Hawk Eye

Excerpt

CHAPTER I

WILD GEESE

Slow Dog, Medicine Man, looked out of his lodge. Wild geese were honking overhead. To the Indian it meant the return of spring.

"I must be the first to kill one," muttered Slow Dog. Entering his lodge, he presently came out with bow and arrows. Hastening toward a bend in the river which formed a sheltered cove, he hid among a clump of willow bushes and waited in the hope that the birds might come down to feed.

Slow Dog was not the only one to notice the geese, however. Two boys, one about fifteen years of age, the other, close to thirteen, had also heard the honking.

"Get your bow and arrows," cried Hawk Eye, the elder, darting into his tepee. The younger boy, Raven Wing, ran to his lodge for his weapons. In a few minutes both were hurrying to the river.

"There's Slow Dog hiding in the bushes," whispered Raven Wing. "He wishes to be the first to bring one to earth."

"Leave him there," answered Hawk Eye, noticing that the flock, headed by an old gander, had slightly altered its course. "The geese are making for the lake." Breaking into a run, the boys headed for Big Stone Lake, from whose southern boundary issued the "sky-tinted waters" of the Minnesota River.

As they hurried through the timber belt that bordered the river's edge, Raven Wing remarked, "they may come down in the marsh."

Ice still lay thick upon the lake, but on the shallower waters it had begun to melt under the increasing warmth of the sun.

"Can they see us?" asked Hawk Eye as Raven Wing, who was in the lead, stopped at the further end of the grove.

"No. We have yet time to run across this open space," answered the younger boy.

On reaching a thicket of willows, the boys halted; then crept in to almost the edge of a frozen stretch of swamp.

"Here they come!" whispered Raven Wing. As the flock settled on the marshland, Hawk Eye fitted an arrow to his bow. "I'll take the one close to the leader," he said. Almost simultaneously Raven Wing let fly his arrow. The feathered ash wood shafts sped to their marks and two birds fluttered and fell to earth. Alarmed at the fall of their comrades, the flock rose in the air, but before they could get beyond arrow range, two more birds dropped to earth.

"We've outwitted Slow Dog," chuckled Hawk Eye, as he made his way over the half-frozen ground to pick up his birds.

"He must return empty-handed," laughed Raven Wing, retrieving his arrows from the birds he had slain. "What do you intend to do with your first kill?" he asked.

"Give it to Old Smoky Wolf," answered Hawk Eye. "The goose first slain in the Spring is always made the occasion for a feast."

"I will give mine to my stepfather, Black Eagle," said Raven Wing. "He will be our chief when Old Smoky Wolf takes the trail of departed warriors."

"Because you have outwitted him, Slow Dog will now bear another grudge against you," went on Hawk Eye.

"Perhaps it were better had I not seen the geese," sighed Raven Wing. "I would not be the cause for further trouble between him and my stepfather."

"Slow Dog would find one if it suited his fancy," said Hawk Eye. "He has a tongue with two ends, like a serpent's. But he has no need to look for an excuse. He has not forgotten that it was you who discovered the buffalo herd during the great blizzard and so saved us all from starvation. Had you not done so, he would have succeeded in convincing many that the famine had been sent by the gods to punish us all for allowing your mother to hunt with the men. You, he hates. But for you, he might have persuaded the tribe to elect him chief in place of Old Smoky Wolf."

"He hates Black Eagle," said Raven Wing, sadly....