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Updated: May 25, 2025
A moment before, and the chief would have released the captives and sent them back to their camp in charge of a guide. But the art of Thunder-maker had stepped in to convince the people that the sacred totem of their tribe had been calling that day, and that it was the Englishmen for whom it called. Why? Ah, that was what the strangers found inexplicable.
They looked, and as they looked they saw the linen move, as if something inside were struggling to be free, and at the same time they heard a sound like the sudden springing of an old-time policeman's rattle. "Rattlesnakes!" exclaimed Arnold under his breath. Thunder-maker laughed when he saw that the sound had been recognised. "Come! Come, my children!" he cried, as he turned his face upwards.
Gently he raised the flap and looked in. An Indian of gigantic size was sitting by himself, adjusting his leggings and moccasins. He looked up to observe his visitor, and it was noticeable that as he did so Thunder-maker winced as though he were in pain. There were few who could look upon that man's face without wincing.
At the same moment the Indian gave a cry of triumph, tucked the one snake into a fold of his robe and bent down, making passes with his hands above the serpent on the ground. And as his hands moved so the rattlesnake gradually straightened out its body till it lay stiff and straight as a piece of wood. Thunder-maker paused.
Nay, greater fury than ever was depicted, though he was silenced before the anger of his chief. But it was only for a little while that he was thus disconcerted, for soon he resumed though now he spoke with humble fawning "It is death in the heart of Thunder-maker when the eyes of Mighty Hand shoot their looks of fire. But Thunder-maker speak true. Has he not made great medicine these many suns?
Well, merely that Thunder-maker had not reckoned with the enormous strength that was latent in the Scotsman, nor the peculiar sense of his humour; for, no sooner had the Indian charged, than he found himself gripped by powerful hands, turned face downwards on a bent knee, and smacked in good old homely style of punishment, which the medicine man's scanty attire rendered exceedingly suitable.
Then Thunder-maker had replaced his assistant in the linen cloth before it revived sufficiently to commence wriggling again, and, perhaps, point its supernatural head to some one else. Both Arnold and Holden had observed how Mighty Hand had been wavering between reason and superstition until the intervention of the Medicine Man had caused superstition to take the uppermost place.
As the day passed, and darkness fell upon the forest, the Englishmen stretched themselves upon the robes, while in whispers they tried to arrive at the solution of the mystery and form some sort of plan for future action. "It's all owing to that scoundrel Thunder-maker," Arnold said. "If he had not stepped in, Mighty Hand would have released us.
But Thunder-maker was too cunning to risk violent measures with two such powerful antagonists. He merely waited until Arnold had finished his tirade. Then he suddenly leaped out from the tent, threw himself upon the ground, and uttered wild screams that immediately roused the entire camp. "Dacotahs! Dacotahs! Come quick to the help of Thunder-maker! The evil spirits of the water have witched him!
The robe must return to tent of Thunder-maker if boys find their fathers." "Let Thunder-maker take his way in peace. By another sun Red Fox will have found the young pale-faces; by two suns he will return to the camp of Mighty Hand alone. I have spoken."
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