“Aren’t the moccasins pretty?” Isabel exclaimed, quick to notice anything fanciful. There must have been twenty or thirty pairs dangling from the wall on nails.
“Those there,” said the Chief smiling, “belong to my wife. They are her special reward of merit from the women folks in the tribes, twenty or thirty years ago, and more, I guess. Some of them were given to me before we were married. They’d come around and find me building this cabin, and I’d tell them just what it was for, and they’d go away and think about it. Then after a time, one would return, and bring me something for a peace offering to my bride. Mostly they brought moccasins, and they are certainly worked fine, those honeymoon slippers.”
“Isn’t this a papoose case?” asked Ruth.
“Yes. An Indian girl named Laughing Flower left that here one day. Her baby was pretty sick, I guess, and she didn’t like the way the old women and medicine men fussed over it, so she brought it over here to Diantha. It couldn’t walk, and they had told her at the camp it never would, that it was bewitched, and all that sort of nonsense. When I came home I found Di sitting in front of the fire there, with the little brown thing on her lap. She’d loosened its clothes, and bathed it, and rubbed its limbs with sweet-oil, and hung the papoose case up on the wall. After a week, Laughing Flower went back, and her boy could walk. Little two year old he was, with eyes like coffee beans. That’s why they loved Diantha, I guess, and let us stay here in the valley. We always treated them decent.”
“Now, tell us about all these guns, please,” begged Sue. “I didn’t know there were so many kinds.”
“Didn’t you? I’ve used everything from an old flint lock that belonged to Zed, down to this lightweight Winchester. These breech-loaders came in use along in the Indian wars, when I was a little lad about five, I guess. Here’s a carbine that went through the Civil War. It belonged to an old pard I had, back in my first days here; Tennessee Clayborne, he was called, but mostly Tennessee. He was with Custer to the finish.”
The Chief was silent after that, whistling softly to himself as he fingered the old gun lovingly.
“I wish I could shoot,” said Polly. “Not to kill anything but just to hit something.”
“Do you? Well, I shouldn’t wonder if that could be gratified.” Sandy lifted down a lightweight Winchester. “We’ll go out, and see which one has the steadiest hand, and surest eye.”
“Polly has, I’m sure,” said Isabel. “I don’t want to shoot, please. I don’t like even to touch anything that will go off.”