Adventure Magazine Cover, February 3, 1921 — page 28: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

22 his eyes can see through a bull-hide. The white-hair can not hide the black man from him.”’ “Goin’ to pick out the king o’ spades, eh?” mused Joe, smiling whimsically. Then aloud he shouted: “Palm it on ’em, ye skunk! If they guess it yer goose is cooked.” | Oakes’ head popped through the opening and he cried— “x of a lot that would bother you!” “Jest ’bout that much, if it wouldn’t make ’em so proud that they’d ’low they was primed to make a clean sweep an’ crag my head,” replied the trapper. Oakes dodged back inside and the crowd - waited. The minutes grew into an hour before the flap was thrown back for Sitting Bear and Walking Wolf to emerge. No word was needed to tell that the aspirants for medicine honors had been defeated. Oakes’ face at the opening, more sallow than ever and marked with streaks of sweat, grinned in triumph. Sitting Bear wrapped his blanket close about him although the day was hot, and stalked toward his tent. Walking Wolf fumbled the long rolls of hair and mumbled in an undertone. It was shortly after this assault on the gambler’s manual dexterity that the latter quit his tent, and, followed by the Indian, walked to Sitting Bear’s tent. Joe strolled along some rods behind. Sitting Bear was seated outside his tent with two women braiding his long hair and stringing several silver brooches upon it. The brooches represented a lucky haul in old Mexico and were greatly prized as hair-ornaments. Walking up to the chief, Oakes informed him: “This medicine man would walk down to the river and think about his medicine. The Great Spirit tells him to go. Your young men make so much noise he can not think here. I will go with him.” “He can go alone. No one will stop him. You will stay here so you will not get lost. While he is gone you can renew your medi- cine. It is growing weak,” savagely replied the chief. “Vet it is stronger than that of Walking Wolf’s,” reminded the gambler. “You had better make it much stronger and bigger. You will not leave the village.” “Tt is good. I will tell my friend-to explain to the Great Spirit that I must Adventure stay here. He had a dream he does not understand. He can find the truth by looking into running water, but he will not know the truth unless I stand by his side to point it out.” “Ho-o? (Yes?) Then his medicine is very weak!” jeered the chief. “It is a dream about many white men coming. More white men than there are buffaloes.” ~- SLTTING BEAR was startled. He glared at the crazy Indian while the “ee"s latter mumbled inaudibly to him- self and cut notches. “He cuts a notch for every white man coming?” ventured the chief as the Indian finished five, threw up five fingers and then shaved the stick clean. ‘‘More white men than all the Indians ever saw,” continued Oakes. “Why should white men come?” hissed Sitting Bear, visibly disturbed. ‘“The han- pogo (trappers) come. The horse and walking-soldiers may come. We can eat them all up.” “These dream men are fotakai.”’ “Cold whites? (Northerners?) It is a hie.” “They come with many wagons and guns. They will cross your hunting-grounds. In this dream they went up the Republican through the heart of the Arapaho and Cheyenne country. They came up this road, beating down a wide path as hard as an arrowhead. They went up the Mis- souri, as many as there are Kiowa dead men, making the Sioux and Blackfeet very angry.” ‘““Ho-o? When will they come?” eagerly demanded Sitting Bear, his eyes glittering at the suggestion of a general war which would include the mighty Sioux nation. “Only by looking into the river can the medicine man learn that.” “Tell him to go. But he must go alone,” sullenly insisted the chief. “Then you will not know when the whites are coming until they have covered your country. His medicine talks through me.” Sitting Bear stared at the ground for a minute, then suddenly said: “You two shall go to the river afoot. My warriors shall keep far back.” Garcia, the Mexican, just returned, caught the trapper’s eye and said, “S#, ° senor’; and Joe knew that the two ponies CORMICLOOOkKS (C@