“He was not in the lodge when my braves attacked it,” interrupted the chief.
“Ke-ne-ha-ha is wrong. The white hunter was in the lodge. He saw the singing-bird fly from life to death, and was wounded by the bullets of the Shawnee warriors; then, when the lodge fell, he was buried beneath the ruins. The eyes of the red braves were sharp, but they did not discover the wounded and helpless white-skin under the blackened logs. The red chiefs went away, satisfied with their vengeance. The white brave lay between life and death. A huge gray wolf came from the forest. He found the senseless man under the logs. The forest beast was hungry; he thirsted for human blood. The great gray wolf eat up the wounded white-skin. The body of the white went into the stomach of the wolf; it died, but the soul of the white hunter lived. It did not fly from the body but went with it. The soul of the wolf was small, the soul of the white hunter large, and the large soul eat up the little one. The wolf became a wolf with a human soul. The soul remembered the wrong that the Shawnee warriors had done its body; it burned for revenge. It made the wolf walk erect like a human; it taught him to carry in his paw the tomahawk of the red-man—to steal upon the Shawnee chiefs in the forest—to give their souls to the dark spirit and to graven on their breasts the totem of the Red Arrow. Thus the soul keeps alive the memory of the squaw that the Shawnee warriors killed.”
The chief listened with amazement.
“How long will the wolf, who has a human soul, be an avenging angel to give to the death the warriors of my tribe?” the chief asked.
“How many warriors were with Ke-ne-ha-ha when he killed the Red Arrow?”
“Ten.”
“Where are they now?”
The chief started. Of the ten warriors not one was living. All were dead, killed by the Wolf Demon. Each one bore the mark of the Red Arrow.
“Only one remains, Ke-ne-ha-ha, the great chief of the Shawnee nation. He will die by the tomahawk of the human wolf, and then the Demon will go to the land of shadows.”
With a sharp crack, the green stick snapped in twain. The fire had eaten to the core. The Medicine Man arose.