Weeks passed before he could sit up; a long time before he could stand; many days before he could walk; many more before he could ride.
But that was not an empty time for either of them.
He who is raised with a book in his hand comes to need mental occupation as much as he needs food. As for the hunting, it was easily done. Much game followed the course of the stream, up and down. The work around the camp was small, likewise, and, when the brain of the sick man cleared, Torridon spent the remainder of each day with him. And since talk was impossible until he had mastered the language, he set about the study of it.
Never did student make such progress. He himself had been a schoolteacher for four years, cudgeling information into the dull heads of the Bretts. Now he had himself for a pupil and he drove himself remorselessly. He wrote down every word that he heard and memorized it, going patiently over and over the list. There were many sounds that were hard to duplicate with the alphabet. For those sounds he invented symbols. And as he progressed in his talk, he still kept paper at hand and jotted down the corrections that the convalescent red man made.
And, before long, talk could flow freely between them, particularly since, in their conversation, the red man did most of the speaking. For he had much to say, and furthermore he knew how to say it.
His name was Standing Bull. He was a Cheyenne warrior. In the lodge at home he had two wives and three children. He was young, and he was rising in his tribe, and then trouble came to him. He explained it to Torridon as follows.
Eleven times he had been on the warpath. On these excursions he had been very successful. He had brought back many horses, forty or fifty, according to varying counts, for the narrator seemingly allowed himself some latitude. But, more than horses, he had taken three scalps, and he had counted no fewer than eight coups. Of this he was enormously proud.
“What is a coup?” asked Torridon, very curious.
“A child with a gun may take the life of a strong warrior from a distance,” said the Cheyenne, “or a child with a bow may shoot from the darkness and kill a chief. But when a coup is counted it is different. I charge in a battle. I see an enemy. I have a charge in my rifle, but I do not shoot. No, instead of that I keep the bullet in my gun. I rush my enemy. He fires at me. I stoop and the bullet flies over my head. He snatches out a knife. I swerve away from it, and, reaching from my horse, I touch him with my coup stick. It is greater than the killing or the scalping of him.”
“But why?” persisted Torridon. “If you kill him, then there is one less enemy for you and your people. That is a great advantage. You may say that it proves you are a greater warrior than the other man.”
“That is true.” The Cheyenne smiled. “The white men are wise and do clever things. They do many things that the Indian cannot do. The Indian cannot make guns, for instance. Well, still Heammawihio gives the red man some gifts that he does not give to the white man. He gives him understanding of many things. That is only right and fair. You would not want the white man to have all the understanding, White Thunder?”
That was the name he had given to Torridon, because, apparently, he had come into the life of the Cheyenne with a white face, and on the wings of the thundering rush of water that so nearly carried them all into another life.
“No,” agreed Torridon. “Of course the Indians have understanding.”
“And the most important thing of all is the counting of coups.”
“How can that be?” said Torridon, amazed.
“Look,” said the warrior. “What is the greatest thing you wish to have?”
Torridon thought only a moment. “A good woman,” he said.
It was the time when the Cheyenne was halfway toward his natural strength. He could raise himself on his elbows in order to look his companion straight in the face.
When he made sure that Torridon was not jesting, he lay down again with a murmur that was half a grunt.
“Women,” he said at last, “can be bought for horses, or for beads. Women are very good,” he added hastily, for he always showed the greatest tact in saving the feelings of the white man, “because they cook and keep the lodge clean and fresh, they flesh hides and cure them, they make clothes, and, above all, they may bear man children. But, nevertheless, there are other things that you white men want. What are they?”
“We want money, I suppose,” said Torridon, who found it rather difficult to look at life in such a naked fashion. When he looked inward, he hardly knew what would evolve from the mist.
“Money, money,” said the Cheyenne almost harshly. “Well, you want women for wives, and you want money. What else?”
“To do something important.”
“Like what?” said the warrior.
“Like . . . well, building a great house, say. Or making beautiful pictures.”
Standing Bull was hardly able to suppress his scorn. “A great lodge,” he said, “is very well. It is good for little children and for women, and for old men, of course. But for young braves there is no need of a better lodge than this.”
Torridon thought at first that the other meant the wretched shelter in which he then lay. The leaves of the branches had withered now, and with the passage of every wind there was a sad hushing from the crumbling house of leaves. But then Torridon understood that the gesture of the Cheyenne indicated things beyond—the wide blue dome of the sky—it was the evening of the day—and the dim mountains and pillars of cloud beneath it.
He had no answer to this remark. It was hardly possible that he could explain the beauty of architecture to the red man.
“As for paintings,” went on the Indian, “it is true that they are good, too, on a lodge. A wise painter lets the spirits know that they are reverenced. Also, the colors are pleasant to the eye. But though paintings are sacred and pleasant, I never have seen a painted buffalo that looked as much like a real buffalo as this withered branch looks like a whole strong tree planted in the ground.”
“There are other kinds of painting,” suggested Torridon.
The Cheyenne overrode this suggestion with a sweep of his arm in which the muscles were beginning to grow again. “I ask you what you want and you speak of women, money, lodges, paint. Now let me tell you what the Indian wants. He does not want to have many women. Just enough to do the work in his lodge. He does not care for money or for more than a few painted robes to hang on his lodge. But he cares for something else. What he wants to have is many souls.” He paused, triumphantly staring at the white man. “I rush in toward my enemy, I avoid his bullet. I take the cut of his knife in order to touch him with my coup stick. Because, when I do that, some of his soul runs up the stick and passes all over me, and nobody can wash away that new soul that I have stolen. It is mine. I, Standing Bull, have counted eight coups. Who will say, then, that my soul has not been made greater and stronger?”
“What makes you so sure of that?” asked Torridon. “Though I know that you are a brave man, Standing Bull, still I think that the three braves you have killed and scalped are a greater proof of your courage than all your coups.”
The Cheyenne smiled and closed his eyes a moment, a sign that he was thinking hard. At last he shook his head. “Do you know that our word for white man has two meanings?” he asked.
“Yes,” said Torridon. “I know that you use the same word for spider and for white man.”
“This is the reason,” said the Cheyenne. “The spider is more cunning than all other things. It can walk on the air. It can hang in the wind. So does the white man. He, too, can do strange things. He even has thunder canoes, I have heard, though that is hard to believe. But you see that there are some things that the white man cannot understand, and that he cannot do. Well, counting of coups is one of them.