Red Men and White. Owen Wister

RED MEN AND WHITE

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LITTLE BIG HORN MEDICINE

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      Something new was happening among the Crow Indians. A young pretender had appeared in the tribe. What this might lead to was unknown alike to white man and to red; but the old Crow chiefs discussed it in their councils, and the soldiers at Fort Custer, and the civilians at the agency twelve miles up the river, and all the white settlers in the valley discussed it also. Lieutenants Stirling and Haines, of the First Cavalry, were speculating upon it as they rode one afternoon.

      “Can’t tell about Indians,” said Stirling. “But I think the Crows are too reasonable to go on the war-path.”

      “Reasonable!” said Haines. He was young, and new to Indians.

      “Just so. Until you come to his superstitions, the Indian can reason as straight as you or I. He’s perfectly logical.”

      “Logical!” echoed Haines again. He held the regulation Eastern view that the Indian knows nothing but the three blind appetites.

      “You’d know better,” remarked Stirling, “if you’d been fighting ’em for fifteen years. They’re as shrewd as Æsop’s fables.”

      Just then two Indians appeared round a bluff—one old and shabby, the other young and very gaudy—riding side by side.

      “That’s Cheschapah,” said Stirling. “That’s the agitator in all his feathers. His father, you see, dresses more conservatively.”

      The feathered dandy now did a singular thing. He galloped towards the two officers almost as if to bear them down, and, steering much too close, flashed by yelling, amid a clatter of gravel.

      “Nice manners,” commented Haines. “Seems to have a chip on his shoulder.”

      But Stirling looked thoughtful. “Yes,” he muttered, “he has a chip.”

      Meanwhile the shabby father was approaching. His face was mild and sad, and he might be seventy. He made a gesture of greeting. “How!” he said, pleasantly, and ambled on his way.

      “Now there you have an object-lesson,” said Stirling. “Old Pounded Meat has no chip. The question is, are the fathers or the sons going to run the Crow Nation?”

      “Why did the young chap have a dog on his saddle?” inquired Haines.

      “I didn’t notice it. For his supper, probably—probably he’s getting up a dance. He is scheming to be a chief. Says he is a medicine-man, and can make water boil without fire; but the big men of the tribe take no stock in him—not yet. They’ve seen soda-water before. But I’m told this water-boiling astonishes the young.”

      “You say the old chiefs take no stock in him yet?”

      “Ah, that’s the puzzle. I told you just now Indians could reason.”

      “And I was amused.”

      “Because you’re an Eastern man. I tell you, Haines, if it wasn’t my business to shoot Indians I’d study them.”

      “You’re a crank,” said Haines.

      But Stirling was not a crank. He knew that so far from being a mere animal, the Indian is of a subtlety more