CHAPTER XVIII.
NETAWIS.
The encampment stood under the lee of a tall sandhill, a few pacesback from the brink of a frozen river. Here the forest ended in aragged fringe of pines; and, below, the river spread into a lagoon,with a sandy bar between it and the lake, and a narrow outlet whichshifted with every storm. The summer winds drove up the sand betweenthe pine-stems and piled it in hummocks, gaining a few yards annuallyupon the forest as the old trees fell. The winter winds brought downthe snow and whirled it among the hummocks until these too werecovered.
For three weeks the encampment had been pitched here; and for twoweeks snow had fallen almost incessantly, banking up the lodges andfreezing as it fell. At length wind and snow had ceased and givenplace to a hard black frost, still and aching, and a sky of steel,and a red, rayless sun.
A man came down the river-bank, moving clumsily in his snow-shoesover the hummocks; a man dressed as an Indian, in blanket-cloak andscarlet _mitases_. His head was shaven to the crown around atop-knot skewered with heron's feathers; his face painted with black,vermilion, and a single streak of white between the eyebrows.He carried a gun under his left arm, and over his shoulder a pole towhich he had slung the bodies of five beavers. Two dogs ran ahead ofhim straight for the encampment, which he had not discerned untilthey began to salute it with glad barking.
Five lodges formed the encampment--four of them grouped in a roughsemicircle among the main lodge, which stood back close under thesand-bank where an eddy of wind had scooped it comparatively clear ofsnow.
The hunter followed his dogs to the door of the main lodge and liftedits frozen tent-flap.
"Is it well done, Menehwehna?" he asked, and casting his pole withits load upon the floor he clapped his mittened hands together forwarmth. "Ough!" He began to pull the mittens off cautiously.
Menehwehna, seated with his back against the roof-pole (he had lainsick and fasting there all day), looked triumphantly towards hiswife, who crouched with her two daughters by the lodge fire.
"Said I not that he would bring us luck? And, being bitten, did theybite, my brother?" he asked mischievously.
"A little. It did not hurt at the time."
One of the two girls rose from beside the fire.
"Show me your hands, Netawis," she said.
Netawis--that is to say, John a Cleeve--stretched out his laceratedhands to the firelight. As he did so his blanket-cloak fell back,showing a necklace of wampum about his throat and another looserstring dangling against the stained skin of his breast. On hisoutstretched wrists two silver bangles twinkled, and two broad bandsof silver on the upper arms.
The girl fetched a bladder of beaver-fat and anointed his hands, herown trembling a little. Azoka was husband-high, and had beenconscious for some weeks of a bird in her breast, which stirred andbegan to flutter whenever she and Netawis drew close. At first, whenhe had been fit for little but to make kites for the children, shehad despised him and wondered at her father's liking. But Netawisdid not seem to care whether folks despised him or not; and thispiqued her. Whatever had to be learnt he learned humbly, and now theyoung men had ceased to speak of him as a good-for-nothing, Azokabegan to think that his differing from them was not wholly againsthim; and all the women acknowledged him to be slim and handsome.
"Many thanks, cousin," said Netawis as she bound up the wounds.Then he began to talk cheerfully over his shoulder to Menehwehna."Five washes I tried, and all were empty; but by the sixth the waterbubbled. Then I wished that I had you with me, for I knew that myhands would suffer." He smiled; this was one of his un-Indian tricks.
"It was well done, brother," said Menehwehna, and his eyes soughtthose of his wife Meshu-kwa who, still crouching by the fire, gazedacross it at the youth and the girl.
"But that is not all. While I was at work the dogs left me.At first I did not miss them; and then, finding them gone, I madesure they had run home in scorn of my hunting. But no; their tracksled me to a tree, not far up the stream, and there I found them.They were not barking, but sometimes they would nose around the trunkand sometimes fall back to a little distance and sit whining andtrembling while they stared up at it."
"And the tracks around the tree?"
"I could find none but what the dogs themselves had made. I tappedthe tree, and it was hollow. Then I saw on the north side, a littleabove my head, many deep scratches with moss hanging in strips fromthem. The trunk ran up straight, and was so stout that my two armswould not span more than a tenth of it; but the scratches went up tothe first fork, and there must be the opening, as I guess."
"Said I not that Netawis would become a hunter and bring us luck?"asked Menehwehna again. "He has found bear."
"Bear! Bear! Our Netawis has found bear!" cried two small urchinswho had been rolling and tumbling with the dogs and almost burningtheir toes at the edges of the fire. They were the children ofAzoka's elder sister Seeu-kwa, Muskingon's widow. Scrambling pastMenehwehna, who never spoke harshly to them, and paying no heed totheir mother's scolding, they ran out into the snow to carry the newsto the other lodges.
"Our Netawis has found bear!"
"What news is this?" asked some of the young men who lived in alodge apart--the bachelors' lodge--gathering round the doorway."Seeu-kwa, look to it that your children do not grow up to be littleliars."
Now John, surprised to find his news so important, had turned toAzoka with a puzzled smile. The firelight which danced on his facedanced also on the long bead necklace heaving like a snake with therise and fall of her bosom. He stared down at it, and Azoka--poorgirl--felt his wrist trembling under her touch; but it was with thethought of another woman. She caught her hand away; and John,looking up, saw a young Indian, Ononwe by name, watching him gloomilyfrom the doorway.
"Ask Netawis to tell the story," said Menehwehna. So John told itagain, and added that it had been difficult to call the dogs awayfrom the tree.
"But about the bear I say nothing; that is Menehwehna's talk.I only tell you what I saw."
"The wind has fallen," said one, "and soon the moon will be up.Let us go and prove this tale of Netawis."
Meshu-kwa opposed this, calling it folly. "We have no axes heavyenough for tree-cutting," she said; not giving her real reason, whichwas that she came of a family which claimed descent from a bear.When they mocked at her she said, "Also--why should I hide it?--therecame to me an evil dream last night."
"This is the first that I have heard of your evil dream," answeredMenehwehna, and gave order that after supper Netawis should lead theparty to the tree, promising that he himself would follow as soon asthe sickness left him.
At moonrise, therefore, they set out--men and women together, andeven the small children. But Menehwehna called Azoka back from thedoor of the lodge.
"My daughter," he asked, they two being left alone, "has Ononwe acause of quarrel against Netawis?"
"They are good friends," Azoka answered innocently. "Ononwe neverspeaks of Netawis but to praise. Surely my father has heard him?"
"That is returning a ball I never flung," her father said, fixinggrave eyes on her, under which she flinched. "I am thinking that theface of Netawis troubles the clear water that once was between youand Ononwe. Yet you tell me that Ononwe praises him. Sit down,therefore, and hear this tale."
Azoka looked rebellious; but no one in his own household disobeyedMenehwehna--or out of it, except at peril.
"There was a man of our nation once, a young man, and good-looking asOnonwe; so handsome that all the village called him the Beau-man.This Beau-man fell deeply in love with a maiden called Mamondago-kwa,who also was passably handsome; but she had no right to scorn him asshe did, both in private and openly, so that all the village talkedof his ill-success. This talk so preyed on his mind that he fellill, and when his friends broke up their camp after a winter'shunting to return to the village, he lay on his bed and would notstir, but declared he would remain and die in the snow rather thanlook again on the f
ace of her who scorned him. So at length theytook down the lodge about him and went their ways, leaving him todie.
"But when the last of them was out of sight this Beau-man aroseand, wandering over the ground where the camp had been, he gatheredup all kinds of waste that his comrades had left behind--scraps ofcloth, beads, feathers, bones and offal of meat, with odds and endsof chalk, soot, grease, everything that he could pick out of thetrodden snow. Then, having heaped them together, he called on hisguardian _manitou_, and together they set to work to make a man.They stitched the rags into coat, _mitoses_ and mocassins, andgarnished them with beads and fringes; of the feathers they made ahead-dress, with a frontlet; and then, taking mud, they plastered theoffal and bones together and stuffed them tightly into the garments.The _manitou_ breathed once, and to the eye all their patchworkbecame fresh and fine clothing. The _manitou_ breathed twice, andlife came into the figure, which the Beau-man had been kneading intothe shape of a handsome youth. 'Your name,' said he, 'is Moowis, orthe Muck-man, and by you I shall take my revenge.'
"So he commanded the Muck-man to follow, and together they went afterthe tracks of the tribe and came to the village. All wondered at theBeau-man's friend and his fine new clothes; and, indeed, this Moowishad a frank appearance that won all hearts. The chief invited him tohis lodge, and begged the Beau-man to come too; he deserved no lessfor bringing so distinguished a guest. The Beau-man accepted, but byand by began to repent of his deception when he saw the Muck-man fedwith deer tongue and the moose's hump while he himself had to becontent with inferior portions, and when he observed further thatMamondago-kwa had no eyes for anyone but the Muck-man, who began toprove himself a clever rogue. The chief would have promoted Moowisto the first place by the fire; but this (for it would have meltedhim) he modestly refused. He kept shifting his place while hetalked, and the girl thought him no less vivacious than modest, andno more modest than brave, since he seemed even to prefer the cold tothe cheerful warmth of the hearth. The Beau-man attempted to talk;but the Muck-man had always a retort at which the whole companylaughed, until the poor fellow ran out of the lodge in a fury ofshame and rage. As he rose he saw the Muck-man rise, with the assentof all, and cross over to the bridegroom's seat beside Mamondago-kwa,who welcomed him as a modest maiden should when her heart has beenfairly won.
"So it happened--attend to me well, my daughter--that Mamondago-kwamarried a thing of rags and bones, put together with mud. But whenthe dawn broke her husband rose up and took a bow and spear, saying,'I must go on a journey.' 'Then I will go with you,' said his bride.'My journey is too long for you,' said the Muck-man. 'Not so,'answered she; 'there is no journey that I could not take beside you,no toil that I could not share for love of you.' He strode forth,and she followed him at a distance; and the Beau-man, who had keptwatch all night outside their lodge, followed also at a distance,unseen. All the way along the rough road Mamondago-kwa called to herhusband; but he went forward rapidly, not turning his head, and shecould not overtake him. Soon, as the sun rose, he began to melt.Mamondago-kwa did not see the gloss go out of his clothes, nor hishandsome features change back again into mud and snow and filth.But still as she followed she came on rags and feathers and scraps ofclothing, fluttering on bushes or caught in the crevices of therocks. She passed his mittens, his mocassins, his _mitases_,his coat, his plume of feathers. At length, as he melted, hisfootprints grew fainter, until she lost even his track on the snow.'Moowis! Moowis!' she cried; but now there was none to answer her,for the Muck-man had returned to that out of which he was made."
Menehwehna ceased and looked at his daughter steadily.
"And did the Beau-man find her and fetch her back?" asked Azoka.
"The story does not say, to my knowledge; but it may be that Ononwecould tell you."
Azoka stepped to the moonlit doorway and gazed out over the snow.
"And yet you love Netawis?" she asked, turning her head.
"So much that I keep him in trust for his good, against a day when hewill go and never return. But that is not a maiden's way of loving,unless maidens have changed since I went a-courting them."
Netawis having led them to the tree, the young men fell to work uponit at once. It measured well over ten fathoms in girth; and bydaybreak, their axes being light, they had hewed it less thanhalf-way through. After a short rest they attacked it again, but thesun was close upon setting when the tree fell--with a rending screamwhich swelled into a roar so human-like that the children ran withone accord and caught hold of their elders' hands.
John, with Seeu-kwa's small boys clinging to him, stood about thirtypaces from the fallen trunk. Two or three minutes passed, and hewondered why the men did not begin to jeer at him for having foundthem a mare's nest. For all was quiet. He wondered also why none ofthem approached the tree to examine it.
"I shall be the mock of the camp from this moment," he thought, andsaid aloud, "Let go of my hands, little ones; there is no moredanger."
But they clung to him more tightly than ever; for a great cry wentup. From the opening by the fork of the trunk a dark body rolledlazily out upon the snow--an enormous she-bear. She uncurled andgathered herself up on all fours, blinking and shaking her head asthough the fall had left her ears buzzing, and so began to waddleoff. Either she had not seen the crowd of men and women, or perhapsshe despised it.
"Ononwe! Ononwe!" shouted the Indians; for Ononwe, gun in hand, hadbeen posted close to the opening.
He half-raised his gun, but lowered it again.
"Netawis found her," he said quietly. "Let Netawis shoot her."
He stepped back towards John who, almost before he knew, found thegun thrust into his hands; for the children had let go their clasp.
Amid silence he lifted it and took aim, wondering all the while whyOnonwe had done this. The light was fading. To be sure he could notmiss the bear's haunches, now turned obliquely to him; but to hit herwithout killing would be scarcely less dishonouring than to missoutright, and might be far more dangerous. His hand and forearmtrembled too--with the exertion of hewing, or perhaps from the strainof holding the children. Why had he been fool enough to take thegun? He foretasted his disgrace even as he pulled the trigger.
It seemed to him that as the smoke cleared the bear still walkedforward slowly. But a moment later she turned her head with one loudsnap of the jaws and lurched over on her side. Her great fore-padssmote twice on the powdery snow, then were still.
He had killed her, then; and, as he learned from the applause, by anexpert's shot, through the spine at the base of the skull. John hadaimed at this merely at a guess, knowing nothing of bears or theirvulnerable points, and in this ignorance neglecting a far easier markbehind the pin of the shoulder.
But more remained to wonder at; for the beast being certified fordead, Meshu-kwa ran forward and kneeling in the snow beside it beganto fondle and smooth the head, calling it by many endearing names.She seated herself presently, drew the great jaws on to her lap andspoke into its ear, beseeching its forgiveness. "O bear!" she criedfor all to hear, "O respected grandmother! You yourself saw thatthis was a stranger's doing. Believe not that Meshu-kwa is guilty ofyour death, or any of her tribe! It was a stranger that disturbedyour sleep, a stranger who fired upon you with this unhappy result!"
The men stood around patiently until this propitiation was ended; andthen fell to work to skin the bear, while Meshu-kwa went off with herdaughters to the lodges, to prepare the cooking pots. In passingJohn she gave him a glance of no good will.
That night, as Azoka stood by a cauldron in which the bear's fatbubbled, and the young men idled around the blaze, she saw Netawisdraw Ononwe aside into the darkness. Being a quick-witted girl shepromptly let slip her ladle into the fat, as if by mischance, and ranto her father's lodge for another, followed by Meshu-kwa's scoldingvoice. The lodge had a back-exit towards the wall of the sandhill,where the wind's eddy had swept a lane almost clear of snow; andAzoka pushed her pretty head through th
e flap-way here in time to spythe dark shadows of the pair before they disappeared behind thebachelor's lodge. Quietly as a pantheress she stole after them,smoothing out her footprints behind her until she reached thetrampled snow; and so, coming to the angle of the bachelors' lodge,cowered listening.
"But suppose that I had missed my shot?" said the voice of Netawis."I tell you that my heart was as wax; and when the lock fell, I sawnothing. Why, what is the matter with you, Ononwe?"
"I thought you had led me here to quarrel with me," Ononwe answeredslowly, and Azoka held her breath.
"Quarrel, brother? Why should I quarrel with you? It was a risk, asI am telling you; but you trusted me, and I brought you here to thankyou that in your good heart you gave the shot up to me."
"But it was not my good heart." Ononwe's voice had grown hoarse."It was an evil thought in my head, and you will have to quarrel withme, Netawis."
"That Ononwe is a good man," said Azoka to herself.
"I do not understand. Did you expect me, then, to miss? Do not say,brother, that you gave me the gun _wishing_ me to miss and be themock of the camp!"
"Yes, and no. I thought, if you took the gun, it would not matterwhether you hit or missed."
"Why?"
"Are you so simple, Netawis? Or is it in revenge that you force meto tell? . . . Yes, I have played you an evil trick, and by an eviltempting. I saw you with Azoka. . . . I gave you the gun, thinking,'If he misses, the whole camp will mock him, and a maid turns from aman whom others mock. But if he should kill the bear, he will haveto reckon with Meshu-kwa. Meshu-kwa fears ill-luck, and she willthink more than twice before receiving a son-in-law who has killedher grandmother the bear.'"
"I will marry Netawis," said Azoka to herself, shutting her teethhard. And yet she could not feel angry with Ononwe as she ought.But it seemed that neither was Netawis angry; for he answered withone of those strange laughs of his. She had never been able tounderstand them, but she had never heard one that sounded so unhappyas did this.
"My brother," said Netawis--and his voice was gentle and bitterlysorrowful--"if you did this in guile, I have shot better indeed thanyou to-day. As for Meshu-kwa, I must try to be on good terms withher again; and as for Azoka, she is a good girl, and thinks as littleof me as I of her. Last night when you saw us . . . I remember thatI looked down on her and something reminded me . . . of one . . ."He leaned a hand against a pole of the lodge and gripped it as theanguish came on him and shook him in the darkness. "Damn!" criedJohn a Cleeve, with a sob.
"Was that her name?" asked Ononwe gravely, hardly concealing therelief in his voice.
But Azoka did not hear Netawis' answer as she crept back, smoothingthe snow over her traces.