Dusty Star

by Olaf Baker

Yet though Lone Chief spoke so discouragingly, throwing whole prairies along his tongue, to show the difficulty of finding what had once disappeared into them, he knew in his heart that the Chief would still believe him capable of finding Dusty Star. And so when Spotted Eagle again urged him earnestly to go out into the West to recover the lost medicine, Lone Chief shook his head despondingly, but nevertheless promised to go.

The next morning, very early, anxiously watching eyes saw the famous medicine man issue from his tepee, and travel steadily westward, till the enormous distances of the prairie swallowed him up.

Fortunately for Lone Chief, he was accustomed to long journeys. But whereas, in the journeys he was used to making, he went for no particular reason except that the great distances had made a nest in his brain and kept chirping there like birds, the present journey he was taking for a very big reason, firmly believing that unless he could find Dusty Star a terrible fate must fall upon his tribe.

Day after day, he travelled west, on and on towards the sunset-place, deeper and deeper into the heart of the old buffalo land. And he saw the great herds of buffalo, thousands and thousands of them, more than man could count; because it was a time long and long ago before the White Man had become Lord of the prairie, and the freight cars had thundered their cotton-goods and kerosene along the iron trails of the Middle West.

But Lone Chief did not waste his time among the buffalo, because he knew that Dusty Star would not be there, that it was only in the timber-wolf country that he would have a chance to come upon him, if he had not already started for the land of the Cariboo. But if you think that Lone Chief went wandering into the foothills all by chance, you are mistaken, for he had a way of doing things quite his own. And his way was this: To listen out for the news that is always passing through the wilderness though it is never printed, nor do they shout it from the tops of the trees. For if anything strange or dangerous has lately gone along the trails, word of it goes abroad, and the wild creatures flash the message to each other without a sound.

For a long time, Lone Chief did not get any news. Then one day, towards sunset, he caught a thin strand of a message as it drifted through the trees. Thin though it was, Lone Chief read it. It told him that Something had happened lately—for all he knew, might be still happening—along the secret trails.

For a long time after receiving the message. Lone Chief stood perfectly still. His eyes and his ears were not the only parts of him working: he used his nose, too, like the animals, in case the thing might have spilled a little of itself into the wind. Yet though he looked and listened and smelt, he got no certain information as to what the thing was. He was now less than half-a-day's journey from Carboona, and might reasonably be supposed to be within hail of some of its folk; but darkness closed down before he could get sight or wind of them, and because it was night, he lay down, sensibly, and went to sleep.

He was awake very early in the morning, at the hour when forest people smell the dawn before they see it. For a time, he lay still flat on his back, gazing up into the old darkness of the trees where the twilight was beginning. That was his way of learning the things that come to you if you do not walk about. And as he lay, it came to him clearer and clearer that he was near the end of his journey. And out of sight, with faint rustlings and fine foot-falls, the hunting-beasts came back along the trails. Yet Lone Chief never moved. As he lay there, wrapped in his elk-skin-robe, he might had been a log. And no eyes saw him, and only one nose smelt him, and that belonged to Baltook, the silver fox.

Now Baltook's acquaintance with Dusty Star had taught him the human smell. It had also taught him another thing: that things which smell like that are not necessarily enemies, and may possibly be friends. So instead of turning tail immediately, Baltook drew cautiously nearer, so that his eyes might complete the information which had been given to him by his nose. Nearer and nearer he came, setting each paw delicately down on the fir needles, so that not a whisper of sound gave warning of his approach. As for seeing him, one would have needed sharp eyes for that, as the black robe with the frosted surface made itself part of the darkness of the trees.

And yet for all Baltook's cunning, and delicately treading, Lone Chief knew that something was stealthily drawing near. In spite of that, he made no movement. Was not his hunting knife at his belt; and his bow and arrows within reach of his arm? And was he not prepared for whatever might happen? So he simply obeyed the law of the forest: Lie still!