Thunder Boy

Front matter

Lancashire Education Committee.

COUNTY LIBRARY.

Readers must take great care of the books while iv their possession, and point out any defect that they may uotice in them to the Local Librarian in charge.

PART I THE WORLD OF THE SUGAR-BOX. y : THE HUNGER-MOON . “ . : ?

THE Pow-wow : 4 : ; LITTLE BROTHER : : ‘ ; ; How THUNDER Boy Grew UP . A “ KATOYA SEES VISIONS ‘ F How LITTLE BROTHER SAVED THE PsapiacT SCAR-FACE TAKES His REVENGE . A 4 THE WoopDEN LODGES : ‘ 3 ‘ THE UNCLE KENNEDY 4 Katoya’s WARNING . R x "

WHEN THUNDER Boy WENT Map

How THEY PADDLED FOR THEIR LIVES é

PART II THE VOICE IN THE HEMLOCK . K : QuosK, THE INVISIBLE A : j “ THE ComMING OF Manoo . P ‘ 2 THE SWAMP. : A , R ‘

THUNDER Boy’s New MATE - E How He WENT TO FIND THE THUNDER ee THE RESCUE

XXVI XXVIT XXVIII

CONTENTS PART III

Katoya GOES A JOURNEY .

Manoo Usts His TEETH .

THUNDER Boy Gors To FInD His WHITE

FATHER : ‘ : How He Provep His THUNDER SCAR-FACE MEETS His Doom Wuat LITTLE BROTHER SAW

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PART I hd

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CHAPTER I

THE WORLD OF THE SUGAR-BOX

HE wood clicked and made subdued noises

in the stove, as if it had things to say. But if

they were not intelligible to grown-up ears of backwoods folk, the child gurgled back at them in an equally unknown tongue. He did not know that around him for a thousand leagues stood the countless hosts of the trees. He did not guess that, out there, beyond the magic circle of firelight, and voices, lay the dumb horror of the cold; nor that here, within so small a space, the soul of the gigantic timber-world was spitting itself out to him in spurts of resinous gossip and all sorts of low companionable noises, All he knew was that here, in the empty sugar-box, with the opossum-skin lining, it was delightfully warm, and that while up there in the stove the warmth was making itself a voice, down here in the sugar-box it was making itself a smell.

The world of the sugar-box had three high sides and one low, and was built of pine-boards. What with the smell of the pine, and the smell of the opossum-skin, the heat drew out from it a fine, pungent odour that tickled Thunder Boy’s nose. And his nose, mark you, was just as much a part of his appreciation of the world as his eyes, or his mouth; because his senses were not yet separated in that tiresome way which comes’ from getting grown up. So he was blessedly unconscious whether he smelt the warmth, or was warmed by the smell, And as far as his little fat body was concerned, it really didn’t matter; for whichever way it was, it was a very good compact existence down there in the sugar-box, and, beyond the excursions he made to the warmth and food supply he recognized as his mother, his experiences were limited. So there, in a piney and opossum-skin seclusion, crouched the little dark-eyed Thunder Boy, and made himself a world.

Out there, in the bitter cold, every living thing that could take cover, did it, in every possible kind of way. Stoves and sugar-boxes not being available there, the creatures were put to all sorts of shifts, to keep themselves warm. The grouse, for instance, having kwit-kwitted himself into a resolute frame of mind, as if he were softly repeating ‘ I must, I must, I must, | I must!” had suddenly left the bough he was sitting on, and plunged head-first into the powdery snow, and then, working his way a little to the side, had made a small bedroom for himself under the spruce tips, where he promptly went to sleep. Each creature, furred or feathered, solved the problem as its wits suggested, in order to keep its life in its body, while all about it, for countless leagues of snow-bound wilderness, the arctic horror froze.

But of all that outer horror of frozen darkness, very little found its way within the magic world of the sugar-box. It is true that the cold began growing more

THE WORLD OF THE SUGAR-BOX 13 and more noticeable as you got farther from the stove, but even at the farthest corners of the room it was mild compared with the tremendous iciness of the world outside, where the very moose, with his hairiest overcoat, forgot what it was to be warm.

The glow poured from the stove into the sugar-box with a ruddy-yellow light. As far as Thunder Boy could observe, it obeyed some secret law which worked in connection with his mother. When she opened the door at the side of the stove, the glow increased. When she put in thick pieces of wood, and shut it again, the glow shrank to a twilight glimmer. Only then, inside the stove, conversation went on at a tremendous pace while little heated voices which seemed to have waited in the wood for many winters clicked, hissed and spurted remarks without ever waiting to get replies. Thunder Boy enjoyed these conversations hugely. He clutched the front of the sugar-box with his fat brown hands, lifting the back part of him (also fat) up and down, in a sort of Indian dance. And as he heaved and subsided, he chuckled and gurgled rapturously, answering the resinous voices that gibbered so merrily in the fragrant wood-talk which the grown-up persons had forgotten to understand. And then, as the voices whined into a lower key, and the glow increased, it was a grand experience to watch the twilight do its walking up and down the pitch-pine walls.

And the performance would have gone on for ever, you might have thought, unless the supply of wood gave out, though there was still half a cord of it stacked up behind the door. But all the time the Indian woman was attending to the fire, a thing was taking place in her head. So long as she didn’t neglect his nourishment, or let the fire get low, Thunder Boy had nothing to say against her doing what she liked inside her head. So he gurgled at her with encouraging approval, much in the same way as he encouraged the stove. If he had had any inkling of the crazy idea she was shaping there, he would have yelled lustily with all the force of his lungs; but as he hadn’t the least notion of it, he just humped himself down in the sugar-box, and promptly went to sleep.

He had sunk so deep down in the sleep-world that he was only half conscious that he was being made into a bundle by his mother’s practised hands. He remonstrated a little by a drowsy baby moan or two ; but the sleep-world piled its continents so heavily upon him that when the bundling up was finished, he lay without a sound.

When she had finished all her preparations, she placed the bundle in a blanket, slung it over her back, fastened it securely in true Indian fashion, and was ready. It began to be cold in the cabin, for the stove was dying down. But it was nothing to the cold outside, when she opened the door, and peered cautiously out. To leave the shelter of the cabin for that moonlit iciness seemed a rash thing to do, unless some urgent reason made it necessary. The Indian woman took in the scene with a rapid glance which swept the settlement from one side to the other. Dawn would not break for another two hours, and she knew that no one was likely to be astir. The cabins were so absolutely still that it seemed as if sleep were packed upon the eyelids of the pale-faces as firmly as the drifts upon the frozen ground, She closed the cabin door

THE WORLD OF THE SUGAR-BOX 15 cautiously behind her, and then, moving as quickly as her snow-shoes allowed, passed across the open space of the clearing till she disappeared from sight among the snow-laden trees.

But in the empty cabin, the stove continued to click softly and make subdued noises, as if nothing had happened. And in the slowly dying glow, the sugar-box gave out a faint odour of vanished opossum-skin and of nameless childish things.

Chapter II The Hunger-moon

ITH the bundle on her back, the Indian

mother travelled on at a steady pace. So

long as sleep and warmth kept the bundle quiet, she was ready to face the wilderness, with its terrors—Hunger, Darkness, Cold, and Beasts—so that she might escape that greater terror of the pale-faces who desired that the contents of the bundle should grow up into a White Man, and so turn from her in the end. They did not tell her that. Under their pale skins, they hid the White Man’s cunning. But —she knew !

As she went, she kept casting anxious glances eastward for the coming of the dawn. With daylight, her flight must be discovered, sooner or later. And if they followed her, and caught her, she knew that they would drag her back to the hateful settlement. Better, a thousand times, to sleep in the snow, than that !—to sleep along “the wolf-trail,” and then continue her journey on the moccasins of the Dead. _ Ah !—what was that? Something seemed to move back there among the pines. A fox, perhaps, or a lucivee. She looked hard at the spot, but could make out nothing clearly in the confused shadows. However famished a fox might be, she was not afraid of it : but a lucivee with the cold glitter of the Hunger-

THE HUNGER-MOON v7 moon in its cruel eyes, was another matter. Even the foxes, when snow was soft and travelling bad, went in mortal dread of those tremendous cats.

She quickened her pace a little, with a new sense that she was not the only traveller in the snowy stillness of the great woods. Ah !—there it was again! This time she saw it more clearly. It was larger than either fox or lynx; as large as a full-grown wolf. She had just made sure of this, when it disappeared again.

From that time forward, she knew she was being followed. Sometimes, she only caught a glimpse of a tawny shadow drifting through the trees, lost to view almost as soon as seen; but always—so it seemed to her—a little closer than before.

It was the middle of the morning before the animal allowed itself to be clearly seen. Then it came boldly out into an open glade, and she saw that it was not a wolf, but a large panther, or mountain lion. At first she was frightened. Then she remembered that her mother, the old weather-wise and beast-wise Katoya, had always told her that the panther was the Indian’s friend, and would never attack unless first provoked. And Katoya, as the Indian world knew, had a vast acquaintance with the beasts. But then, this was the Hunger-moon, when all the world went thin for want of food. Friendship was truly of the heart; Hunger, still more truly, of the stomach. And the stomach was deeper than the heart. An empty stomach was a fierce emptiness. It respected no law but desire.

As she stood looking anxiously at the animal, the bundle on her back gave a whimper. There also, as she remembered, she carried a little stomach. When empty, the little Thunder Boy’s interior could be as B remorseless as the wolves. And in that, apparently, } the Hunger-moon did not wait for any calendar, but |\ came and went with remarkable frequency. The panther, hearing the whimper, pricked its pointed ears.

Thunder Boy’s first feeling, when he woke, was the emptiness spoken of. Moreover, the sugar-box had grown decidedly colder, and seemed to have gone out walking. At moments of emptiness or cold, he knew © of one excellent thing to do, and always did it. He opened his mouth, and cried.

When he came into daylight out of the opossum-skin twilight, he made an important discovery. The sugar-box wasn’t there! But his mother was; also, beyond her, a big animal, bigger and hairier than the stove. Its colour was really a tawny grey, but against the whiteness of the snow, it looked almost yellow, and its eyes were like those of a lynx, green-gleaming, and very clear. It stood quite still, and gazed at them boldly. Tonesta returned its gaze with equal boldness ; but her fingers closed firmly on the handle of her hunting-knife, in case of need.

For a full minute, the panther stood, with no movement except for a slow waving of its tail from side to side, Then, suddenly, it crouched, as if to make a spring. Tonesta drew her knife. But instead of leaping upon her, the panther lay over on its side, and began to roll and twist its body playfully. That was merely the beginning of a series of antics, in which it behaved itself exactly like a huge kitten whose body had outgrown its mind.

From that moment Tonesta knew that she had

THE HUNGER-MOON 19 nothing to fear; and when Thunder Boy had finished crowing with delight as he watched the fun, she unwrapped him sufficiently to attend to his wants. While

_ She busied herself about the child, the panther watched her with the deepest interest. Nothing she did escaped its observation; and when at last, all being finished and Thunder Boy made up into a bundle as before, she once more started on her way, the panther accompanied her, sometimes going before, sometimes dropping behind, but never very far away.

As soon as she became used to this strange follower, it began to be a comfort to her to have its company in the dreary solitude of the winter woods, where nothing living showed itself upon the snow. It was quite plain that it took a pleasure in being near her, even at times coming so close as to allow her to stroke its thick tawny fur. It travelled with her in this way for several hours; then, for some unexplained reason, suddenly bounded off through an opening in the trees, and disappeared.

After its disappearance, the silence and lifelessness of the great woods seemed to settle down more heavily than before. Slowly the time wore away, till the cold light of middle day declined into afternoon.

Suddenly she stopped, listening intently. ... Was it a cry, or merely the blood singing in her ears? Even the arctic owl might hear his blood sing in such a cold ! She waited, shivering, while she searched the enormous distances with her straining ears. . . . Again the sound came, faint, tremulous, very far away, yet with a throb in it, a lifting note, like a voice thrown. And it came from the North—along the line of her own trail !

She did not wait any longer, but hurried forward.

As she did so, the hunted look in her eyes returned. Only this time the hunters she dreaded were not human. Hardly less cunning, those upon her track now were swifter, more terrible, throwing that thin lifting note as a gathering cry, a summons, because their famished bodies had at last hit a promising trail. . . . WOLVES !

The squaw looked anxiously ahead for some possible shelter which might offer her protection. She had passed the woods and was far out on an open stretch of country bounded on the north-east by a range of low hills. Far ahead, the forest showed again, a dark bar on the horizon where the summits of the spruces seemed to touch the low-hung sky. Somewhere behind that far-off line lay the lodges of her people, but she knew that long before she could gain that shelter, the wolves would be upon her. As she gazed desperately ahead, in the waning light, she made out an indistinct object to the south. It looked like a cabin, but might turn out to be nothing but a clump of bushes. Whatever it was, it would be something to put her back against when the wolves gave the final signal to close in.

She quickened her steps. It was good going on the hard-packed snow, and her strong feet made a steady pace; but she had travelled a long way since starting, and even her sturdy Indian sinews were beginning to relax. For some time she did not hear the cry again. The silence did not reassure her. The sense that is the possession of hunted things, beast or human, told her that the danger was drawing nearer, Every few minutes she looked back.

The light was fast going, but the reflection from the snow threw into distinctness any dark object which broke its white expanse. As the squaw gave one of

THE HUNGER-MOON ar her quick glances behind, she saw a band of dusky forms sweep into view from a hidden hollow.

They were upon her at last!

She gathered her remaining strength, and re-doubled her efforts to reach the object she was making for. As

She neared it, she saw that it was a log cabin. Fate seemed driving her from one habitation of the detested _ pale-faces to another. There might even be pale-faces inside. If it had not been for the greater dread of the terror behind her, she would have turned aside. Again she looked back. What she saw made her measure the distance that still separated her from the cabin with a desperate glance. Those gaunt shapes, that seemed to flow rather than run—shadow-bellies that were hollow with the hunger of the snow, overtaking her at last in a breathless silence, more terrible than sound !

She felt her strength failing her; her feet seemed heavier at every step, as if her snowshoes were weighted down with stones. Yet she struggled forward, hoping against hope to reach the cabin in time.

And now, at last, with their prey close before them, the wolves gave tongue.

When the squaw heard the chorus of short, fierce barks, which is the final rallying cry of a running pack to close in, and pull the game down, she made a final effort, and reached the cabin door. Without waiting to knock, she pushed it hard. As it did not open at the pressure, she threw herself against it with all her weight. Still it held. Instantly she faced round, so that between it and her own body was the precious bundle she was about to defend to her last breath.

Face to face with her pursuers at last, she saw that she had little to hope. The pack consisted of six full

LULL nae THUNDER BOY grown timber-wolves, and in each pair of cruel eyes fixed upon her she saw the unmistakable hungergleam that is the death-light of the North.

Yet they did not attack immediately, hanging back,

wolf-like, till the leader should make his spring. Once he had drawn blood, they would attack in a body, and it would be the beginning of the end. In those last few, terrible moments, it was a battle of the eyes, between the woman and the wolves. As if by instinct she picked the leader out—a heavily-made animal, slightly lower than the rest in build, but with a greater depth of chest—and held him with her gaze. The intentness of her look made him uneasy, for he kept shifting his forefeet while his upper lip curled back from his teeth ina snarl. Seeing their leader’s hesitation, the pack drew closer in. Within the narrowing semicircle of hungry eyes, the squaw knew that now it was only a question of moments before the final struggle began. But if hunger gleamed in the wolves’ eyes, an even fiercer passion shone in her own; the mother-love against the brute-instinct: the woman against the wolf. For there, at her back, the mightiest medicine-bundle in the world to a mother’s heart, hung heavy and warm. _ In the cabin behind her, nothing stirred. Her Indian instinct told her that it was deserted—a lumberman’s cabin probably, left empty since the Fall ; yet it seemed as if some lingering human taint still hung about it, which made the wolves regard it with suspicion; and it was partly owing to this, that their attack was postponed. :

Suddenly a swift gleam, like a darting flame, flickered for a moment in the leader’s eyes, Fleeting though it

THE HUNGER-MOON 23 was, the squaw caught it and understood. Quick as

_ the wolf, her knife flashed down. She felt the snatch of fangs at her cheek. There was blood, but not hers alone. As the wolf leaped away, he uttered a yelp of pain. Before he attacked again, she darted forward with her lifted knife, and a ringing cry. Snarling viciously, the wolves drew back. Her unexpected action, joined to the menacing sound of the human voice, startled them for the moment; but when she again fell back on her former position, the semicircle drew in, relentless as before. She watched them narrowly, noting the least motion of an ear, or the curl of a lip; they, in their turn, watching her with equal intensity for an opportunity to close in. _ Once more the leader sprang; this time with a roar that seemed to rip his throat. Again the squaw met him with her knife. But now the rest had received their signal, and the whole pack rushed in. The squaw was borne back against the door, stabbing desperately with her long-bladed knife. Two more wolves were wounded. But the pack had tasted blood now, and the fear of the human being ceased to cow it. Twice again the squaw was thrown against the door. Each time, by a swift turn of her body, she saved the precious bundle from being crushed. At last, borne back by sheer weight of numbers, she could not twist herself in time. The child gave a whimpering wail,

Sharper than any wolf-fang, the cry pierced through her.

A moment before, the pack had known what it was attackinge—a human being with a bundle on its back. Now, they were faced by a raging Fury that stabbed and slashed with one terrible knife-blade, as if it had _ wielded six !

Before this furious onset, the wolves wavered. They began to realize that their prey were not going to fall so easily as they had expected. Yet they would bide their time, having the whole of the night before them in which to finish their deadly work. Long before the dog-star had reached its height, or the “‘ Last Brother ” pointed downward to the lonely land, the knife would lie useless on the blood-stained snow, and the bundle cease to cry. The pack would have closed in for the last time !

There was a brief pause, while the squaw recovered her breath.

Once more the wolves rallied. The squaw defended herself with desperate bravery, But she knew, with a sickening dread, that her strength was failing, and that the terrible moment was drawing fast upon her when she would have no more power to protect herself and the child from their merciless foes,

The glimmer of the snow was mingling with the twilight. The shadow of the oncoming night seemed to steal outwards from the forest and creep towards the Spot where the squaw was making her last despairing stand. The shadow was formless as mist, yet it seemed as if within its formlessness a shape gathered, drawing swiftly nearer. Closer and closer it drew—showing itself now as a long thin body that came lightly in long bounds along the frozen snow.

A wolf sprang for the squaw’s throat, It was the wounded leader, deterrnined to pull her down at last. With all her remaining strength, she plunged her knife clean to his heart, But before she could draw it out

THE HUNGER-MOON 25 another wolf sprang. Was it a wolf? In the failing light it was impossible to see things clearly. It seemed larger in size than the wolves, and of a lighter colour, a dull yellow against the snow. What the squaw could plainly see to her astonishment was that the creature, instead of attacking her, fell fiercely upon the wolves. Its onslaught was so unexpected that they were thrown into confusion. Their superiority in numbers was counterbalanced by the lightning-like swiftness of its movements, and the irresistible fury of its attack. Three were already badly wounded, and their leader was drawing his last gasps on the blood-stained snow. In spite of their hunger and rage at being baulked of their prey at the very moment when it seemed about to fall into their power, their courage failed before this sudden whirlwind of fang and claw.

With frothing jaws and hackles bristling they hastily made off in different directions, not stopping till they had reached a safe distance, where they sat down to lick their wounds in the outer circle of the gathering night.

And now the squaw saw with amazement that her rescuer was none other than the panther who had been her companion in the earlier part of the afternoon. Whether its finer sense had warned it that danger threatened the squaw, while still far distant and long before the voices of the oncoming pack could have been caught by even the keenest ear, or whether it had merely chanced to be in the neighbourhood when the wolves rallied for their final attack, she had no means of knowing. Her one thought now was to force an entrance into the cabin with the least possible delay. The door still held, but she found that one of the window shutters was loose. She managed to wrench this open, and with | some difficulty was at last able to crawl through. Once inside, she was fortunate enough to discover a pile of dried fern, and a couple of old blankets ; and when she had satisfied the child’s hunger, she made a bed for themselves and almost immediately sank into a sleep of sheer exhaustion.

When she woke, it was already daylight. As there was no means of making a fire, owing to lack of fuel, she decided to continue her journey without any further delay. But first she peeped out cautiously from the window to see if there were any signs of the wolves. Neither they, nor the panther, were to be seen. When she had satisfied herself that nothing lurked in the neighbourhood, near or far, she slung the child upon her back, and started once more upon her way.

It was late in the afternoon when she came in sight of familiar landmarks ; and when at length she dragged herself wearily into the camp of her people, she sank to the ground, without power to move.

CHAPTER III THE POW-wow

T was in the Medicine Lodge, and upon the sacred [= with the more than sacred Medicine Bundle

over his head and the assembled braves before him, that, after a deep and lengthy silence, Seven Brothers opened his mouth.

Apart from being the head chief, Seven Brothers was old enough to command respect, and although his speeches, like his teeth, were few, with appropriate gaps between, they were not the less appreciated by those who sat to hear them.

“ Tonesta has returned to us,’ he said, in his husky Indian voice. ‘* She has lived in the lodges of the pale-faces, far to the north-east,”

As these were facts with which everybody present were already fully acquainted, it seemed hardly necessary to state them with such a show of solemnity.

“* She does not come alone,’’ he continued. ‘’ She brings with her a child.”

That also everybody knew, but they liked to hear it again from Seven Brothers’ mouth.

“ The child had a pale-face for its father,” he went on, ‘And because Tonesta married a_pale-face, she can no longer be considered a daughter of our tribe.”

After Seven Brothers had made this statement, he 27 looked up solemnly to the Medicine Bundle, as if to confirm what he had said.

It was very silent in the Medicine Lodge, because no one spoke or moved, except when Running Buffalo.

threw a handful of dried sweet-grass upon the fire to make a pleasant smell; also because outside the snow lay thickly upon everything for thousands of leagues, and kept the world from making a noise.

“ Why has she returned? ’’ Scar-face asked, after a due pause.

The question made a great impression, as that was exactly what the company wanted to know, and because everybody regarded Scar-face as a cunning questioner doubtful things, he himself being as cunning as a OX.

So every one looked at Seven Brothers to see what answer he would give, and Seven Brothers looked at the Medicine Bundle before he replied. And far off, in the remote distance, Little Brother could be heard to bark. But as Little Brother was only the coyote who had den over Cut-bank way, no one paid any attention to that.

“ Tonesta has returned, because the pale-face who was her husband was taken prisoner by the Snake people beyond the mountains,” Seven Brothers replied.

Again there was a deep silence, and again it was broken by Scar-face.

“But the Snakes took their scalps from the pale-faces many moons ago,” he said. ‘ Why did Tonesta remain with the pale-faces if she wished to return 2 ”

This was felt to be one of Scar-face’s most cunning efforts, and was much approved.

“ She says,”” Seven Brothers answered slowly, “ that

THE POW-WOW 29 the pale-faces kept her a prisoner because they wanted the child to grow upa pale-face warrior, and make their tribe more strong.”