Not more than a couple of minutes had passed before the news of the capture had gone through the camp. The Indians, old and young, men, women and children, came crowding round to see this strange monster which Looking-All-Ways had found. Shasta, sitting hunched upon his calves, glared round at the company with his beady eyes shining through the masses of his hair. The Indians, seeing the glitter of them, thought it wiser not to come too close, and every time Shasta threw back his head to shake the hair out of his eyes, a murmur went through the crowd.
Looking-All-Ways told his tale. He had been hunting on the caribou barren, behind the high rocks. On his return, he had come upon the little monster crouching on the rocks where the wolves had gathered, and looking down upon the camp.
Poor little Shasta gazed at the strange beings around him with wonder and awe. He did not feel a monster. It was they who were the monsters—these tall, smooth-faced creatures with skins that seemed to be loose, and not belonging to their bodies at all! No wonder his eyes glittered as he turned them quickly this way and that, taking in all the details of his surroundings with marvellous rapidity. The thing excited him beyond measure. He felt a growing desire to throw back his head and howl.
For a time nothing happened. The Indians were content to stare at him in astonishment, while Shasta glared back. Then the chief, Big Eagle, gave orders that his arms should be untied. Looking-All-Ways stepped forward and unloosened the deer-skin thong. Shasta submitted quietly, for he had a strong feeling within him that it was the best thing to do. Only he wanted to howl so very badly! Yet he kept the howl down in his throat, and crouched, humped up, with his hands upon the ground.
Suddenly one of the Indians, bolder than the rest, touched Shasta's back, running his hand down his spine. Like a flash, Shasta, whirling round, with a wolfish snarl, seized the offending hand. With a cry of fear and pain the Indian sprang back, snatching his hand away. After that, the Indians gave Shasta more room, for now they had a wholesome dread of his temper. If they had not touched him, Shasta would not have turned on them. But the touch of that strange hand maddened him, and set his pulses throbbing. It was the wild blood in him that rebelled. In common with all really wild creatures, he could not bear to be touched by a human hand. And all his life afterwards he was the same. He never overcame the shrinking from being touched by his fellows.
After a while the Indians began to move off, and soon Shasta was left to himself with only Looking-All-Ways to watch him. For some time Shasta stayed where he was without stirring. He wanted to take in his new surroundings fully, before deciding what to do. The only thing about him that he moved was his head and his eyes. He kept moving his head rapidly this way and that, as some unfamiliar sound caught his ear. He observed the shapes of things, and their colour and movements, with a piercing gaze which saw everything and lost nothing. And because he was so true to his wolf training, he sniffed at them hard, to make them more understandable through his nose. It was all so utterly new and unexpected that it was like being popped down into the middle of another world. Next to the Indians themselves, the things that astonished him most were their lodges. He watched with a feeling of awe the owners going in and out. Some of the lodges were closed. Over the entrances flaps of buffalo-skin were laced, and no one entered or came out. Shasta had a feeling that behind the laced flaps mysterious things were lurking—he could not tell what. Or perhaps they were the dens where the she-Indians hid their cubs. If so, they were strangely silent and gave no sign of life. Many of the tepees were ornamented with painted circles and figures of animals and birds that ran round the hides. At the top, under the ends of the lodge-poles, the circles represented the sun, moon and planets. Below, where the tepee was widest and touched the ground, the circles were what the Indians call "Dusty Stars," and were imitations of the prairie puff-balls, which, when you touch them, fall swiftly into dust. The tepee against which Shasta crouched was ringed by these dusty stars, but he did not know what they were meant for. He only saw in them round daubs of yellow paint. And because he knew nothing about painting, or that one thing could be laid on another, he thought that the tepees and their decorations had grown as they were, like tall mushrooms, bitten small in their tops by the white teeth of the moon. But wherever his gaze wandered, it always returned to Looking-All-Ways, who sat a few paces away towards the sun, and smoked a pipe of polished stone. And there was this peculiarity about Looking-All-Ways, that, although his name suggested a swift and prairie-wide glance, which made it impossible for one to take him by surprise, he had a habit of sitting in a sleepy attitude, staring dreamily straight in front of him, as if he noticed nothing that was going on around. Shasta, of course, did not yet know his name. All he knew was that if Looking-All-Ways had a slow eye, he was extremely swift as to his feet. And as he watched him, he measured distances with his own cunning eyes behind his heavy hair. This distance, and that! So far from the last porcupine quill on Looking-All-Ways' leggings to the nearest toe-nail on Shasta's naked foot! So far again from the toe-nail to the dusty stars at the edge of the tepee; and from the tepee itself to that lump of rising ground toward the northwest! Shasta began to lay his plans cunningly.
If he made straight for the knoll, Looking-All-Ways might catch him before he could reach it, but if he darted behind the tepee, he might be able to dodge and double, and make lightning twists in the air, and so baffle the Indian until he could reach the trees. As always, when in danger, Shasta's instincts turned toward the trees. It was not until long afterwards that he learnt the ancient medicine song and sung:
"The trees are my medicine.
When I am among them,
I walk around my own medicine."
Shasta was nervous of the tepee—he did not know what might be immediately behind it. That was one reason which kept him so long where he was. If he could see what was on the other side he would feel better, and more inclined to run. Another reason was the sense of being surrounded on all sides by strange creatures whose behaviour was so utterly unlike the wolves that there was no saying what they would do the moment he started to run. Yet, whenever he looked away from the lodges, there were the high bluffs and the precipices, and the summits of the spruces and the pines, like the ragged edges of the wolf-world. That way lay freedom, and the life that had no terror for him, and in which he was at home.
The more he looked at the tree-tops over the summits of the rising ground to the northwest, the more he felt the desire growing in him to be up and away.
At last the moment came when he could bear it no longer. He glanced warily at his captor before making the dash. The time seemed favourable. Looking-All-Ways had his eyes upon the remote horizon. There was a dull look in them as if they were glazed with dreams. Suddenly, without the slightest warning, Shasta leapt and disappeared behind the tepee.
The thing was done with the quickness of a wolf. In spite of that, the slumberous-looking mass of the Indian uncoiled itself like a spring. The dream-glaze over his eyeballs vanished in a flash. Instantly they became the eyes of an eagle when he swoops.
Shasta had scarcely reached the back of the tepee when the Indian was on his feet and had started in pursuit. This time Shasta did not make the mistake of running a straight course. He made a zigzag line through the outermost tepees, turning and twisting with bewildering quickness. Even when he darted out into the open, he did not run straight. It was a marvel to see how he turned and doubled. And every time when Looking-All-Ways, with his greater speed, was almost upon him, Shasta would draw his muscles together and leap sideways like a wolf. And every time he leaped, he was nearer to freedom than before.
Suddenly something happened which he could not understand. Looking-All-Ways was not near him. He was farther behind than he had been at the beginning of the chase. Yet Shasta felt something slip over his head, tighten round his body with a terrible grip, and bring him to the ground with a jerk. When he looked round in astonishment and terror, there was his pursuer fifty paces away, at the other end of a raw-hide lariat!
Shasta struggled and tore at the hateful thing which was biting into his naked body. But the thing held. The more he struggled the tighter it became. It was dragging him back to the camp. In a very few minutes he was among the lodges again and knew that escape was hopeless.
After this attempt, the Indians secured him firmly with thongs, one of which was fastened to a stake driven in the ground. They were fond of making pets of wild animals. And now they felt they had in their midst a creature so wonderful that it was more than half human, and which might prove to be a powerful "Medicine" to the tribe. Once more they crowded round the strange boy, and jabbered to each other in their throats. Shasta had never heard such odd sounds. The strange eyes in their hairless faces troubled him, but the noises that came out of their mouths made him tingle all over. It was not until near sunset that the crowd separated, the Indians going back to their evening meal.
Shasta looked wistfully at the sun as it dipped to the mountains, rested for a moment or two upon their summits and then disappeared. The sun was going to his tepee, and the stars which decorated it were not dusty. But they would not bind him with deer-thongs, the people in those lodges; for nothing is bound there, where the sun and moon go upon the ancient trails. And of those trails only the "wolf-trail" is visible, worn across the heavens by the moccasins of the Indian dead.
The smell of the cooking came to Shasta's nose, and tickled it pleasantly. Not far off, a group of squaws were cooking buffalo tongues. Seeing his eyes upon them, one of them took a tongue from the pot and threw it to him with a laugh. Shasta drew back, eyeing it suspiciously—this steaming, smelling thing which lay upon the ground. But by degrees the pleasant smell of it overcame him, and he began to eat. It was his first taste of cooked food. When he had finished, he licked his lips with satisfaction, and wished for more. But though the squaws laughed at him, they did not offer him another, for buffalo tongues are a delicacy and not to be lightly given away. The smoke of many fires was now rising from the lodges. Besides the cooking, Shasta could smell the sweet smell of burning cottonwood. As the dusk fell and twilight deepened into night, the lodges shone out more and more plainly, lit by inside fires. And in the rising and falling of the flames the painted animals upon the hides seemed to quiver into life, and to chase each other continually round the circles of the tepees. Then, one by one, the fires died down, and the lodges ceased to shine. They became dark and silent, hiding the sleepers within. Only one here and there would give out a ghostly glimmer like a sentinel who watched.
As long as the lodges glimmered Shasta did not dare to move. He felt as if the dusty stars of them were eyes upon him. But when the last glimmer died, and all the tepees were dark, he began to move stealthily backwards and forwards, tugging at the thongs.
But, try as he would, he could not loosen them. They were too cunningly arranged for his unskilled fingers to undo, and when he tried his strong white teeth upon them he had no better success.
The camp was very still. Presently the wind rose and made the lodge ears flap gently. Shasta did not know what it was, and the sound made him uneasy. All at once there was another ............