“Well, he’s a white-skinned man who has an Indian wife. An Indian woman is called a squaw, so the man is called a squaw-man. No men that have white skins believe in bear witches, and they like to kill bears, and they kill things with a long stick that shines, and it spits smoke with a loud noise, and it shoots a small heavy thing straight at the animal or bird that it points at. They call the bright stick a gun, and it is surely more to be feared than bows and arrows. You may see an arrow coming but you can’t see the little thing that the gun stick sends out.”
“Whee!” exclaimed Wongo, his little eyes growing wide with mingled interest and fear.
“Yes,” continued the old crow, “I’ve seen this squaw-man before. Met him some years ago away over on the other side of the two ranges, and he certainly can shoot straight with that gun thing, as the loss of one of my best tail feathers bears witness—and I was flying some at the time, too. I didn’t get but a few grains of his old corn. But no matter about that now,” he said, coming back to the subject in hand, “for I must tell you more about what I saw to-day. This squaw-man came to the Indian man-house yesterday with horses tied to a big thing that moves over the ground without walking.”
“Snake?” asked Wongo.
“No!” snapped Kaw. “Don’t interrupt me with silly questions. The thing has four round things beneath, where its legs ought to be, and they roll over and over when the horses walk. The man calls it by the name of ‘wagon.’ On top of it is a thing he calls a cage. It has four sides and each side is like a row of little trees that have grown very close together, only you couldn’t get through the little trees on the cage thing, as they are fastened into a floor place and into a strong top that is called a roof. I heard him explain it all to the Indians.”
“What is it for?” asked Wongo.
“Well, the squaw-man told the Indian men that something, or somebody called a ‘show’ wants him to catch a bear, and not kill it, but put it inside of the cage thing. Then the Indian men laughed and some looked afraid. When the squaw-man gets a bear into the cage I suppose the horses will walk with it and roll it off to the place where ‘show’ is. Now the reason I tell you all this, when I ought to be at home and asleep, is because I have a plan that you and I must carry out to-night.”
“I guess it’s so late I’ll not visit the man-house,” said Wongo, as he slowly turned around on the trail and headed toward home.
“Tut-tut!” said the crow. “You will have to be much braver than that if you expect ever to punish old Grouch.”
“Who said anything about being afraid?” asked Wongo, pulling himself up short and trying to look very brave.