CHAPTER XVII
THE STORY OF A MAN-KILLER
"Yes," said Jack, "this is bully; I'd love to hear it."
"Well," said Joe, "this happened a long time before the whitepeople came. In those days we didn't have any guns. I expect thebears knew that they were stronger and better armed, and theyweren't a bit afraid of the people. Often they wouldn't move outof the road if they saw people coming; but the people were alwaysafraid of them and willing to let them alone. Very few men everkilled a bear, and those that had done so were thought brave. Itwas more to kill a bear than it was to kill two or three of theenemy, and a man who had killed a bear used to string its claws,and make a collar that he wore about his neck.
"In those times we had no horses, and the only animals that wepacked, or that hauled the travois, were the dogs; and so thepeople did not wander far over the prairie as they do to-day; theyused to stop in one place for a long time, and did not move campexcept for some good reason. You see, the people could pack someof their things on the dogs, but besides that, men and women, andsometimes even the children, had to carry heavy packs on theirbacks whenever they moved. In those days, a great place forcamping in summer was the valley of Two Medicine Lodge River. Youknow where it is, Hugh?"
"Yes, I should say so," said Hugh.
"That was a good place. Berries grew there, big and sweet; andalong the river were high steep bluffs, over which the hunters usedto lead the buffalo, which were killed by falling on the rocksbelow.
"One summer the people were camped there, as usual. It had beena good summer. All about the lodges, whichever way one looked,you could see only red, the red of meat hanging on the trees andbushes, and scaffolds, drying, above the reach of the dogs; andall over the ground, spread out so thick as to cover almost allthe grass, were the skins of buffalo, elk and deer, on which wereheaped berries, curing in the sun, to be used during the winter. Nowonder the people were happy, and that you could hear laughter andsinging all through the camp. They had plenty of food; they fearednothing. No enemies were near at hand; the Stonies of the north,the Kutenais and Flatheads of the west, ran away when the Pieganscame in sight; they did not dare to wait to fight them.
"It was a very hot day; there was no wind, and the sun burned down,so that no one could work. The lodge skins were raised, and allthe people sat or lay in the shade, some smoking, some talking andothers sleeping. Even the little children had stopped playing, andthe camp was quiet. Suddenly, at the west end of the village, agreat noise was heard, cries and screams, and wailing by women; andfrom all directions men and women and frightened children beganrunning to the place, crying to each other, 'What has happened?Who is it that is suffering?' About two women who were seated onthe ground a crowd had gathered. These women were mourning andcrying and sobbing as they wailed, 'Our husband! our husband! agreat bear seized him, and carried him away into the bushes. Oh, weshall never see him again.'
"The chief talked to them; their relations and friends tried tohelp them, and little by little in broken words the women told whathad happened. Early that morning, with their husband, they had goneup the river to pick berries. They had gone far, and the sun hadreached the middle by the time they came to the bushes where theberries hung ripe and red. There were so many that it had takenbut a little time for them to gather all they wished, and theyhad started toward home along the game trail which followed thestream. The women were walking ahead, their husband following, andwere crossing a grassy opening between two points of trees, whensuddenly the husband shouted to them, 'Run, run fast to the nearesttrees; a bear is coming.'
"Looking back, they had seen their husband running as fast as hecould, and behind him a whitish colored bear, so large that itseemed almost as great as a full grown buffalo bull. Its mouth waswide open, and they could see its long white tusks as it raced overthe grass with great jumps. The women dropped their berry sacks andran as fast as they could. Their husband was now close behind them,and kept urging them on; but fast as they ran, the bear ran faster,and the husband, seeing that it would soon overtake them, hadonce more shouted to them to 'run fast,' and then had stopped toface the bear, calling out that he would try to save them. Just asthey reached the trees they heard a fierce growl, and looking backsaw that the husband had shot an arrow into the bear, but beforehe could shoot another, the beast was upon him, threw him down,and taking him by the shoulder dragged him to the timber near theriver. The women had continued to run, and had come to the camp asfast as they could.
"When they had told their story, a Kutenai woman, a captive,who had learned to speak Blackfoot, spoke and said, 'This bearis surely he whom my people have named Man-eater. He is a greattraveler. One summer he may be living in the valley of theBeaverhead, and the next season perhaps he will be found on theElk River of the north. The Kutenais, the Flatheads, and all themountain people know him too well. He likes the flesh of humanbeings better than that of game, and has killed many of us. In vainthe hunters have pierced his sides with their sharpest arrows.They cannot harm him, and we think that he possesses some strongmedicine, and cannot be killed. Indeed, now they no longer try tokill him, but as soon as he appears, they move camp, and travel along distance to some other place. Listen to my words: tear downyour lodges now, pack the dogs, and move away at once, before heshall kill more of you.'
"That night the chief and all his warriors talked together aboutall this, and after they had counciled for a long time, they said,'We are not Kutenais, to run away from a bear. We will go to huntthis animal, and avenge the death of our friend.' The next daythey started, many brave warriors, and when they reached the parkthey placed some of the strongest and best bowmen at the upper endof the bottom, while the rest went through the timber to drive ittoward them. They found the body of their friend, partly eaten,but there was no sign of the bear; he had disappeared. It seemedas if such a large and heavy animal must leave behind him a plaintrail of weeds crushed down, grass flattened, deep marks of feet insoft and sandy places; but from where he had eaten that poor man nosigns were seen.
"Why did they not listen to the Kutenais woman's words! The verynext day, almost at the edge of the camp the great bear killed twowomen and carried one of them away to feast upon, as he had beforedone with the man. In the camp the screams of the poor women wereplainly heard, but before the men could arm themselves and rush tothe place, they were dead.
"Now the whole camp turned out, every man; and making a ring aboutthe point of timber, they all drew toward its center. They movedslowly, carefully, each man with his arrow fixed on the string, andsaid to each other, 'Surely now this bear will not escape.'
"A thicket of close-set willow stems grew beneath the greatcottonwoods, and from a clump of these willows the bear sprang onone of the men, and crushed his head with a single blow of hispaw. 'Here he is,' cried those nearby, and they let fly theirarrows into its sides, as the bear stood growling and tearing thedead person; but when the arrows struck him the bear sprang hereand there among the men, turning like a whirlwind of fur, whilehis claws cut and his jaws snapped; and four more men fell to theground dead or dying. The people all ran away.
"Now there was great sorrow and mourning in the camp. After alittle time some of the men ventured back into the timber, andbrought away the bodies of their companions; and the women,wrapping them in robes, lashed them on scaffolds in the trees, aswas the old way. Then at last they listened to the words of theKutenai woman. The lodges were pulled down, everything was packedup, and the tribe moved southward, to the banks of the Big River.Six long days they were on the trail, and the man-eater did nottrouble them again. Perhaps he did not wish to follow them; perhapssome one of the arrows shot into him had killed him. So the peopletalked; but the Kutenai woman laughed. 'You may be sure,' she said,'that he is not dead. The arrow has not been made that will reachhis heart. His medicine is strong.'
"All through the winter the people talked of what had happened, andof the camping place under the cliffs of Two Medicine Lodge River.There was no place w
here it was so easy to kill meat as there, andwhen spring came they moved back there once more. The day afterthey had camped, the hunters went out, up and down the valley, andfound the buffalo and elk and deer as plenty as ever; but they sawno sign of the great bear.
"The next day the chief's son went out with his mother and sister,to watch for them while they dug roots, and as they were goingalong, without any warning the great bear sprang from a thicket bythe trail, struck the young man before he could draw an arrow, andcarried him away without a glance at the women, who stood silent intheir fear.
"When the chief was told what had happened, he was almost crazywith anger and sorrow. He ordered all the men in the camp togo with him to the place. But not one of them would go. 'It isuseless', they said; 'we are not fools to throw away our livestrying to kill an animal whose medicine is so strong that he cannotbe killed with arrows.' The chief begged and threatened them, butno one would go with him to recover the body of his son. All fearedthe bear. That day camp was broken, and the people once more movedaway from the place that they loved best of all their campinggrounds. It was no longer theirs. The bear had driven them from it.
"From that day the chief seemed different. Now he no longer laughedand made jokes and invited his friends to feast with him. Instead,he kept by himself, seldom speaking, eating little, often sittingalone in his lodge, and thinking always of the dear son who hadbeen taken from him. One day he took his daughter by the hand,and went out to the center of the camp, and called all the peopletogether. When all had come, he said to them, 'My children, lookat this young woman standing by me. Many of you here have tried tomarry this daughter, but she has always asked me to allow her toremain unmarried, and I have always said that she should do asshe wished. Listen: I am still mourning for the death of my son.Now, I call the Sun, who looks down upon us, and who hears what Iam saying, to hear this: whichever one of all you men that shallgo out and kill that bear, to him I will give my daughter for hiswife.' Then he turned to the girl, and said to her 'Have I spokenwell, my daughter? Do you agree to my words?' The girl looked athim, and then said aloud, 'Since you wish it, I will marry the manwho will kill that bear, and will thus wipe away our tears.'
"Then the girl hurried back to her father's lodge.
"All through the camp now the only thing talked about was the offerthe chief had made, and the young men were trying to think how itmight be possible to kill this bear; yet none of them said that heintended to try to marry the girl, for they all believed that thebear could not be killed.
"There was one young man who, when he heard the words of the chief,was glad. Ravenhead was very poor, he had not a single relation,and as far back as he could remember he had lived as best hecould. That means that he had been often hungry, and had worn poorclothing, and had often lain shivering through the winter nights;that he had run errands for every one, and had often been scolded.Now he was grown up; he had gone out to dream for power, and hadbecome a warrior. His dream had been good to him, and in his sleepthere had come to him a secret helper, who had promised to aid himin time of danger and of need. For a long time the young man hadloved the daughter of the chief, but he knew that one so poor ashe could never hope to marry her. Sometimes when he happened topass her on the trail, as she was going for water or as she walkedthrough the camp, she seemed to look at him kindly and as if shewere asking him something; yet she never spoke to him, but hurriedby, and he was always afraid to speak to her; yet sometimes he usedto ask himself what her kind looks meant.
"But now, since the chief had spoken, it seemed as if Ravenheadmight hope. Those words had rolled away the clouds that hung overhim, and if he could only kill the bear, he could marry the girl.He determined that he would kill the bear; some way could be foundto do it, he felt sure. Now, for a little while Ravenhead keptby himself, praying, thinking, planning, trying to devise a wayby which he might kill the bear, and yet himself not be hurt.Four days passed, and yet in all the camp no one had said that heintended to try to marry the girl. This made Ravenhead glad.
"And there was another thing. For four nights he had dreamed thesame dream. In his sleep he saw the picture of a great bear,painted as large as if alive, upon the side of a new lodge. It waspainted in black; the long claws, and open jaws, with their greatwhite tusks, showed plainly; and from the mouth ran back the lifeline, a green band passing from the mouth back to the heart, whichwas red. Ravenhead was sitting by the river, considering his dreamreaching out dimly with his mind for its meaning when suddenly hesprang to his feet as if he had been stung, for all at once therehad flashed upon him what seemed to be the way of success. Thedream had shown it to him.
"He turned toward the village, and there, only a step or two away,stood the chief's daughter, holding her water-skin, looking at himas she had looked before. Ravenhead stepped forward and stood nearher. Twice he tried to speak, but the words would not come. Then helooked at her, and as she smiled at him, he said, 'I am going tohunt the great bear, and if I return I shall come to you.' The girldropped the water-skin, and put her arms about his neck, as shesaid, 'I have tried to make you see, so far as a girl can, that Ilove you.' They kissed and clung to each other, there by the river;but soon the girl sent him from her, telling him to take courage;to go, and to return safe and successful. When he had gone shestood there by the river, and not able to see before her for thetears which filled her eyes, as she prayed to the Sun to protectthe young man.
"Ravenhead travelled for four days before he reached the old campgrounds, near the Two Medicine Lodge cliffs. He had left thevillage alone; no one but the girl had known his purpose. He cameout into the valley, and looked up and down it, seeing nothingexcept the game, feeding peacefully, and, lashed on their platformsin the branches of the trees, the silent forms that the bear hadkilled. He wondered if he, too, was to become a prey of thismedicine animal.
"All that day Ravenhead walked about the valley, looking for thebear, keeping in the open timber or along its borders, where hecould look over the parks and the slopes of the valley. He did notpass close to the thickets of brush, or to sloughs of tall grass,where the bear might lie hidden. On his back, in case and quiver,were his bow and his arrows; only three of these, for he had beentoo poor to trade for more, and he would not beg for any. Hecarried also a pouch of dried meat, that he had killed and roastedthe day before, and a little bag of small stones.
"Although he kept looking until dusk, he did not see the bear, andthen, building a platform of poles in a tree, he lay down on it andslept. That night, in his dream, he again saw the picture of thebear; and as he was looking at it, his secret helper came to him,and pointing at it said, 'Thick fur, tough hide, hard muscle, andbroad ribs may stop the sharpest arrow. The easy way to reach theheart is down through the throat.'
"This was what had come to him so suddenly the day he sat thinkingand planning by the riverside back of the village. He did notbelieve that this bear had powerful medicine, or that he could notbe killed. If he only could shoot an arrow down its throat, hebelieved that he would be successful.
"As soon as day had come, Ravenhead climbed down from the tree, andagain began to search for the bear, hopefully now, yet constantlypraying to the Sun to grant him success.
"It was yet early in the morning when he saw the great bear, lazilywalking across a little park toward the river, and stepping outfrom the shelter of the timber, Ravenhead shouted to attract itsattention. The bear reared up at the sound; then Ravenhead firstsaw how great he was; and as the bear stood there on his broad hindfeet, he turned his head slowly, this way, that way, smelling theair. Ravenhead waved his robe, and shouted again, calling the bearcoward and other bad names; and presently the bear slowly droppeddown on all fours and came toward him. The young man had gone outsome little distance into the park, but now he began to go backtoward the timber, and as he went faster, so did the bear, untilboth were running very fast, and the bear was gaining. To theyoung man, looking back, it seemed scarcely to touch the ground;and it drew nearer and nearer,
though he was running as fast as hecould. Presently, he could hear the bear pant, and just as he didso he reached the foot of the nearest tree. Almost in an instanthe was up among the branches, but he was not too soon. The clawsof the bear almost grazed his heels, and tore away a great pieceof the bark. From the limb on which he sat, Ravenhead, panting forbreath, looked down at the bear as it sat at the foot of the tree.The beast was huge, its head monstrous, its eyes little and mean,and from its mouth, in which the long white teeth showed, the foamdripped down over its neck and shoulders.
"The young man drew his bow from its case, and fitted an arrowto the string, and then taking a stone from his sack, threw itdown, hitting the bear on the nose. The bear jumped up, growlingwith rage and pain, and then came a shower of stones, one afteranother, hitting him on the head, the body, and the paws, and eachone hurting. He bit at the places where they struck, growled, andtore up the ground, and at last rushed to the tree, trying to dragit down, or to climb up it, reaching up as far as he could, in hisattempt to seize his tormentor.
"Here was the chance that Ravenhead had been planning for, prayingfor, waiting for. He bent far over toward the bear, and drawingthe arrow to its head, drove it with all his might down the bear'sgaping throat. The great jaws shut with a snap, the growl died awayto a wheezing cough, and then, after a moment, while the bloodstreamed from his nose and his lips, the great bear sank back tothe ground. His gasping breath came slower and slower, and then,with a long shudder which almost frightened Ravenhead, so strongwas it, he died."
* * * * *
"There was great excitement in the village; people running toand fro and calling to one another; women and children standingin groups and pointing to a young man who was entering the camp.Ravenhead had returned, weary, bloody, and dusty, and staggeringunder the weight of the head and part of the hide of the greatbear. The people gathered about him, calling out his name andsinging songs of what he had done, and followed him to the door ofthe chief's lodge, where he threw down the heavy burden. The chiefcame out, and put his arms about him, and led him inside, and gavehim the seat at his left hand. The chief's daughter set food beforehim; she did not speak, but her face was happy. The young man toldthe chief how he had killed the bear, and while he was talking,the women hurried to make a sweat lodge for him, and when it wasready, with the chief and the medicine men, he entered it and tooka sweat, purifying his body from the touch of the bear. Then,after the sweat had been taken, and the prayers said, and he hadplunged in the river, they all returned to the lodge, just as thesun was setting. The chief pointed to a new lodge, set up near hisown. 'There is your home, my son; may you live long and happily.'Ravenhead entered and saw his wife.
"Without, the people were dancing around the scalp of the bear.They were happy, for the death of the bear had wiped away the tearsof those whose relations he had killed."
"That's a splendid story, Joe," said Jack. "That's about the beststory I ever heard. I wish I could remember it to tell it when Iget back east, the way you tell it."
"Yes," said Hugh, "that's a mighty good story, and mighty welltold. Who did you hear it from, Joe?"
"I heard it first from Four Bears, and then afterwards I heard myuncle tell it."
"Well," said Hugh, "you told it mighty well, but I don't wondermuch, for Four Bears is about the best story teller I ever heard.But you remember it mighty well, and tell it well. It's a rightgood story.
"Now, boys," he added, "I think to-morrow we'll pack up and go aday or two further down the creek here, and then see what turns up.These horses of ours have filled themselves up pretty well now, andare able to go along all right, and we might as well go on a littlefurther. So, say we pack up to-morrow morning."
"All right," said the boys, and they went to bed.