XIV. THE LITTLE WOLF BROTHER
A wigwam stood alone by a great forest. There were five people in it for a long time; these were the father, mother, one daughter, and two sons. Before the winter was over only the children were left, for the old warrior and his squaw had gone to the Happy Hunting Grounds. The girl and the oldest boy promised faithfully to care for their little brother, who was weak and suffered often from sickness.
For twelve moons the older boy hunted and fished and brought food to the wigwam; then he told his sister that he must go with some braves he had seen in the forest, and be a great warrior like his father.
“But you promised to stay until the little one was grown tall. You promised our father and our mother.”
“It is a squaw’s work to care for the children; you can do it. I am brave; I must fight,” said the oldest brother.
“You are not brave, and you have not a straight tongue. It is not well to do as you are doing. When you go on the warpath you will lose your arrows, and your scalp will hang to the belt of your enemy. Come back,” said the sister. [[120]]
The boy ran from his sister’s call into the grove of great trees. He jumped on his pony and rode away to the band of warriors he had seen.
The sister and the little brother lived together in the wigwam until the wild geese had come and gone three times from the lake in the forest. They saw no one but the wild deer and the other animals. They planted their corn and tried to be happy; but the girl grew very lonely, and one day when she saw another wigwam across the lake she felt like the young wolf they had tied to a tree near the wigwam.
“Come, let us go and see who is across the lake,” she said to the little one.
“I cannot walk so far; you have not made me new moccasins. I am hungry; give me more meat,” was his answer.
“You shall have much meat,” said the girl, but she was very angry. She killed the pet wolf when the boy did not see, and made a great kettle of soup from its flesh and the water in the lake. She put her own moccasins and her new suit on the buffalo robe which was their bed, and while the little brother was playing at hunting she ran away to the wigwam they had seen.
“You are welcome,” said the old squaw who came out to meet her. “Where are your people?”
“They are all dead,” said the girl. [[121]]
The squaw gave her a good supper and said, “You may live with me.”
The little brother cried when he could not find his sister, and went to look for his pet wolf. He called to it in the wolf language but got no answer. The little one ate his soup, and putting on his sister’s moccasins lay down on the buffalo robe and went to sleep. He hunted all day after he awoke in the morning, but could not find his sister.
“I will ask the wolves,” he said, as he heard a pack growling in the forest.
He called to them in the wolf language and asked if they had seen his sister or his little pet wolf.
“We found a wolf’s head near your wigwam, and we smelled the tracks of some one that went around the lake,” said the leader wolf.
“My brother has gone, my sister has gone, my little wolf has gone; I shall starve and freeze,” said the boy.
“Come with us,” said the leader wolf; “come and be one of us.”
The boy ran after the pack, and as he ran he began to chant:
I am changing into a wolf.
The wolves are better than my brother;
The wolves are better than my sister.
I am changing into a wolf.
[[122]]
He ran very slowly; the wolves began to howl as if some strange creature were near, and the boy saw his own brother in a tree over his head. The older brother begged the wolves to go away. The little one was now a wolf, and he called to the pack to follow him, for he had found the track of a deer.
The brother knew his voice and said, “Let me die, for my brother that I deserted has become a wolf.” He fell from the tree, but the wolves did not eat him, for his little wolf brother told them who the man was.
“Let him live. He is not good enough for wolves to eat,” said the leader; but to the brother who had done wrong life was worse than being torn by wolves. The band of warriors deserted him in the forest, and he never went on the warpath again.
Adapted from Schoolcraft. [[123]]