492 The Book of Woodcraft 



THE INDIAN BABES IN THE WOODS 



(By permission of Messers. Fleming H. Revell Company, N. Y.) 



The charming story "Two Wilderness Voyagers," by 

 F. W. Calkins, gives a true picture of the ways and powers 

 of Indian children. Two little Sioux, a boy and a girl, 

 Etapa and Zintkala, were stolen from their people and 

 carried off into the land of the Ojibwa. They escaped 

 and, though but eleven or twelve years old, wandered alone 

 in the woods for months and eventually reached their own 

 people on the plains. 



Their ways and the thoughts of their kind toward the 

 wonders of nature are admirably illustrated in the scene 

 before Grandfather Rock: 



In one of these short excursions the boy came upon a vener- 

 able gray boulder which stood as high as the surrounding trees 

 and was many steps in circumference at its base. Except where 

 the moose had eaten them off, this towering rock was thickly 

 grown with lichens which gave it a hoary appearance of great 

 age. 



Etapa stood for some minutes, his eyes cast upward, venerat- 

 ing this aged and eternally enduring one which knows not time, 

 seasons, nor change. Then the boy went softly back to Zint- 

 kala. "Come," he said, "I have found Grandfather Inyan — ■ 

 the very aged one. Let us smoke and pray to him! " 



So they went together softly among the sand hillocks, until 

 they confronted Grandfather Inyan. While Etapa prepared his 

 pipe and willow bark for smoking, Zintkala stood — as a small 

 devotee before a shrine — looking devoutly up at the everlast- 

 ing one, the vast sentinel and guide, set so mysteriously among 

 the trees. 



"It is taku-wakan" (something wonderful), she said. While 

 Etapa smoked, ofiering incense to the rock, sky and trees, she 

 prayed thus: 



"Behold us small ones, Grandfather Inyan. You are 

 doubtless very old and wise, therefore you, O Grandfather 



