APRIL 21, 1906. | 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
625 


tried to cure the grandfather. Without horses 
Queer Person could not go out on the big hunts 
and bring in loads of meat sufficient to last 
during the bad weather, or through the long 
sieges of the Sioux against them. In the summer 
time this enemy came often in great numbers 
and stayed around the village for a whole moon 
and more, hoping to starve the people and fall 
upon them when they were at last obliged to 
go out to hunt. 
“The summers and the winters passed. The 
boy grew and grew, tall and strong, and very 
fine looking. He was now old enough to go to 
war; to fight the enemy and drive away their 
horses. But no war party would let him join 
them. ‘One who slept with skulls,’ they said, 
‘who went forth to sleep where the ghosts 
wandered—there was surely something wrong 
with such a person; he would cause bad luck to 
befall them.’ 
“Of course, the young man felt very badly 
about this, grieving much; and the grandmother 
grieved with him. And then he became angry. 
‘I will make them take back their words,’ he 
said to the old woman. ‘I will go against the 
enemy by myself, and the time shall come when 
they will beg to go with me. Make me a boat 
and I'll float down the river to the camps of 
the Sioux.’ 
“White Flying went out and cut the willows, 
crossed and recrossed them, bent them to the 
proper shape, then stretched and bound upon 
the frame the fresh hide of a big bull, and the 
boat was done. No, it was not like the boats 
of the white men. It was flat on the bottom 
and round, like the tubs white people have for 
washing clothes. Unless one was accustomed to 
them, he was helpless, for, if he did not upset 
when he tried to paddle, he would only make 
the boat whirl around and around like a child’s 
top, and it would drift wherever the current and 
the wind chose to push it. 
“There was a full moon now, and one night 
when it rose, soon after the sun had gone down, 
Queer Person got into his boat and pushed it out 
from the shore. No one was there to see him 
leave, except his grandmother; no one else inthe 
village knew that he was going away. ‘Oh, be 
careful!’ she said. “Be ever on the watch for 
the dangers, and try nothing that you are not 
certain you can do.’ 
“*Take courage,’ he called back to her. ‘I 
will return to you; I will surely return. My 
dream has told me that I will.’ 
“The poor old woman sat down on the shore, 
covered her head with her robe, and cried; cried 
for those loved ones who were dead, and for 
the young man who was going, perhaps, to join 
them and leave her alone in her old age. She 
was very unhappy. 
“On and on Queer Person drifted in the bright 
moonlight, down the wide, deep river, never 
paddling, except to keep facing down stream, 
and to avofd the snags and sandbars. The 
beavers played and splashed around him, and he 
prayed to them: ‘Pity me,’ he said; ‘give me 
of your cunning, so that I may escape all 
danger.’ } 
“Where the water boiled and swirled under 
the shadow of a high cut bank, some dim thing 
rose above the surface, and slowly sank and 
disappeared. He could not see it plainly; it 
might have been one of the people who live in 
the dark, deep places; he prayed to them also, 
and dropped a sacrifice to them. ‘Do not harm 
me,’ he said; ‘let me pass over your waters in 
safety.’ 
“All the animals of the valley seemed to be 
gathered along the shores, feeding, drinking, the 
young of elk and deer running and playing along 
the sandbars. There were big bears snuffling and 
pawing at the water’s edge, wolves and coyotes 
looked down at him as he passed under the low 
bluffs. But none paid any attention to him; for 
there was no wind, and they could not know 
that an enemy was near. Thus the night passed, 
and with the daylight he went to the shore, 
dragging his boat into some thick willows and 
then smoothing off the trail he had made across 
the sands. 
“Thus drifting by night and hiding in the day- 
time, Queer Person kept on toward the country 
of the Sioux. Every morning, after going 
ashore, he would. walk out to the edge of the 
timber, sometimes climbing a nearby slope, and 
look carefully up and down the valley for signs 
of people. He saw none until the fifth morning, 
when he discovered a great camp directly across 
the river in a big bottom. There was a long 
strip of cottonwoods bordering the stream; the 
lodges were pitched on the open plain back of 
it. A large number of horses were tied in the 
camp, people were just coming out and turning 
them loose to graze. ‘My medicine is good,’ he 
said to himself. ‘I have come safely down the 
river, and here I am in sight of that which I 
seek.’ 
“During the day he slept for some time, feel- 
ing quite safe where he was, for the enemy had 
no boats, the river was very high, and they 
could not cross. He made plans for the night. 
‘I will cross over,’ he said, ‘after the light in 
their lodges dies out; I will take some of their 
horses, and ride homeward as fast as I can.’ All 
the afternoon this thought pleased him, and 
then came into his heart another thing which 
he considered. Any one could go into a camp 
and take horses and have a good chance to 
escape with them. That was easy to do. His 
people had refused to let him go with them on 
raids; he wanted to do some great thing, to 
show them that he was a braver man than any 
of them. What should he do to prove this? 
What could he do? He considered many things, 
many plans, and could not decide. Toward 
evening he slept again, and then his dream 
helped him and showed him the way to make a 
great name for himself. 
“This is what he did; listen to the cunning his 
dream gave him: In the night he crossed the 
river, put some stones in his boat, then cut a 
hole in the bottom, so that it filled with water 
Then he went into the timber and 
buried his things beside a large cottonwood 
log, buried his clothes, moccasins, weapons; 
nothing remained on him, except his belt and 
breech clout. Lastly, he unbound his braided 
hair, washed it to straighten out the kinks, then 
tangled it and scattered dust in it. He smeared 
mud and dust on his body; soiled his breech 
clout; scratched his legs with a rose brush; when 
he had done, he looked very wild, very poor. 
He went out of the timber, down to the lower 
end of the bottem, and remained there the rest 
of the night. 
“When the sun came up, and people were 
moving about, Queer Person arose and walked 
toward the camp, sometimes stopping and look- 
and sank. 
ing around, sometimes running, again walking 
slowly, looking at the ground. Thus he ap- 
proached the lodges, and the great crowd of 
people who stood staring at him. He pretended 
not to see them, walking straight on; they parted 
to let him pass and then followed him. He 
stopped by a fire outside a lodge, upon which 
some meat was roasting, and sat down. The wo- 
men tending it fled. The people gathered around 
him and stood and talked. Of course, they thought 
him crazy. A man came up, asked him many 
questions in signs; he did not reply, only to 
occasionally point down the river. This man 
had a wide scar on his left cheek. Queer Person 
knew that he was a chief. He had heard his 
people talk about him as a terrible man in battle. 
After a time an old woman came and set some 
broiled meat before him; he seized it and eat 
it as if he had been starving for many days. He 
ate a great deal, and a long time. The people 
mostly went away to their lodges. The scar- 
faced man made signs again, but when he got 
no answer, he took Queer Person by the arm, 
made him get up, and led him to his lodge, 
showed him a couch, made signs that it was his, 
that he should live in the lodge. Still the young 
man pretended not to understand, but he re- 
mained there, going out sometimes, but always 
returning. People made him presents—moc- 
casins, leggins, a buckskin shirt, a cowskin robe. 
He put them on and wore them. After a few 
days he would walk about in camp, and the 
people would hardly notice him. They had got 
used to seeing him around. 
“Queer Person soon found that the scar- 
faced chief was a very cruel man. He had five 
wives, the first one older than he, and very 
ugly. The others were all young women, and 
good looking, one very pretty. The old wife 
abused the others, made them do all the work 
and labor hard all day long. Sometimes she 
struck them; often she would talk to the chief, 
and he would get up and beat them or seize a 
couple and knock their heads together. They 
were very unhappy. The young man could not 
help but look often at the youngest one, she was 
so pretty and so sad. He would always walk 
around where she was at work, and met her 
often in the grove when she gathered wood, and 
then they would smile at each other. After 
many days, he found her all alone in the woods 
one evening; his time had come, and he quickly 
told her in signs who he was, that he was not 
crazy; that he had started all alone to war. And 
then he said that he loved her; that it made him 
sad to see her abused. He asked if she would 
go away with him and be his woman. She did 
not answer, but she just stepped up and clung 
to him and kissed him. Then they heard some 
one coming, and they parted. 
“The next day they met again.in the timber 
and went and hid in the thicket willows, and 
made their plans to leave. They could hardly 
wait for night to come. 
“When the fire had died out and the chief and 
his old wife snored, Queer Person and the young 
woman crept out of the lodge and went to the 
river. There they tied together two small logs 
and placed their clothes upon them, on top of 
a little pile of brush they had laid. The young 
man got his clothes and weapons which he had 
buried, and piled them there also. Then, with 
nothing but his knife, he went back to the lodge, 
leaving the woman by the raft. He crept in, and 
