IV.

THE COFFEE-MAKING.


One summer afternoon my mother left me alone in our wigwam while she
went across the way to my aunt's dwelling.

I did not much like to stay alone in our tepee for I feared a tall,
broad-shouldered crazy man, some forty years old, who walked loose among
the hills. Wiyaka-Napbina (Wearer of a Feather Necklace) was harmless,
and whenever he came into a wigwam he was driven there by extreme
hunger. He went nude except for the half of a red blanket he girdled
around his waist. In one tawny arm he used to carry a heavy bunch of
wild sunflowers that he gathered in his aimless ramblings. His black
hair was matted by the winds, and scorched into a dry red by the
constant summer sun. As he took great strides, placing one brown bare
foot directly in front of the other, he swung his long lean arm to and
fro.

Frequently he paused in his walk and gazed far backward, shading his
eyes with his hand. He was under the belief that an evil spirit was
haunting his steps. This was what my mother told me once, when I
sneered at such a silly big man. I was brave when my mother was near by,
and Wiyaka-Napbina walking farther and farther away.

"Pity the man, my child. I knew him when he was a brave and handsome
youth. He was overtaken by a malicious spirit among the hills, one day,
when he went hither and thither after his ponies. Since then he can not