Then Seha wandered out on the prairie, wailing as ever for his lost power. And after many days, he laid himself down by a stream to die. But he did not die. He slept; and the vision came again. When he awoke, he was strong again and his eyes could see far as before.
Then he said: “I will cleanse myself in the stream and go back to my people, for I am strong again.”
But lo! as he leaned over the clear stream, he beheld the reflected image of an eagle far above him. Now a medicine man can change himself at will into anything that walks or crawls or flies or is still; and as Seha watched the eagle, he knew that it was Ebahamba!
So gliding into the stream, he quickly changed himself into a great fish floundering temptingly upon the surface. The eagle, which was Ebahamba, being hungry, swooped down upon the fish with wide beak and open talons.
In a moment, Seha changed himself into a huge boulder, against which the swooping bird dashed furiously, crushing its beak and talons. Then it arose, and with bloody wings, fluttered across the prairie.
Seha stepped out of his rock and laughed a loud, long laugh, and the eagle, which was Ebahamba, heard and knew.
So Seha returned to his village and was a great man among his people. But Ebahamba hid himself in his tepee; and a rumour ran that his arms were broken and his face crushed.
And there was much wonder in the village!
THE old woman Gunthai had nothing but a past over which she brooded and a son upon whom she doted. Had she been able to write the latter in the letters of that tongue which came to the prairie many moons after her death, breaking with syllables of magic the spell of the centuries, she would have written it with a “u”; for her son was as the day to her; his coming was the morning and his going was the sunset. When he laughed, there was summer in the wretched little tepee; when he cried, the snows drifted about the mother-heart.
Winter and summer the old woman sat in her lodge, her back bent with the burdens of many seasons and her face seamed with many memories; yet stern and expressionless as of one who has followed a long trail and cannot see its end though the sun be falling.
All day she would sit in her lodge, weaving baskets of willow, which she exchanged with her tribesmen for meat and robes; for the father of her child was dead. Her little boy, whom she tenderly called Nu Zhinga (Little Man), would lie long hours before her with his chin resting upon his little brown hands, watching the fingers of his mother weave the pliant twigs into form with marvellous skill, as it seemed to him; and often when the hours crept lamely, he would sing to her a monotonous song like the wind’s, timing the irregular air with the beating of his toes upon the floor.