THE STORM-CHILD
There was tranquillity in the warm lodge of Waumdisapa, chief of the Tetons. It was always peaceful there for it is the duty of a head man to render his people harmonious and happy—but it was doubly tranquil on this midwinter day, for a mighty tumult had arisen in the tops of the tall willows, and across the grass of the bleak plain an icy dust was wildly sliding. Nearly all the men of the band were in camp, so fierce was the blast.
Waumdisapa listened tranquilly to the streams of snow lashing his tepee’s cap and felt it on his palm as it occasionally sifted down through the smoke-vent, and said, “The demons may howl and the white sands slide—my people are safe here behind the hills. With food and plenty of blankets we can wait.”
Hour by hour he smoked, or gravely meditated, his mind filled with the pursuits and dangers of the past. Now and again as an aged wrinkled warrior lifted the door-flap he was invited to enter to partake of tobacco and to talk of the gathering spirits of winter.
In a neighboring lodge the chief’s wife was at work beside her kettle singing a low song as she minded her fire, and through the roaring, whistling, moaning riot of the air-sprites other women could be heard cheerfully beating their way from fire to fire. A few hunters were still abroad, but no one was alarmed about them. The tempest was a subject of jest and comparison with other days. No one feared its grim power. Was it not a part of nature, an enemy always to be met!
Suddenly the sound of a moaning cry broke in upon the chief’s meditation. The tent-door was violently thrown up and with a hoarse wail, Oma, a young widow, entered the lodge, and threw herself before the feet of Waumdisapa. “My baby! My little boy is lost in the snow. O father, pity me—help me!”
Quickly the chief questioned her. “Where?”
“Out there!” she motioned with her hand—a wild gesture toward the bleak remorseless north. “I was with my brothers hunting the buffalo—the storm came on—my baby wandered away from the camp. We could not find him. They came away—taking me, too. They would not let me stay. Send hunters—find him. Take pity on me, my father!”
The chief turned to her brothers (who had followed her and were looking on with sad faces) and said, “Is this true?”