"That will protect you against all evils! A most powerful Orenda! I had it made by Hineogetah, the Medicine Man."
But that was ridiculous, I told myself! I had worn it to please Guanaea, and because her forethought had touched me. But was that a reason for subscribing to gross superstition? This fetched me around to my starting-point. The fact remained that the bag had stopped an arrow. How? My mind cast back for further aid, and memory came to my rescue.
What had it contained?
"The fangs of a bull rattlesnake. That is the spirit to resist evil. The eye-tooth of a wolf. That is the spirit to resist courage."
The eye-tooth of a wolf! That had done it. I wiggled my chest-muscles and felt the protuberance under the draw-string—and beneath it a certain soreness. The arrow had driven head-on into the tooth and been diverted sideways into the warrior on my left. So mysterious as this are the wonders of Providence—or Destiny—or an Iroquois medicine man?
CHAPTER XXI
A PROPHET IN SPITE OF HIMSELF
During the afternoon of the fifth day of hard riding our guards fetched us from the midst of the column to a position next to Awa. The chief had recovered somewhat from his bedazed wonder—no doubt he had half-expected me to continue working miracles—and regarded us with saturnine satisfaction.
"Soon we shall enter the villages of our people," he announced, swinging his arm toward the prairie in front of us. "The medicine-men of the Chahiksichahiks then will make trial of the white man's medicine—and we will build a scaffold for the red maiden to lie upon when she weds the morning star."
"That is to be seen," returned Tawannears with undisturbed arrogance. "A voice has whispered in my ear that the Great Spirit has other plans. It says there will be misfortune for the Horn-wearers if the red maiden is sacrificed."