Firelight--what a charm it adds to story-telling.How its moods seem to keep pace with situations pictured by the oracle,offering shadows when dread is abroad,and light when a pleasing climax is reached;for interest undoubtedly tends the blaze,while sympathy contributes or withholds fuel,ac-cording to its dictates.
The lodge was alight when I approached and I could hear the children singing in a happy mood,but upon entering,the singing ceased and embarrassed smiles on the young faces greeted me;nor could I coax a continua-tion of the song.
Seated beside War Eagle was a very old Indian whose name was Red Robe,and as soon as I was seated.the host explained that he was an honored guest;that he was a Sioux and a friend of long standing.Then War Eagle lighted the pipe,passing it to the dis-tinguished friend,who in turn passed it to me,after first offering it to the Sun,the father,and the Earth,the mother of all that is.
In a lodge of the Blackfeet the pipe must never be passed across the doorway.To do so would insult the host and bring bad luck to all who assembled.Therefore if there be a large number of guests ranged about the lodge,the pipe is passed first to the left from guest to guest until it reaches the door,when it goes back,unsmoked,to the host,to be refilled ere it is passed to those on his right hand.
Briefly War Eagle explained my presence to Red Robe and said:
"Once the Moon made the Sun a pair of leggings.Such beautiful work had never been seen before.They were worked with the col-ored quills of the Porcupine and were covered with strange signs,which none but the Sun and the Moon could read.No man ever saw such leggings as they were,and it took the Moon many snows to make them.Yes,they were wonderful leggings and the Sun always wore them on fine days,for they were bright to look upon.
"Every night when the Sun went to sleep in his lodge away in the west,he used the leggings for a pillow,because there was a thief in the world,even then.That thief and rascal was OLD-man,and of course the Sun knew all about him.That is why he always put his fine leggings under his head when he slept.When he worked he almost always wore them,as I have told you,so that there was no danger of losing them in the daytime;but the Sun was careful of his leggings when night came and he slept.
"You wouldn't think that a person would be so foolish as to steal from the Sun,but one night OLD-man--who is the only person who ever knew just where the Sun's lodge was--crept near enough to look in,and saw the leggings under the Sun's head.
"We have all travelled a great deal but no man ever found the Sun's lodge.No man knows in what country it is.Of course we know it is located somewhere west of here,for we see him going that way every after-noon,but OLD-man knew everything--except that he could not fool the Sun.
"Yes--OLD-man looked into the lodge of the Sun and saw the leggings there--saw the Sun,too,and the Sun was asleep.He made up his mind that he would steal the leggings so he crept through the door of the lodge.There was no one at home but the Sun,for the Moon has work to do at night just as the children,the Stars,do,so he thought he could slip the leggings from under the sleeper's head and get away.
"He got down on his hands and knees to walk like the Bear-people and crept into the lodge,but in the black darkness he put his knee upon a dry stick near the Sun's bed.
The stick snapped under his weight with so great a noise that the Sun turned over and snorted,scaring OLD-man so badly that he couldn't move for a minute.His heart was not strong--wickedness makes every heart weaker--and after making sure that the Sun had not seen him,he crept silently out of the lodge and ran away.
"On the top of a hill OLD-man stopped to look and listen,but all was still;so he sat down and thought.
"'I'll get them to-morrow night when he sleeps again';he said to himself.'I need those leggings myself,and I'm going to get them,because they will make me handsome as the Sun.'
"He watched the Moon come home to camp and saw the Sun go to work,but he did not go very far away because he wanted to be near the lodge when night came again.
"It was not long to wait,for all the OLD-man had to do was to make mischief,and only those who have work to do measure time.
