of the evening. It was Little Weasel.

      Erect, quivering like a strong bow in the clutch of a mighty warrior, he walked into the open space, and the drums once more began their wailing. But Little Weasel raised one trembling hand and commanded silence.

      “Fathers,” he said, and his voice was low, vibrant with the growl of a wounded beast in it, “Little Weasel needs no drums to help him fill the stillness.”

      The people bent forward, hushed, because there was something deeper than shadow in the face of Little Weasel as he turned his hawk’s gaze upon the bowed head of White Cloud.

      “Little Weasel has words to utter, but they are not song words nor dance words. Let the women and cowards sing and dance!”

      Still the head of White Cloud was bowed, and Little Weasel laughed a strange laugh.

      “Who took the scalplock of the big Sioux chief?” shouted Little Weasel. “I, Little Weasel, took it! One sleep, two sleeps, I kept it close beside me; for I am a young man and I wanted to hear the shouts of my people. But in the third sleep a great heaviness came upon me, and when I awoke my Sioux scalp lock had been stolen from me. Now I know the badger who crept upon me in my heaviness and stole my honour from me. Look! You have placed the eagle feather in his hair!”

      In the hush that filled that shadowed place naught but the heavy breathing of the people was heard. Little Weasel fitted a feathered arrow to his bow.

      “See!” he cried. “I do not cry about my stolen feather. I give another!”

      The bow-thong twanged, the arrow sang, and lodged deep in White Cloud’s breast.

      “Let White Cloud wear that feather in his breast so that the black spirits will know him! For look! Already he is among them!”

      White Cloud had fallen upon his face. Little Weasel dropped his bow upon the ground, and, raising his hands above his head, he shouted into the stillness: “Fathers, I have given feather for feather!”

      Then a great cry broke from the assembled braves and the women shrieked. But Little Weasel shouldered his way through the throng and went to his lodge, laughing bitterly.

      That evening the fires of the feast did not roar upward into the night. There was no song; there was no babble of glad voices; there was no bubbling of kettle nor scent of meat.

      For a member of the tribe had been murdered by a tribesman, and the murderer, according to an ancient custom, would be driven forth that night from the circle of the lodges into the prairie. And the people sat speechless at the dark doors of their lodges awaiting the signal.

      After a long and wordless waiting in the dark, the people saw the door-flap of the big council lodge swing open, and they held their breaths, for the time of the casting forth had come.

      Through the hush of the starlit night came Little Weasel, pacing slowly about the circle of the village, and the fathers of the council, slow with age, followed behind.

      Three times the outcast made the rounds, and when he began the fourth and last circle (for four is a medicine number), the old men who followed raised their faces to the starlit sky and breathed these words into the quiet:

      “Let the people look upon Little Weasel, our brother, for he has killed a brother and must suffer. Four times shall the bears bring forth their cubs; four times shall the lone goose fly; four times shall the frogs sing in the valleys; four times shall the sunflowers grow; and he must wander, wander. Then shall Little Weasel return and his deed shall be forgotten. Wah-hoo-ha-a-a-a!”

      Then when Little Weasel came the fourth time to the opening in the circle of lodges, looking toward the place of sunrise, he saw one standing in the dark who held a pony by a thong. And Little Weasel leaped upon the pony, laughed a loud, unpleasant laugh, and urged it southward into the night.

      Throughout the night the people in the village heard strange sounds. For at times somewhere in the darkness of the hills, something laughed a loud, unmirthful laugh.

      “Do you hear it?” the people whispered. “It is a wolf. For sometimes in the lonesome nights they laugh so.” But the people muffled their ears in their blankets, for it is not good to hear a wolf laugh almost like a man.

      All night long Little Weasel wandered upon the hills, holding his grazing pony and looking down upon the starlit village of his people. He laughed loudly at times, for he was not one of those who sadden with trouble.

      “How can I get revenge upon my people?” he asked himself. And as yet he could not answer.

      The pale dawn found him sitting upon the hills. Then he arose and mounted his pony and the three went southward—the pony, the man, and the question.

      A light wind blew upon his back.

      “How can I get revenge upon my people?” he sang aloud in endless variation until his question wove itself into a song—a battle song, for Little Weasel had not eaten, and hunger feeds anger. But the light wind sighing at his back made no answer.

      “I will go to the country of the Pawnees and make them angry with my people,” he said to himself, and this seemed the answer to his question until the sun had reached its highest in the sky and the wind had fallen and the yellow prairie had become parched and bare.

      In the afternoon he stopped in the glare of the sun and held one wet finger above his head that he might learn the source of the wind.

      There was a faint breath from the south. As he stood it increased, coming in little puffs, hot and fitful and dry. Suddenly it came with a great puff and boomed in the arid gulches.

      Little Weasel shouted with joy.

      He had heard his answer in the booming of the sudden wind. He dismounted, and, with a flint and some dry grass, lit a little fire.

      The great wind fed it and it grew. Then Little Weasel collected a bunch of grass, lit it and rapidly set fire to the dry prairie.

      Long, yellow flames leaped up from the sun-cured buffalo-grass, howled in the wind that grew stronger and stronger, and raced northward toward the valley where the circled lodges of the Omahas lay.

      “Now I will go back,” said Little Weasel, “and the fire shall go with me.” He kicked his pony in the ribs and pointed its head northward. The wave of flame preceded him, skimming the surface of the grass with great leaps, gaining strength and fleetness as the dry wind lashed it from behind.

      “Aha-ha-he-ha-ha-ha-ha!”