Witch Doctors Son

WITCH DOCTORS SON WITCH DOCTORS SON By EVELYN ILLUSTRATED DOUBLEDAY COMPANY, For Jack and Dorothy Eakin Contents I. The Snake Hunt 11 II. The First Pair of Shoes 28 III. Womens Work 41 IV. The Knife 53 V. The Mountain of the Spirits 68 VI. The Chiefs Wife Looks Ahead 81 VII. The Trap 96 VTIL The Outcast 107 IX. Vengeance for the Bear Gods 120 X. The Shoot 130 XI. The Second Pair of Shoes 140 XII. Reservation 150 XIIL Spokesman for the Whites 165 XIV. The Rogue Rivers Hunt 178 XV. Game from the Sky 189 XVI. Death of the Devil Woman 203 XVII. The Dream 218 XVIII. The Peacemaker 232 XIX. A Ta-MahNa-Wus for Tom 241 WITCH DOCTORS SON CHAPTER I The Snake Hunt Tom sat cross-legged in the small shade of a boulder pre tending to look straight ahead, but really watching the women anger a rattlesnake. It was very hot, the season when snakes shed their old skins for new, which was as it should be, for the venom had more strength at that time than at any other. The rattler had crawled into a crevice between two rocks and the women had awakened it by poking and jab bing with sticks. Now it had inched out into the open and coiled itself into a flat ring with the head rising from the middle. Even from this distance, Tom could hear the inces sant brittle warning of the rattles and could see the unwink-11 WITCH DOCTORS SON ing beady eyes glowing like two coals, the frequent opening of the mouth, and the flicker of a black, forked tongue. Al though the white, glistening fangs in the upper jaw were not visible from where he sat, he knew the women had glimpsed them. He could tell by their excited squeals that the fangs were large and full, that they would give forth much deadly poison to be doled out onarrowheads. Tom wondered idly if he himself would ever shoot a poisoned arrow from a bow. It was possible that he might grow to manhood and then to old age without doing so. He would be a warrior, of course, under Chief Jo, and a skilled hunter, but poisoned arrows were for emergencies only. They were never used for game or in ordinary warfare. That was one of the rules every Rogue River boy learned first of all. Poison arrows were only for the greatest extreme, and em ployed so rarely that he doubted if it were really worth the trouble of the squaws to make this yearly expedition for a fresh supply of venom. Ai-eer The triumphant shout went up from the sunny ledge and he knew the rattler had struck at the fresh liver. For a moment he forgot his wounded dignity and looked at them directly. Mal-tee-ny, his mother, was holding the long stick with the hunk of deer liver fastened to the end. As medicine woman it was her place to do so, for only she knew the special words which must be said at the time. The other squaws were crowded close about her, the older women nearest, the young girls on the eplge of the circle. Small chil dren who had been brought by their mothers on the expedi tion Jiad stopped their play, and now stood wide-eyed and ope mouthed in a group of their own. There were no men 12