afar into the west. The summer sun hung bright in the middle of a cloudless sky. There across the green prairie was a man walking bareheaded toward the east.
“Ha! ha! ’tis he! the man with the magic arrow!” laughed Iktomi. And when the bird with the yellow breast sang loud again—“Koda Ni Dakota! Friend, you’re a Dakota!” Iktomi put his hand over his mouth as he threw his head far backward, laughing at both the bird and man.
“He is your friend, but his arrow will kill one of your kind! He is a Dakota, but soon he’ll grow into the bark on this tree! Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed again.
The young avenger walked with swaying strides nearer and nearer toward the lonely wigwam and tree. Iktomi heard the swish! swish! of the stranger’s feet through the tall grass. He was passing now beyond the tree, when Iktomi, springing to his feet, called out: “How, how, my friend! I see you are dressed in handsome deerskins and have red paint on your cheeks. You are going to some feast or dance, may I ask?” Seeing the young man only smiled Iktomi went on: “I have not had a mouthful of food this day. Have pity on me, young brave, and shoot yonder bird for me!” With these words Iktomi pointed toward the treetop, where sat a bird on the highest branch. The young avenger, always ready to help those in distress, sent an arrow upward and the bird fell. In the next branch it was caught between the forked prongs.
“My friend, climb the tree and get the bird. I cannot climb so high. I would get dizzy and fall,” pleaded Iktomi. The avenger began to scale the tree, when Iktomi cried to him: “My friend, your beaded buckskins may be torn by the branches. Leave them safe upon the grass till you are down again.”
“You are right,” replied the young man, quickly slipping off his long fringed quiver. Together with his dangling pouches and tinkling ornaments, he placed it on the ground. Now he climbed the tree unhindered. Soon from the top he took the bird. “My friend, toss to me your arrow that I may have the honor of wiping it clean on soft deerskin!” exclaimed Iktomi.
“How!” said the brave, and threw the bird and arrow to the ground.
At once Iktomi seized the arrow. Rubbing it first on the grass and then on a piece of deerskin, he muttered indistinct words all the while. The young man, stepping downward from limb to limb, hearing the low muttering, said: “Iktomi, I cannot hear what you say!”
“Oh, my friend, I was only talking of your big heart.”
Again stooping over the arrow Iktomi continued his repetition of charm words. “Grow fast, grow fast to the bark of the tree,” he whispered. Still the young man moved slowly downward. Suddenly dropping the arrow and standing erect, Iktomi said aloud: “Grow fast to the bark of the tree!” Before the brave could leap from the tree he became tight-grown to the bark.
“Ah! ha!” laughed the bad Iktomi. “I have the magic arrow! I have the beaded buckskins of the great avenger!” Hooting and dancing beneath the tree, he said: “I shall kill the red eagle; I shall wed the chieftain’s beautiful daughter!”
“Oh, Iktomi, set me free!” begged the tree-bound Dakota brave. But Iktomi’s ears were like the fungus on a tree. He did not hear with them.
Wearing the handsome buckskins and carrying proudly the magic arrow in his right hand, he started off eastward. Imitating the swaying strides of the avenger, he walked away with a face turned slightly skyward.
“Oh, set me free! I am glued to the tree like its own bark! Cut me loose!” moaned the prisoner.
A young woman, carrying on her strong back a bundle of tightly bound willow sticks, passed near by the lonely teepee. She heard the wailing man’s voice. She paused to listen to the sad words. Looking around she saw nowhere a human creature. “It may be a spirit,” thought she.
“Oh! cut me loose! set me free! Iktomi has played me false! He has made me bark of his tree!” cried the voice again.
The young woman dropped her pack of firewood to the ground. With her stone axe she hurried to the tree. There before her astonished eyes clung a young brave close to the tree.
Too shy for words, yet too kindhearted to leave the stranger tree-bound, she cut loose the whole bark. Like an open jacket she drew it to the ground. With it came the young man also. Free once more, he started away. Looking backward, a few paces from the young woman, he waved his hand, upward and downward, before her face. This was a sign of gratitude used when words failed to interpret strong emotion.
When the bewildered woman reached her dwelling, she mounted a pony and rode swiftly across the rolling land. To the campground in the east, to the chieftain troubled by the red eagle, she carried her story.
Shooting of the Red Eagle
A man in buckskins sat upon the top of a little hillock. The setting sun shone bright upon a strong bow in his hand. His face was turned toward the round campground at the foot of the hill. He had walked a long journey hither. He was waiting for the chieftain’s men to spy him.
Soon four strong men ran forth from the center wigwam toward the hillock, where sat the man with the long bow.
“He is the avenger come to shoot the red eagle,” cried the runners to each other as they bent forward swinging their elbows together.
They reached the side of the stranger, but he did not heed them. Proud and silent he gazed upon the cone-shaped wigwams beneath him. Spreading a handsomely decorated buffalo robe before the man, two of the warriors lifted him by each shoulder and placed him gently on it. Then the four men took, each, a corner of
