"Is that so?"
"Through the brow—above the eyes. Come, Jesse."
Next thing I was standing in the tent door, and it was so dark inside I had to strike a match. The sulphur tip burned blue, the wood flared, and for that moment, bending down, I seen the black dark hole between the eyes, the smear of drying blood. Then the match went out, and I—that was enough.
I gave Bull what I'd left, to pay for burial.
Then I was riding Tiger all alone, with my shadow drawin' slowly out ahead as the moon waned.
CHAPTER V
THE BURNING BUSH
Among the Indians, before a boy gets rated warrior, he goes alone afoot, naked, starvin', thirsty, way off to the back side of the desert. Thar he just waits, suns, weeks, maybe a whole moon, till the Big Spirit happens to catch his eye. Then the Big Spirit shows him a stick, or a stone, or any sort of triflin' common thing, which is to be his medicine, his wampum, the charm which guards him, hunting, or in war. There's the ordeal, too, by torture, done in the medicine lodge, so all the chiefs can see he's fit for bearin' arms. He's given the war-path secret, taking his rank as a man.
Among them Bible Indians you'll remember a feller called Moses, out at the back side of the desert, seen the Big Spirit in a burning bush. Later his tribe set up a medicine lodge, and the hull story's mighty natural.