onderful carven
silver ornaments, massive and sold, decorating his shirt and leggings.
We-hro loved the tawny fringes and the hammered silver quite as much as
a white lady loves diamonds and pearls; he loved to see his father's
face painted in fierce reds, yellows and blacks, but most of all he
loved the unvarying chuck-a, chuck-a, chuck-a of the great mud-turtle
rattles that the "musicians" skilfully beat upon the benches before
them. Oh, he was a thorough little pagan, was We-hro! His loves and his
hates were as decided as his comical but stately step in the dance of
his ancestors' religion. Those were great days for the small Onondaga
boy. His father taught him to shape axe-handles, to curve lacrosse
sticks, to weave their deer-sinew netting, to tan skins, to plant corn,
to model arrows and--most difficult of all--to "feather" them, to
"season" bows, to chop trees, to burn, hollow, fashion and "man" a
dugout canoe, to use the paddle, to gauge the wind and current of that
treacherous Grand River, to learn wild cries to decoy bird and beast for
food. Oh, little pagan We-hro had his life filled to overflowing with
much that the civilized white boy would gave all his dimes and dollars
to know.

And it was then that the great day came, the marvellous day when We-hro
discovered his second self, his playmate, his loyal, unselfish, loving
friend--his underbred, unwashed, hungry, vagabond dog, born white and
spotless, but begrimed by contact with the world, the mud, and the white
man's hovel.

It happened this way:

We-hro was cleaning his father's dugout canoe, after a night of fish
spearing. The soot, the scales, the fire ashes, the mud--all had to be
"swabbed" out at the river's brink by means of much water and an Indian
"slat" broom. We-hro was up to his little ears in work, when suddenly,
above him, on the river road, he heard the coarse voice and thundering
whipfalls of a man urging and beating his horse--a white man, for no
Indian used such language, no Indian beat an animal that served him.
We-hro looked up. Stuck in the mud of the river road was a huge wagon,
grain-filled. The driver, purple of face, was whaling the poor team, and
shouting to a cringing little drab-white dog, of fox-terrier lineage, to
"Get out of there or I'll--!"

The horses were dragging and tugging. The little dog, terrified, was
sneaking off with tail between its hind legs. Then the brutal driver's
whip came down, curling its lash about the