A young man filled the long medicine-pipe and Iron Horn blew sacrificial puffs about him, passing it in, saying: “Let no man touch the pipe who has eaten meat since the beginning of the last sun. If there are any such he must be gone—the Good Gods do not speak to full men.” But the pipe made its way about the ring without stopping.
Iron Horn then walked behind the circle sticking up medicine-arrows in the earth—arrows made sacred by contact with the Great Medicine of the Chis-chis-chash and there would hold the Bad Gods in check while the Good Gods counseled.
Resuming his seat, he spoke in a harsh, guttural clicking: “What is said in this circle must never be known to any man who does not sit here now. The Bad Gods will hear what the Good Gods say in such an event and the man who tells against them will be deserted by the Good Gods forever. Every man must tell all his secrets—all the things he has thought about his brothers since the last war-medicine; all the things he has done with the women of the tribe; all that the Gods have whispered in his dreams. He must tell all and forever say no more,” and Iron Horn rested on his words for a moment before continuing his confession.
“Brothers, I am a great medicineman—no arrow can touch me—I do not fear men. I am too old for the women to look upon. I did not say it at the time but when the sun was low on the land last winter I made it turn blue for a time. I made it cold in the land. Our horses were poor and when I made the sun blue we crusted the buffalo and killed many with our lances. Brothers, it was I who made the sun blue in the winter.
“Brothers, I love you all—I shall say no more,” and Iron Horn threw tobacco on the earth in front of him.
A young man next to him dropped his robe from about his body and with fierce visage spoke excitedly, for it was his first confession, and his Indian secretiveness was straining under the ordeal. It was mostly about gallantries and dreams—all made like the confessions which followed. They were the deeds and thoughts common to young Indian men. They ministered to the curiosity of people whose world lay within the camping circle of their small tribe, and they were as truthful as a fear of God could make them, except the dreams, and they too were real to the Indian mind.
The men now began to paint themselves and to take their paraphernalia from their war-bags and put it on. Iron Horn said: “Brothers—when it is dark I will put a medicine-arrow Into the ground where my feet are now, and if in the morning it has not moved we will go back to the lodges; but if it has moved, we will go in the direction in which it points. When we start toward the enemy no man must eat, drink or sit down by day, no matter how long or fatiguing the march; if he halts for a moment he must turn his face toward his own country so that the Gods may see that it is his wish to return there. We must sleep with our own faces toward our village. No two men must lie covered by the same robe. He must not ride or walk in a beaten path lest the spirit of the path go running on ahead of us to warn the enemy, and if by chance we do, we must come to the big medicine and rub it on the horses’ legs to ward off the danger.” This said, Iron Horn said much more to his young braves—all the demon fears which the savage mind conjures up in its contact with the supernatural, together with stated forms of decorations to be painted on the ponies, and then he dismissed them, saying: “Come to the circle before the moon rises while it is yet dark, but meanwhile sit each man alone and in silence and we will see what the Good Gods do with the arrows.”
The warriors led their ponies off to various points in the savage gorge and sat motionless the live-long day while the river rushed ceaselessly over the wild rocks and the ravens soared in the blue heavens.
By night they came gliding back—picking their way among the rocks and stood by the bared earth of the mystery place. The chief struck a light and bending over saw the arrow lying out in the middle of the space many feet away from where he had placed it. The smooth earth was dotted by the tracks of coyotes but the arrow pointed nearly southwest, and it was the way they must take. Rising, he pointed, saying: “The Good Gods say we must go this way—where they point. The medicine is strong—the Gods sent their little medicine-wolves to show us.
“We will make the sacrifices and then we will go. We shall strike the enemy.”