Part 13 (2/2)
She caught him to her, smoothing the hair back from his dark forehead.
”That is right,” she half whispered, for she felt he did not want anyone but herself to know his boyish secret. ”Always make things for yourself, don't depend on others, try what you can do alone. Yes, you may take the skin of the prairie wolf. I will give it to you for all time--it is yours.”
That night his father also laid in his hands a gift. It was a soft, pliable belt, woven of the white, peeled roots of the cedar, dyed brilliantly, and worked into a magnificent design.
”Your great-grandmother made it,” said the chief. ”Wear it on your first journey into the larger world than this island, and do nothing in all your life that would make her regret, were she alive, to see it round your waist.”
So little Ta-la-pus set forth with his father and brother, well equipped for the great Potlatch, and the meeting of many from half a score of tribes.
They crossed the Straits on a white man's steamer, a wonderful sight to Ta-la-pus, who had never been aboard any larger boat than his father's fis.h.i.+ng smack and their own high-bowed, gracefully-curved canoe. In and out among the islands of the great gulf the steamer wound, bringing them nearer, ever nearer to the mainland. Misty and shadowy, Vancouver Island dropped astern, until at last they steamed into harbor, where a crowd of happy-faced Squamish Indians greeted them, stowed them away in canoes, paddled a bit up coast, then sighted the great, glancing fires that were lighting up the grey of oncoming night--fires of celebration and welcome to all the scores of guests who were to partake of the lavish hospitality of the great Squamish chief.
As he stepped from the great canoe, Ta-la-pus thought he felt a strange thrill pa.s.s through the soles of his feet. They had touched the mainland of the vast continent of North America for the first time; his feet seemed to become sensitive, soft, furry, cus.h.i.+oned like those of a wild animal. Then, all at once, a strange inspiration seized him. Why not try to make his footsteps ”pad” like the noiseless paws of a prairie wolf?
”pad” in the little dance he had invented, instead of ”shuffling” in his moccasins, as all the grown men did? He made up his mind that when he was alone in his tent he would practise it, but just now the great Squamish chief was coming towards them with outstretched greeting hands, and presently he was patting little Ta-la-pus on the shoulder, and saying, ”Oh, ho, my good Tillic.u.m Mowitch, I am glad you have brought this boy. I have a son of the same size. They will play together, and perhaps this Tenas Tyee (Little Chief) will dance for me some night.”
”My brother does not dance our tribal dances,” began Lapool, but Ta-la-pus spoke up bravely.
”Thank you, O Great Tyee (Chief), I shall dance when you ask me.”
His father and brother both stared at him in amazement. Then Chief Mowitch laughed, and said, ”If he says he will dance, he will do it. He never promises what he cannot do, but I did not know he could do the steps. Ah! he is a little hoolool (mouse) this boy of mine; he keeps very quiet, and does not boast what he can do.”
Little Ta-la-pus was wonderfully encouraged by his father's notice of him and his words of praise. Never before had he seemed so close to manhood, for, being the youngest boy of the family, he had but little companions.h.i.+p with any at home except his mother and the little sisters that now seemed so far behind him in their island home. All that evening the old chiefs and the stalwart young braves were gravely shaking hands with his father, his brother Lapool, and himself, welcoming them to the great festival and saying pleasant things about peace and brotherhood prevailing between the various tribes instead of war and bloodshed, as in the olden times. It was late when the great supper of boiled salmon was over, and the immense bonfires began to blaze on the sh.o.r.e where the falling tides of the Pacific left the beaches dry and pebbly. The young men stretched themselves on the cool sands, and the old men lighted their peace pipes, and talked of the days when they hunted the mountain sheep and black bear on these very heights overlooking the sea.
Ta-la-pus listened to everything. He could learn so much from the older men, and hour by hour he gained confidence. No more he thought of his dance with fear and shyness, for all these people were kindly and hospitable even to a boy of eleven. At midnight there was another feast, this time of clams, and luscious crabs, with much steaming black tea.
Then came the great Squamish chief, saying more welcoming words, and inviting his guests to begin their tribal dances. Ta-la-pus never forgot the brilliant sight that he looked on for the next few hours. Scores of young men and women went through the most graceful figures of beautiful dances, their sh.e.l.l ornaments jingling merrily in perfect time to each twist and turn of their bodies. The wild music from the beat of Indian drums and sh.e.l.l ”rattles” arose weirdly, half sadly, drifting up the mountain heights, until it lost itself in the timber line of giant firs that crested the summits. The red blaze from the camp fires flitted and flickered across the supple figures that circled around, in and out between the three hundred canoes beached on the sands, and the smoke-tipped tents and log lodges beyond the reach of tide water. Above it all a million stars shone down from the cloudless heavens of a perfect British Columbian night. After a while little Ta-la-pus fell asleep, and when he awoke, dawn was just breaking. Someone had covered him with a beautiful, white, new blanket, and as his young eyes opened they looked straight into the kindly face of the great Squamish chief.
”We are all aweary, 'Tenas Tyee' (Little Chief),” he said. ”The dancers are tired, and we shall all sleep until the sun reaches midday, but my guests cry for one more dance before sunrise. Will you dance for us, oh, little Ta-la-pus?”
The boy sprang up, every muscle and sinew and nerve on the alert. The moment of his triumph or failure had come.
”You have made me, even a boy like me, very welcome, O Great Tyee,” he said, standing erect as an arrow, with his slender, dark chin raised manfully. ”I have eaten of your kloshe muck-a-muck (very good food), and it has made my heart and my feet very skook.u.m (strong). I shall do my best to dance and please you.” The boy was already dressed in the brilliant buckskin costume his mother had spent so many hours in making, and his precious wolfskin was flung over his arm. The great Squamish chief now took him by the hand and led him towards the blazing fires round which the tired dancers, the old men and women, sat in huge circles where the chill of dawn could not penetrate.
”One more dance, then we sleep,” said the chief to the great circle of spectators. ”This Tenas Tyee will do his best to amuse us.”
Then Ta-la-pus felt the chief's hand unclasp, and he realized that he was standing absolutely alone before a great crowd of strangers, and that every eye was upon him.
”Oh, my brother,” he whispered, smoothing the prairie wolf skin, ”help me to be like you, help me to be worthy of your name.” Then he pulled the wolf's head over his own, twisted the fore legs about his throat, and stepped into the great circle of sand between the crouching mult.i.tude and the fires.
Stealthily he began to pick his way in the full red flare from the flames. He heard many voices whispering, ”Tenas,” ”Tenas,” meaning ”He is little, he is young,” but his step only grew more stealthy, until he ”padded” into a strange, silent trot in exact imitation of a prairie wolf. As he swung the second time round the fires, his young voice arose, in a thin, wild, wonderful barking tone, so weird and wolf-like that half the spectators leaped up to their knees, or feet, the better to watch and listen. Another moment, and he was putting his chant into words.
”They call me Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf, And wild and free am I.
I cannot swim like Eh-ko-lie, the whale, Nor like the eagle, Chack-chack, can I fly.
”I cannot talk as does the great Ty-ee, Nor like the o-tel-agh* s.h.i.+ne in the sky.
I am but Ta-la-pus, the prairie-wolf, And wild and free am I.”
[*Sun.]
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