The old man smiled, his bright eyes fixed on Hector.
"But is it evil——" he resumed, "this ceremony of making warriors? What, after all, do we most admire in a man? White men and red alike, we especially admire strength, courage and fortitude. You are content to await the great test of action to prove that your comrades possess these qualities. Till then you credit them with all the strength, courage and fortitude they should rightly have. But we Indians, we are not so easily satisfied. We demand that a young man prove himself before the hour of action. When danger rises in your very path and Death awaits you with his arrow on the string, that is no time, we say, to test a man for the first time. Your safety, perhaps your life, depends, in that moment, on the courage, strength and fortitude of those about you. Then surely you should see that those about you are brave and strong and hardy before entrusting either life or safety to their keeping? That is wisdom, my son, that is right. The boy must show that he is fit to go before we take him with us. Therefore, we try him in the Sun Dance. If he succeeds—then, we need have no further doubts. If he fails—the lives of men are saved and no needless risks are encountered by the remainder of the tribe. The test is severe? Yes; because, otherwise, it would be worthless. But no lasting injury results. What, then, are a few drops of blood, a little agony?
"My son, the Indian does not shun, he embraces the opportunity of that ceremony. Does it not show that he has courage, strength and fortitude, which crown a man with glory as his antlers crown the caribou?
"Now in a woman—what do we admire?" The chief's voice grew tender. "Is it gentleness, is it obedience? These things we honour, yes. But greater than these, and higher than them all, is Purity! White men and red alike, that is the thing we would have especially in woman. We are ourselves weak and corrupt. We feel in our hearts the need of something to help us to be better. So we ask that help from these, our women. We make of Purity a torch of light and put that torch in the hands of those we love, to guide us through the storm. We would have our women—" here he swept a hand towards the skies—"as high above us, as white and clear as yonder stars, to show the way, as they do. We would have them like the peaks of the World's Backbone, which you call the Rocky Mountains, looking always, like them, upon our deeds, landmarks, like them, to guide us by day, as the stars guide us by night, crowned with that virtue, Purity, as the peaks are crowned with spotless snow and, like those peaks, so glorious, so unchanging, so near the Great Spirit—nearer, far, than we!—that only to look on them fills our hearts with awe and wonder. So we would have our women.
"But here again the white and red man part. Your women shrink from a public declaration such as ours endure. Unlike you, we do more than teach our women purity. We ask them to dedicate themselves to purity before the eyes of all. We hold that virtue up before them as a thing to be prized. Then is the shame which follows any falling from the heights made trebly terrible. So do our women learn that it is for them to be true to the laws of the Great Spirit and leave love-making to the male—as with birds, animals, fishes, so must it be with men and women."
Moon, in the shadows, stirred restlessly.
"Both these ceremonies, my son, are beautiful, for they glorify strength, courage and fortitude in men, purity in women. Then there is nothing strange in the observance of these ceremonies by one and the same people. I wonder—do you understand now?"
"I think—I think I see," said Hector.
He looked for Moon; but she had disappeared.
VI