Page:Tudor Jenks--Imaginotions.djvu/226

208 The chief sat by the fire fitting a spear-head of stone to a long pole. The wife was making a cord out of some soft bark. The children were playing with sticks and stones, and one of the girls had a rude doll. We did not talk English, of course, but I understood them and they understood me. What language we used I don't know.

The chief questioned me about the elk, and I told him all I knew.

"Come!" he said, and strode out of the hut, calling upon several other men to take part in the hunt. I went with them, out of curiosity.

To my surprise, they had no other weapons than rude clubs with stone heads, and sharp sticks the ends of which had been hardened by charring in fire. They surrounded the elk and killed it, but not without a fierce struggle. Several of them were severely hurt by the sharp horns.

On my way back to the village, I walked beside the chief. We fell into conversation and I explained to him my astonishment at their rude clubs and spears.

"If you had a rifle," I said, "you could shoot the elk without needing to go near him."

"A rifle?" he inquired. "What is that? I have heard of a queer weapon made of a stick and a cord, and I believe that it can kill from a distance. But I do not know how it is made."

"You mean a bow and arrow," I said, laughing. "Why, they are nothing to a rifle. If I had a rifle, I could stand off further than a bow can send, and yet reach a man with ease."

"This sounds like magic," the chief said, cautiously drawing a little away from me.

"It is not magic," I answered; "it is only that I know more than your people."

"But your beard is not yet to be seen," answered the chief, smiling indulgently as one might at a foolish child.