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Cosmic Tales, v. 2, issue 1, Summer 1939

Page 29

COSMIC TALES              29

indicated them to be above the grade of slaves. For they had been somewhat self-effacing, while McPhail became a sort of Wollheim for the group, taking to himself both praise and blame for the acts of all three; and as there had been more to praise than to blame, he had his three feathers.
Among their contributions to the life of the village had been medicine and first aid of a sort, and therefore, on this occasion, before Choctow Publications, McPhail was brot a brave, sick on salt obtained from a new salt lick. While the Mc attended him, Speer appeared and started a "voodoo fire" in a baked clay dish, the while calling for a sample of this new salt, and some salt from the old lick. The known salt he first sprinkled into the flame, and it sparkled with its characteristic color. But the new salt, when thrown into the flame, sizzled, flared, and smoked very stinkingly. At which there was much marvel. But Speer, at the height of the excitement, sent his apprentice for a large supply of the new salt, and sat down to the absurd work of rubbing black powder from burnt sticks. Came Wilson, returned from an expedition to the northeastern corner of Oklahoma to look for mineral deposits (which he had started on shortly after the village was built), and inquired what the devil this third powder was. "I hadn't told you before," said Speer, "but I got it in Arkansas while we were coming down the Mississippi; thot it might be good for stink bombs." When Wilson pressed for details, Speer demonstrated by holding a bit, in a river-shell spoon, over his fire. As it melted and gave off a rotten-egg oder, Wilson exclaimed, "Sulphur!" and departed.
Speer continued mixing and testing, muttering things like, "It was 1-1-2 or 1-2-2, but which were 2 and which 1?" And as the Nordics had made many worthwhile gifts to the tribe, tho they had never found their fire-rock (this had been politely forgotten), the Indians tolerated it. And at last Speer called to Wilson, "Did we have any clay pipe left over from that water supply line, Dick?" And Wilson, lazing comfortably in his buffalo-skin hammock and enjoying the November air, directed him where to find some.
One end of his length of pipe, juffus buried in the ground slantwise, and went to swipe some clay marbles from the village clavus pila. Down the pipe, he poured a small quantity of his powder, and dropped a marble of the proper size on top of it. A wick he fashioned by rolling powder in a papyrus made from the inner bark of a cottonwood, and slipped this past the ball in the pipe. Quite a number of Indians had gathered around to watch, and they were presently terrified by a loud BOOM!, and the marble shot up, out, across, and landed against the side of a tipi on the far side of the village!
Thereafter, during the mild winter, the Indians were kept busy making and smoothing the pipes of clay, binding them closely with sinew so they would not burst, rolling balls for them (tho this was soon abandoned as the whites discovered how to make self-contained cartridges with clay, pecan hulls, river shells, and whatnot, which could be fired from the back end of the barrel by the flint-and-cap method), and fashioning other strange devices. Those who would not stoop to such labor were set to trapping buffalo and breaking them for riding---- poor steeds, indeed, but far better than none.
And so it passed that in the early spring Speer set forth at the head of a mounted troop armed with weapons unheard of theretofore.
Grandiose thots passed thru his head, snatches from bookss he'd read: "They were singing, but Joaquin Smith was marching, marching with the men of a hundred villages.... He dreamed, but Arthur with a hundred spears....Alexander...marching with is phalanx toward the rising sun,

Saving...

COSMIC TALES 29 indicated them to be above the grade of slaves. For they had been somewhat self-effacing, while McPhail became a sort of Wollheim for the group, taking to himself both praise and blame for the acts of all three; and as there had been more to praise than to blame, he had his three feathers. Among their contributions to the life of the village had been medicine and first aid of a sort, and therefore, on this occasion, before Choctow Publications, McPhail was brot a brave, sick on salt obtained from a new salt lick. While the Mc attended him, Speer appeared and started a "voodoo fire" in a baked clay dish, the while calling for a sample of this new salt, and some salt from the old lick. The known salt he first sprinkled into the flame, and it sparkled with its characteristic color. But the new salt, when thrown into the flame, sizzled, flared, and smoked very stinkingly. At which there was much marvel. But Speer, at the height of the excitement, sent his apprentice for a large supply of the new salt, and sat down to the absurd work of rubbing black powder from burnt sticks. Came Wilson, returned from an expedition to the northeastern corner of Oklahoma to look for mineral deposits (which he had started on shortly after the village was built), and inquired what the devil this third powder was. "I hadn't told you before," said Speer, "but I got it in Arkansas while we were coming down the Mississippi; thot it might be good for stink bombs." When Wilson pressed for details, Speer demonstrated by holding a bit, in a river-shell spoon, over his fire. As it melted and gave off a rotten-egg oder, Wilson exclaimed, "Sulphur!" and departed. Speer continued mixing and testing, muttering things like, "It was 1-1-2 or 1-2-2, but which were 2 and which 1?" And as the Nordics had made many worthwhile gifts to the tribe, tho they had never found their fire-rock (this had been politely forgotten), the Indians tolerated it. And at last Speer called to Wilson, "Did we have any clay pipe left over from that water supply line, Dick?" And Wilson, lazing comfortably in his buffalo-skin hammock and enjoying the November air, directed him where to find some. One end of his length of pipe, juffus buried in the ground slantwise, and went to swipe some clay marbles from the village clavus pila. Down the pipe, he poured a small quantity of his powder, and dropped a marble of the proper size on top of it. A wick he fashioned by rolling powder in a papyrus made from the inner bark of a cottonwood, and slipped this past the ball in the pipe. Quite a number of Indians had gathered around to watch, and they were presently terrified by a loud BOOM!, and the marble shot up, out, across, and landed against the side of a tipi on the far side of the village! Thereafter, during the mild winter, the Indians were kept busy making and smoothing the pipes of clay, binding them closely with sinew so they would not burst, rolling balls for them (tho this was soon abandoned as the whites discovered how to make self-contained cartridges with clay, pecan hulls, river shells, and whatnot, which could be fired from the back end of the barrel by the flint-and-cap method), and fashioning other strange devices. Those who would not stoop to such labor were set to trapping buffalo and breaking them for riding---- poor steeds, indeed, but far better than none. And so it passed that in the early spring Speer set forth at the head of a mounted troop armed with weapons unheard of theretofore. Grandiose thots passed thru his head, snatches from bookss he'd read: "They were singing, but Joaquin Smith was marching, marching with the men of a hundred villages.... He dreamed, but Arthur with a hundred spears....Alexander...marching with is phalanx toward the rising sun,