So that evening the people all assembled as usual, and told all the news of the day, and about the hunting as was their custom. And when they were thru, and had quieted down, the uncle moved to the fire and rolled a coal toward Pahtahnkum, who took it and lit one of the pipes, and smoked it four times, and then slid it slowly (the pipe must be slid slowly because if it were slid rapidly the enemy would be too quick and escape, but if it is done slowly the enemy will be slow and can be captured) along the ground to his uncle. And his uncle took the watchkee, the pipe-tube, and smoked it also four whiffs, and passed it on, but saying: “Of course you are all aware that if any man among you has a wife expecting to have a baby soon, he should not smoke it, but pass it on without smoking to his neighbor, for if you smoke in such case the child will not be likely to live very long.”
And so the pipe passed around, and the boy, when the pipe came to him again, buried it as he had been told, and then he began to make this speech:—
“I am nothing but a child, and I go around where the people are cooking and when they give me something to eat I generally suffer because it is so hot. And there was a hunt, and you gave me nothing but a little quotaveech, and stuck it under my belt as if it were something good to eat: and when I took it home to my mother, and dropped it down by her, she turned her back upon it and began to cry. And when she had done crying she told me of all that had happened before, about my father’s death, and the story entered my heart; and I went for help to a respectable person, a doctor, one to whom a child would not be likely to go, and he kindly assisted me, and told me what I asked of him.
And I wanted to be revenged on the slayers of my father, and in imagination a day was appointed for the war, and I went; and the first night I feared nothing and felt good, and the second night, too, I feared nothing and felt good, but the third night I knew I was in the land of the Apaches, an enemy with shield and club, and I did not feel good, and it seemed to me the world was shaking, and I thought of what my mother had said, that the land of the Apaches was different from ours.
And the fourth day I went on and came to the mountain of the Apaches, and I found there the broken arrows of my father’s fight; and I sat down, for it seemed to me the mountains and the earth were shaking, and shook my knees, and I thought of what my mother had said that the land of the Apaches felt entirely different.
And the next day I went on and came to the water of the Apaches. And my hair lay over the water like moss. And I looked and found my skull, and I used it for a dipper, and parted the hair with it, and dipped up the water and drank it. And when I drank from the skull I felt as if I were crazy, and clutched around with my hands at things that were not there.
And from there I went on to another water, and that was covered with the white war-paint of my hair, which lay like ashes on the water, and I looked around and found my skull, and drank from that water, and it smelled strong to me like the smell of human flesh and of black war-paint.
And all this was caused in my imagination by the thought of my dead father, and of how the Apaches had gone along rejoicing because they had killed him.
And the next place was a great rock, and I sat down under it, and it was wet with my tears; and the winds of the power of my sadness blew around the rock four times, and shook me.
In the far east there is a gray cousin, the Coyote, and he knows where to find the Apaches, and he was the first I selected to help me and be my comrade, and he took my word, and joined me; and stood up and looked, and saw the Apaches for me and told me; and I had my band ready, and my boys captured the Apaches, who had no weapons ready to injure them.