All-Story Weekly, Vol. 112, No. 1 — page 22: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

Yr “ Times change. Hitherto, when the peo- ple were hungry, they could travel far, where hunger was not. Now, the white man is putting his fences everywhere. Last moon came the notice that this camp and all the land about for a day’s travel had been sold to a white man and that he will be followed by many white men so that we shall no longer be permitted to hunt over it or live on it.” There was still that look of smilmg peace on the elder man’s face when he next spoke, after a long silence: “This white man you speak about had a daughter.” Blue Otter scarcely breathed or stirred. He also was silent for a long time. Did Blind Heron know of the girl’s presence here? There was no telling. He sought to bring the talk back into a safer channel. He said: “The Great Serpent spoke to me. He said to fear nothing—-nor ghosts nor white men.” ‘Nor the daughters of the white men,” murmured Blind Heron. ‘“‘ The Great Ser- pent is strong. He can do with earthly things what he will. He knows the secrets of the underground rivers. He can fill the Everglades to the brim or dry them up, as we have seen. He is our friend. He has kept Florida wild. He said to the white man: ‘ Thus far and no farther.’ ”’ “ Vou speak truly.” ‘“ So truly that now the Great Serpent has answered my prayers. He has brought misfortune on this white man who would have despoiled us further. The white man had a daughter. He thas her no longer.”’ Blue Otter sat in silence. So did old Blind Heron. The silence was intense—for now the sun was at noon when all the wild things of the woods were silent, even the birds and the little tree-frogs. In Blue Otter’s mind there was no longer any un- certainly on one point: Blind Heron knew that the girl was here in this camp. The suess would not have been a difficult one for the blind medicine-man. The old Heron must have recognized the nature of the medicine that had been made, even if his fine ears had brought him no hint of the girl’s quiet breathing. ALL-STORY WEEKLY, “She is here,’ Blue Otter confessed. ‘She is a more dangerous ghost than the ghost of him who died here,” said Blind Heron, placidly. — “ When I found her she was ready to be- come a ghost in truth,” said the Otter. “If you let her die, ‘then her father would look on this land as cursed. He would go away and never come back.”’ “We cannot let her die.” ‘Has not the Great Serpent sent her to us as a hostage?” “He also gave us knowledge to save the sick.” ‘““Would you save her to the end that your people be robbed? I tell you that— if she die this white man will go away and never return.” There was nothing hasty about this inter- view. Each man was taking time for thought each interval before he spoke. After each murmured sentence the great silence fell. The moss hung straight from the trees. No leaf fluttered. Only a small blue reed of smoke went up from the fire, as diaphan- ous as a sunbeam, shook and faded. | ‘“ Another would come,” said Blue Otter. ‘And would not disaster befall him, too? We have the gift.” A touch of poetry—of possession—came inte the blind man’s bear- ing when he mentioned “the gift.” He repeated the statement, and then added to it in a sort of lulling chant: ‘“‘ Yea, we have the gift. It is so. To each one of us it is granted, Our ancestors began to pray when the sun was still in the womb of the moon. More ancestors there were than all the leaves that have ever fallen from all the trees. And the. amount of their prayers filled space. And the Great Spirit reduced this ocean of prayer to the one gift, which he hath and holdeth for each child of the Medicine Lodge. Have you forgotten?”’ ‘“T have not forgotten,” Blue Otter an- swered gravely. “ When the time comes, I may ask of the Serpent, the Great Spirit, His Master, one gift, and I may say what this gift shall be, and i# will be granted me.”’ ‘Yea, the one gift.” ‘And on each of us the responsibility.” “To be answered fer at the council in the West.” comiclboolk C©