The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Way of an Indian, by Frederic Remington

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Title: The Way of an Indian

Author: Frederic Remington

Illustrator: Frederic Remington

Release Date: April, 2005 [EBook #7857]
Posting Date: July 24, 2009

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WAY OF AN INDIAN ***

Produced by Eric Eldred

[Illustration: 01 Pretty Mother of the Night--White Otter is no longer]

THE WAY OF AN INDIAN

By Frederic Remington

Illustrated by Frederic Remington

First published, February, 1906

Contents

I White Otter's Own Shadow

II The Brown Bat Proves Itself

III The Bat Devises Mischief Among the Yellow-Eyes

IV The New Lodge

V The Kites and the Crows

VI The Fire-Eater's Bad Medicine

VII Among the Pony-Soldiers

VIII The Medicine Fight of the Chis-Chis-Chash

I. White Otter's Own Shadow

White Otter's heart was bad. He sat alone on the rim-rocks of the bluffs
overlooking the sunlit valley. To an unaccustomed eye from below he
might have been a part of nature's freaks among the sand rocks. The
yellow grass sloped away from his feet mile after mile to the timber,
and beyond that to the prismatic mountains. The variegated lodges of the
Chis-chis-chash village dotted the plain near the sparse woods of the
creek-bottom; pony herds stood quietly waving their tails against the
flies or were driven hither and yon by the herdboys--giving variety to
the tremendous sweep of the Western landscape.

This was a day of peace--such as comes only to the Indians in contrast
to the fierce troubles which nature stores up for the other intervals.
The enemy, the pinch of the shivering famine, and the Bad Gods were
absent, for none of these things care to show themselves in the white
light of a midsummer's day. There was peace with all the world except
with him. He was in a fierce dejection over the things which had come
to him, or those which had passed him by. He was a boy--a fine-looking,
skillfully modeled youth--as beautiful a thing, doubtless, as God ever
created in His sense of form; better than his sisters, better