Читать книгу Memory's Storehouse Unlocked, True Stories. Pioneer Days In Wetmore and Northeast Kansas онлайн

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Back in the Wolfley timber, my father told the Indian the owner did not permit hunting on his premises—that he, the tanner, was not interested in the squirrel.

“Me shoot ‘im,” said the Indian. The long barrel of his rifle pointed upwards—a sharp crack, and the squirrel fell the ground, shot through the head. The Indian picked up the squirrel, and then holding it out to the frightened little boy, said, “Take.”

Without more ceremony the Indian rode away. He was gone only a few minutes. When he returned he was holding in his hand a branch of sumac. “Sequaw,” he said again. There were but a few belated red leaves clinging to the stem. “Catchum ‘fore go red,” he offered when he saw the leaves shattering in my father’s hands.

The Indian’s sharp eyes surveyed the black oak again. He looked at the branch of sumac, saying “Makum buck-kin.” He hesitated. Then said, “Maybe killum deer ‘fore Sun go way. Maybe two suns. You seeum deer?”

My father told the Indian—whom he then and there named Eagle Eye—that he had not seen the deer which those redmen were trailing. Those Indians who had remained in the background were trying to conceal a deer which one of them had swung across his pony as they went into that huddle.