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506 8> THE YOUTH’S COMPANION &8&38 FOR ALL THE FAMILY &&36 October 3, 1912 S&S
tribe began its song. We alternated in singing | somehow made me think of the northern lights | Whoever will get me one shall choose two
and firing salutes until we met. Then the |alternately flashing and dying in the winter | hundred head of horses from my band !”*
Pitamakan, standing by my side, nudged me
in the ribs. **We will go get it for him,”” he
leaders of both tribes dismounted and embraced |
one another, sat down, and smoked a pipe of
friendship, while we common ones looked on. |
“Brother,”” said our chief, Big Lake, to
Ap-o-kai-yo, White Bear, the Pend d’Oreilles
chief, *‘I am glad that you are come into our
country, and that we are met this day. In
my band of horses is a certain black, swift |
four-year-old; I give him to you.’”
*I shall be glad to receive your present,’”
replied White Bear, in fairly good Blackfoot.
“I and my children are happy to be with you
this day here on your plains. We have looked
forward to this day and to meeting you. =The
gods are good; they have given us a fine day.
1 take that to be a sign that we shall eontinue
to live in friendship.””
There were so many to share in the pipe of
peace that it was soon smoked out. When the
last whiff had been drawn, the medicine-man, |
who was master of ceremonies, ostentatiously ‘
knocked out the ashes, the party rose and
mounted their horses, and the long column |
proceeded on its way. |
sky. The performance did not last long.
Following it, old Sees Far did a dance all by
himself that created a sensation. Moving out
from the others and seating himself near the |
fire, he placed in front of him something round
and long, enclosed in a painted buckskin sack. |
Tor five minutes or more he sat with bowed |
head, praying, sometimes gently pressing the |
sack with the palms of both hands, and fre- |
quently making the sign for water; by this we |
knew that his medicine was of the life of the |
water.
Presently he sang a short song, and untied
the mouth of the sack; sang another, and put
his right hand into the sack; sang another,
and drew out a stuffed skin about three feet
long and a foot in diameter, the like of which
no one there had ever seen.
It was the skin of a dark-furred animal, with
a head like a dog and a body without feet or
legs. Where the front legs should have been
were protuberances that looked like the fins of
a fish; behind them the body tapered to a fin-
like tail. When the people saw that, their
said, confidently.
““Yes, let us go get one for him,”’ 1 agreed,
;just as confidently as if the seven or eight
hundred miles of perilous traveling that lay
between us and the mouth of the Columbia
River were but a day’s jaunt, and there were
| 1o hostile Indians along the trail.
TO BE CONTINUED.
TRUTH AND THE DURIAN-TREE
i
'
fi,@g g)y Edward Williston I'rentz)
" “\ JOU may have
2 Y heard,’’ said
| o Redding, *-that
| truth ties at the vottom of 4 well,
but I've seen it dug up from the
| bed of a river, and everybody seemed to know
that it was truth, all right.””
We were lolling in our steamer-chairs, in
the shade of the deck-house, and after a little
while Redding went on:
“It was in Borneo, among the Dyaks. Before
I left the islands I dropped down there to see
a friend of mine who is running a rubber plan-
Pitamakan and I remained, for a time, where | eyes almost ‘popped out of their heads, and | tation. Ile wanted me to go in with him, and
we were, in order to watch
the cavaleade. T have
never seen a happier lot
of men and women and
children than the Pend
@’Oreilles who filed past
us. Their packhorses,
and even some of the
horses that they rode,
were fairly staggering un-
der the loads of buffalo
meat and hides piled on
the sacks and panniers
of household effects and
the stuff that they had
brought to trade to us.
They were so happy over
the success of their short
hunt that many of them
fairly wriggled in their
saddles, and all kept up
a constant stream of song
and laughter and jokes.
Many of the women and
children were handsome,
but they, like their men,
had not such fine clothes
as the Blackfeet.
As the column drew
near our great camp, each
Blackfoot invited one of
the Pend d’Oreilles to be-
come his guest, and to set
up his lodge close to his
own. White Bear camped beside Big Lake,
as was natural. Our greatest medicine-man,
TRed Tagle, had for his guest the head medicine-
man of the other tribe, an old fellow named Sees
Far. It was this man who was the cause of
our great adventure, as I shall relate.
The next afternoon Red Eagle gave a feast
to the medicine-men of both tribes. All the |
morning there had been a lively trade; the|
visitors swapped fine buckskins, dried camass
and bitterroot for our buffalo leather, buffalo-
robes, saddles and trinkets. But all trade was
suspended when the time for the feast ap-
proached; it was to be in the open air and
highly spectacular. During the course of it
the Blackfeet Bulls Society were to dance, and
every one wished to see them.
Red Eagle’s women had cooked a lot of
buffalo tongues and ribs, and stewed several
kettlefuls of service-berries. At the right time
these were brought from the lodge and appor-
tioned to the guests, who sat in a great circle on
buffalo-robes spread before a small fire.
After they had eaten and smoked three pipes, |
the Bulls appeared. Each was a chief. Each |
wore a mask made of a buffalo bull’s head and |
* a toga made of a buffalo-skin, and each carried
a bunch of rattles made of dried buffalo dew-
claws. Their masks were the complete head-
skins of bulls, with the horns attached, and so
stuffed with hay that they were quite lifelike.
The wearers of these stooped far over, so that
the masks really rested on the backs of their
heads, for otherwise they could not have
breathed. They came into the circle dancing |
slowly, ponderously, to the rhythm of the buf- |
falo song that was sung by the medicine-men. |
It was a song so weird and solemn that it chilled |
the heart, and made the little ones weep and |
"SINK OR SWIM, LIVE OR DIE. . ..
PULL YOU OUT, OR YOUR NAME IS .
ORAWN BY CHASE EMERSON
with one accord they gave a loud, long-drawn
““Ah-h-h "’ of surprise.
Four times now, the old man made the sign
for water; then, holding the thing out in front
of him with both hands, he rose, and, singing
a low crooning, quavering song, danced a few
steps to the north, then back to the south, then
to the east. When he had danced to the west,
he stopped, made the sign for water four times
again, stooped and picked up the sack and began
to draw it over his strange medicine.
“Wait! Wait!”” old Red Eagle cried. *‘Let
us see that queer animal.”” And a hundred
voices echoed his request.
Sees Far hesitated, then held up a hand to
motion_ the crowding people back, and said,
““Yes, you shall see, but you may not touch it.
No, you may not so much as put a finger on
it, else my medicine will be broken. Thrice
has this medicine-animal saved my life. Twice
when I was about to die from sickness, and
once when I was waylaid by the enemy.””
““What do you call it? Where did it live?
Where did you get it?”’ Red Eagle asked, and
we all waited breathlessly for the answer.
*“No Pend d’Oreille has ever been where this
animal came from,”” he replied. *I got it
from a people whom we call Fish-Eaters, and
they got it from a tribe still farther off. A
tribe that lives where the big river of the west
empties into a salt lake so big that it reaches
clear to the jumping-off place of the world.
The animal is called fish-dog, because, as they
say, it lives only in the water, swimming about
like a fish, yet has the face of a dog, and
barks like a dog.””
“‘And isita fierce animal—or fish creature?””
some one asked.
“*A very dangerous one. Those from whom
YOU STAY UNDER WATER UNTIL WE
. MUD.
as the proposition seemed
down.
““I found him living,
with his foreman, in a
native-style house, set on
stilts, with a nice little
garden behind it that he
calls a ‘ecompound,” and a
lovely big swamp at one
side that he calls some-
thing wors
**'The swamp is part of
a new clearing, and the
men were still at work on
one end of it—natives, all
of them, and a tough-
looking lot. T could easily
believe what Bill said—
that they would all drop
their axes and bush-hooks
and take to the woods
with their head-hunting
knives if they were not
afraid of the government.
“‘I had been loafing
round for a couple of
weeks, and was enjoying
myself. Bill and his fore-
man, an English chap
named laidlaw, were out
on the plantation most of
" ©the day: but they took
a little time off now and
then for hunting or fishing; and evenings, of
course,ewe were together. I enjoyed those eve-
nings. Laidlaw plays the French horn,—the
finest instrument in the world for me, —and Bill
sings fairly well, so we had a concert nearly
every night.
“Laidlaw was a funny-looking chap. Al-
though not more than five feet nine, and short-
| legged, his back was as broad as a freight-car,
| and his chest measured forty-five inches. Ile
| was like that fellow that Homer tells about,
who looked fallest when he was sitting
down.
““Everything was pleasant until one morning
T got up a little earlier than usual, and went
out to stroll round the garden. On the far
side, next to the jungle, I came on a curiou:
| tree, or rather, a tree with curious fruit on it.
If you can imagine a chestnut-bur the shape
| of a watermelon and about ten inches long, you
| will have a very good idea of what the fruit
was. I had never seen it, or anything like it
| that the tree was a du .
“*By bending down a limb, I could reach one
to pull. When I had sliced off the outside, I
came to a yellowish pulp that smelt worse
| than a Limburger cheese, so I knew it was a
| durian. T tasted it, and honestly, it was
| delicious.
“While T was eating it, one of the house
servants came along. As soon as he saw what
| T had, he rushed up to me, chattering like a |
| monkey, and snatched the durian out of my
| hands. Of course I couldn’t understand a
word of what he said, but it was plain enough
that he was angry; and when a tame yellow
| man stands up to a white man out here in the
worth looking into, T went
|
| before, but I had heard about it, and concluded |
| of the fruits, and T cut it off—it was too prickly |
| in the compound, and 7
| that therefore by the N
old law it is his.’ .
“**What did you tell him?” ?‘("‘
““I told him,” Bill replied,
| ‘that the old law didn’t go in the compound,
| and that the tree is mine.”
| ‘I supposed that settled the matter, but it
|didn’t. At dusk that night the native came
{back, and a dozen others with him. They
| talked for a time with Bill, and went away.
| I noticed that Bill, when he came in, looked
| worried.
| ***They have brought a challenge,” he
| announced.
“* “What sort of a challenge?’
*“ “They want to find out about that durian-
tree,—who owns it,—and they have challenged
you to the diving test. T guess the tree
must belong to them. You can’t dive, nor
ean 1.”
““*Ilow do they do it?’ asked Laidlaw, with
cariosity. And Bill went on to tell us. The
| native himself would dive, or pick a champion
to do it for him. We were expected to do the
same. The man who stayed under longest
would be the owner of the durian-tree, for it
would be plain that truth was on his side.
“I laughed, and said, ‘Tell them to run
away and play!”
““But Bill didn’t laugh, nor did Laidlaw.
“It isn’t so easy as you think,” said Bill. ‘If
I refuse, they will say that I am afraid, because
I know truth is not on my side. That will
mean losing my grip on them—perhaps a riot.
You never can tell.” Then Laidlaw struck in.
~*You know, I’ve a fancy 1I’d like to take
that chap on. I believe I eould do a bit in the
diving line myself.”
: ou!’” Billanswered. ‘When did you ever
You don’t know these boys. They
1y under a terrible time.”
Oh, yes, I dare say,” Laidlaw replied,
i easily. ‘But the life-insurance examiners never
| found any fault with my lungs, and I had a
} little go with the pearl-divers in Ceylon once;
| and at home I used to do my two miles in fair
try
can s
| time. Besides, I’ve been playing the horn now
for about ten years.’
“Bill and I looked at Laidlaw and at each
|other. I believe you could do it!” said Bill.
*If you say so, it’s a go.”
“‘Sure I say so!” And Laidlaw grinned
cheerfully.
**The preliminaries took several days. First,
the stake or pool or fund or forfeit—whatever
you please to call it—had to be prepared.
The Dyak came to notify us that his was
ready, and asked us to come and look at it.
| IIe had it Iaid out in the public hall of his
house—a display of valuable mats, baskets and
native fishing-tackle. We bowed, and went
! back and laid out our stake. Bill put in a
rifle, Laidlaw a couple of pounds of brass
| wire,—they like that to make studs for their
| teeth,—and I threw in my old watch. The
| Dyaks came and examined the goods, and when
they went away you could see that this was
going to be a great occasion, and that truth was
likely to be a good deal agitated as to where
she should perch.
their man out in the open, and carefully fed
him with seven little balls of compressed rice.
Then they laid him down on their finest mat,
covered him with the best sheet from the spare
room, and said some sort of incantation over
him. We didn’t want to be outdone by savages
in mystic rites, so we took poor old Laidlaw
out on the veranda, in plain sight, and fed
him with seven chocolate caramels that Bill
| ceremoniously took out of a lingerie-trimmed
| box with a pair of gilt tongs. Then we rolled
| him up in an army blanket, and said our little
| incantation:
““Tom Laidlaw, you pig-headed English-
| man, if you can’t stay under water longer
hide their faces in their mothers’ robes. Round | I got it say that it swims about in large bands, | East, you can be sure that something serious | than this yellow Dyak, don’t come up at all.
and round the circle danced the Bulls, imi- | upsets boats, and eats the people when they | is the matter.
tating to the life the stately, heavy tread of the |
shaggy beasts of the plain; and we, awed by |
the strangeness of the scene and the harrowing |
song, sat silent and fascinated. Fear was in
our hearts: it seemed as if this were the pre-
Jude to some dread catastrophe. I cannot tell
how long they danced, —five minutes, ten min-
utes, perhaps, —but it seemed hours. And then
at last the chief Bull led his companions out of
thé circle, and they danced off behind the near
lodges and were gone. The suspense was
broken; the people breathed freely once more,
and little by little their talk was resumed.
The Pend d’Oreilles medicine-men now gave
one of their tribal dances, but after the dance
are spilled into the water.’”
| ““I told Bill about it as soon as I got back to
Remember that Britannia rules the wave, and
| England expects every man to do his duty;
““Now, that is a medicine-animal”* cried old | the house, but he was as much in the dark as | and sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish,
Stone Arrow,
of all the Bl
ppled, sickly, yet the richest
| T was. However, just as we were leaving the
| you stay under water until we pull you out, or
kfeet. *“T will give you twenty | breakfast-table, the native who had snatched | your name is not Laidlaw, but M-U-D ! Bill
horses for it! I know it would make me well!”” | the durian appeared at the door with another | intoned it all in a voice that you could hear on
1 said Sees Far, shortly.
““Fifty head !’
“No !
“‘A hundred head !’
We all gasped: that was a fabulous price.
But again came the answer, *“No. Not for all
your horses and those of the Blackfeet people
will T sell this medicine! I cannot sell it,
because it is my life.””
Stone Arrow dropped his head, and for a
| man of his tribe. They talked a while with
i Bill, and went away.
| “““What is it?’ T asked.
i ‘e says that you were stealing his fruit,”
said Bill.
| “Iis fruit! Why, the tree is in your com-
| pound.’
|+ +Yes,” said Bill, ‘but he claims it by the
|old law. The durian doesn’t come into bear-
| ing until it is fifteen years old. Before that,
the beach, and that made it sound as solemn
as a baccalaureate address.
“Tarly the next morning we went down to
| the river with the rifle, the brass wire and the
watch. The Dyaks were ahead of us, and had
| already built two fires, one for themselves and
| one for us, and before each was a fine mat for
| the champion to rest on.
““Their man was naked, except for a fine new
waist-cloth. We stripped the mackintosh from
of the Bulls, it seemed tame. It was a pretty |moment was silent. Then, straightening up, | of course, it isn’t worth anything, but as soon | Laidlaw’s shoulders, and showed him forth in
dance, however, with a short, quick step. The | he roared, ‘‘One of these fish-dog skins I must | as it begins to bear, everybody claims it. This
have! I am sure it would make me well!|man declares that his father planted the tree |much favorable comment, we judged, by the
dance tune or song was sprightly, too, and
blue and white running trunks, that excited
“The night before the mateh the natives had
