Young Crow Raider

by Francis Lynde Kroll

Twice during the day, Bent Arrow saw the swimming teacher, but the warrior didn’t speak to him. If he had plans for a game of wolves, the teacher was keeping them to himself. The next morning, at the swimming lesson, Bent Arrow stayed near the teacher, hoping there would be word of the game, but again nothing was said. However, when Bent Arrow had returned to the tepee and was eating his meal, a low whistle sounded. That was the signal for the boys to meet.

Bent Arrow hurried out of the tepee, but as soon as he was outside he moved cautiously. He slipped from his tepee to the next one and on down the line to the last. Here he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled until he had crossed the low hill and was out of sight of the camp.

By the time Bent Arrow reached the meeting place, the teacher and several boys were there. Bent Arrow took his place in the circle of boys. All of them waited for the late-comers.

As soon as the last boy arrived, the teacher began to explain the game of wolves. Although Bent Arrow had heard the explanation before, he listened as intently as the two younger boys who were hearing it for the first time. The teacher gave a brief account of the wolves who were the Crow scouts. He told of the time the wolves had disguised themselves and crawled across the prairie and made a successful attack on a large hunting party of Sioux.

“Today you are the wolves,” he told the boys. “The meat on the tripods represents Sioux horses. The boy who captures the first Sioux horse and the boy who captures the largest one will get these prizes.”

Bent Arrow gave a gasp of elation when the teacher held up two eagle feathers. Here was a simple way to get the medicine which Clawing Bear had said he must have. He was so sure he would win one of the prizes that he almost reached out for it.

“Now disguise yourselves as wolves,” the teacher ordered.

Bent Arrow and the other boys trooped to the riverbank. They dug up handfuls of mud and completely covered themselves with it, even rubbing the mud into their hair. As the mud dried, it took on a grayish tinge so that when the boys crawled through the dry grass their coloring blended with it and they could hardly be seen.

At a signal from the teacher, the boys separated and started toward camp. Bent Arrow circled around the camp to approach the tripods of meat from the far side. If the squaws were expecting a raid, they wouldn’t look for the raiders to come from that direction. When he neared the camp, he got to his hands and knees and crawled.

The row of tripods extended beyond the last tepee in camp. Bent Arrow saw two squaws standing in front of that tepee talking together. He heard one of the squaws say that they should be watching for a magpie raid. The squaws always referred to the boys in the wolf game as magpies, because flocks of magpies often swarmed on the drying meat.