Sheridan High School - Bronc Yearbook (Sheridan, WY)

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THE OGKSHEPERIDA 6 test. Starlight’s eyes followed him wistfully but warily, as he made his way out of the circle of light to one of the wigwams. Presently she slipped away to her father’s lodge, and pausing near the flap, listened to the voices within. Running Wolf was asking for something with all power of his stately eloquence. She heard her own name mentioned and she well knew for what he had come to ask. For a while her father smoked silently within the dusky lodge. She could smell the pungent fragrance of the burning kennikinek. At length he spoke. “She is all that I have left,’’ he said. “She has been my. very eyes since this darkness came upon me. But I will not need her always. I know what I shall soon see the Happy Hunting Grounds.” He sat silent for a moment. “When we reach again the land of the Crows, then you may take my Starlight,” he said at last. Starlight’s heart gave a happy throb, but she turned to slip away into the darkness. A hand upon her arm detained her. “Why do you run away, little Starlight?” a passionate voice whispered in her ear, I have something to tell you.” Starlight knew what he wished to tell her but a certain shyness and a desire to put off the expected happiness yet a little longer made her plead an urgent errand to a friend’s lodge. Running Wolf reluctantly loosened his hold upon her arm. “Promise to meet me then upon the shore of the lake,” he pleaded, “promise to come there for the message.’’ Starlight promised softly and darted away from him only to turn a short distance away and watch him as he strode away, into the darkness. While he waited, pacing up and down at the trysting place on the shore of the lake, he thought he saw a bit of moss floating over the waters toward him. He stepped nearer and strained his eyes through the semi-darkness, caused by the gathering clouds and the gleaming fires behind. He stopped, startled, half-fascinated, when he saw a maiden’s face gleaming up at him through the dark water. It was a face white and beautiful like none he had ever seen before, and it rose and sank in a cloud of misty waving hair on the gentle waves just beyond his reach. He stood motionless gazing at it, until it began to throw a subtle charm over his senses. He tried to speak and ask her who she was and whence she came but his moving lips made no sound. A sudden cold fear touched his heart. Then the vision in the lake smiled and beckoned with a gleaming white hand, and Running Wolf forgot the darkeyed girl for whom he was waiting. He stepped nearer and stretched out his arms toward that tantalizing face. It floated a little farther away and beckoned again. A wild intoxication flooded his brain. He poised his life-body to plunge into the deep, black waters after the foolish vision. A timid, but warm and restraining hand touched his arm and brought him back to realities. He paused for a moment and scowled down at Starlight, who had come at last to hear the message. Then he looked again into the lake, but the face had disappeared and the water looked inky black where it had floated. He turned savagely upon the shrinking girl who had shat-

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THE OCKSHEPERIDA 5 bound, her arms glistening and her garded with a superstitious dread by blankets trailing over the shining, wet the Flathead tribe, and were called by rocks. The falls soon came to be re- it, the “Falls of the Misty Maiden.” The Vision of the Lake Jennie Williams, T2 Probably most of you have seen Fake De Smet, a beautiful sheet of water situated only a few miles from here. It differs from most of our western lakes in that its waters are very salty. It has no outlet and only one inlet. The Indians and early whites believed it to be bottomless. A little way north of it there stands a huge rock of volcanic formation, jutting out of a little hill and overhanging the road. The following is an old Indian legend concerning these two landmarks, which in the early days was told over many a trapper’s camp fire. Long before the white man had invaded the west, bands of Indians were in the habit of roving about the country on summer hunting excursions. They would travel in great, irregular circles, and so return in thee fall to their jiermanent winter camps. Often when there was peace among the tribes the warriors would take their women with them on these trips, for the squaws were very skillful in caring for the meat and pitching their temporary lodgings. Such a party camped one dreamy “Indian summer” evening upon the banks of the tiny stream just where its pure, sweet waters dropped noiselessly into the dark lake. It had been a very successful excursion. The strong, half- wild little ponies were heavily laden with the best parts of fat deer and buffalo. The party was nearing home and everything was conducive to jubilant feelings; so after the evening meal was done, the young braves piled light, dry brush upon the camp-fires and when the bright flame leaped high they shouted recklessly and springing high in the air. they danced wildly around the flickering fires. The spirit caught the silent, watchful maidens. They joined in the dance, gliding about the outer edge, swaying their slim bodies with a graceful rythm while the older Indians looked on from the surrounding circle where they stood or sat, the warriors in approving silence, the women chattering comments on the dancers. Most often the comments were about one dancer. “See the voung chief. Running Wolf.” “How' tall and fleet.” “Such strength and endurance.” Running Wolf could not but hear the flattering remarks, and they acted as an incentive to higher leaps and faster twirlings. But he kept his eye upon a certain girlish face, and Starlight’s eyes. Something in her expression pleased and encouraged him, for his brown, young face lighted up with satisfaction. He suddenly quitted the dance amidst loud shouts of pro-

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7 THE OCKSHEPER1DA tered his false dream. In such a blind rage that he hardly understood his own words, he said angrily, “Why do you follow like a dog at my heels when I would be alone? Go! Let me not see thy dark face again!” He thrust her from him and turned back to the lake. He called aloud upon the beautiful face to return to him, but only the rumbling thunder answered. The camp behind was dark and silent now, but still he paced along the shore and sent his sharp cry out across the waters. At last he was driven to his lodge by the blinding rain that suddenly emptied itself out of the darkness upon the breathless land. The morning broke clear and bright, with not a trace of yesterday’s hazy warmth. There was a chill in the wind that made the old men shake their heads and say: “The winter is close at hand. It is well that we are nearing home.” The squaws bustled about breaking comp and getting things in readiness for the last day of the trip. Running Wolf stood sullenly bv and watched the preparations. He was thinking how best to reconcile Starlight for his behavior of the evening before, for in the clear sunlight he saw that his fancy had deluded him. Rut Starlight was nowhere to be seen. No one else noticed her absence, and so they set out across the hills in the early morning. Running Wolf lingered in the rear looking back often in the hopes of seeing ger slim, brown figure coming after them, and so it happened that he was last to come along the trail winding toward the base of a huge rock. There the party had halted in a circle and were talking and jesticu-lating wildly. He pressed himself to- ward the center and there he saw upon the brown, wet earth the crushed and lifeless body of Starlight, lying where she had' hurled herself from the top of the rock. Kneeling beside her and caressing her bleeding face and thick matted hair, was her blind old father. Presently he stood up and stretched his wrinkled hands upward, he called upon his gods to curse the one who had brought this grief upon him? “It is the false young chieftain, Running Wolf,” he cried. “He hath wooed and then repulsed her. I call upon the tribe of my fathers to revenge this wrong.” All eyes turned toward the erect, stalwart form and grim, ashen face of the young warrior. The old chief of the tribe straightway called a council and after a long debate, during which the culprit stood stolic and silent in the midst of his guards, he pronounced the judgment. “Running Wolf,” he said, “you have disobeyed the laws of your fathers, and for this you shall be stripped of your weapons and your blankets and bound to the rock overlooking the grave of the rejected Starlight.” The command was quickly executed. The body of the dead girl was laid in a fissure of the rock and heaped with boulders. Then Running Wolf was bound on the rock exposed to the biting wind and where he must close his eyes or look directly upon his sweetheart’s grave. Then the procession moved on ucrtlward leaving the warrior a prey to the prowling beats and the cruel elements. So now when the wind goes moaning down across the lonely lake, hark you, for it is the voice of the false warrior mourning for his lost love.