THE STRIKING OF THE CAMP
So far back as the year 1813, Hugh Monroe had been apprenticed to the
Hudson's Bay Company, and posted to a fort at the headwaters of the
Saskatchewan. The three tribes of the Blackfoot nation, the
Blackfeet, Bloods, and Piegans, brought their trade to that post,
where the trader in charge had misgivings, lest presently they be
misled into dealing with the Americans, whose hearts were bad and
their goods inferior. So, one of the three tribes being at the fort,
the trader detailed young Monroe to join them, travel and live with
the people, win their confidence, and steer them judiciously lest
evil communications of the American Fur Company corrupt the good
manners of the Blackfoot nation.
A few days out on the trail southward the chiefs, with whom young
Monroe was riding, came in an afternoon to the brow of the prairie,
overlooking a meadow where the tribal camp would be pitched for the
night halt. They dismounted to sit on the hill, watching the
procession file past, and one of the chiefs had trouble with flint,
steel, and tinder, kindling a pipe which would not light.
The lad took the pipe, and held a burning-glass in focus until the
tobacco kindled. Not perceiving the lens, but supposing that the
Stoneheart had the direct aid of their Sun God, the chiefs hailed the
event as a miracle, and Hugh Monroe as a great medicine man. He was
given a name of honor--Rising Wolf. Long afterwards, though hand
mirrors came into general use for signaling, and the burning-glass
for kindling a camp fire, this Rising Wolf's reputed sun power, which
was really common sense, continued to give his voice weight in the
Blackfoot Council. As time went by he married into the tribe, became
the father of a family, and continued among the people, for a matter
of sixty years. He was eighty-five years old when his life ended,
and in his memory one of the high peaks of the Rocky Mountains is
named Mount Rising Wolf.
It would be difficult to find a criticism of the holy lodge more
sane, temperate, and impartial than that of the gentle adventurer.
Without the slightest doubt as to their power, he spoke of the seers
as cranks. "Seems to me," he said in after-years, "the offense of a
crank is not that he is right, but that his rectitude puts other folk
in the wrong. And as cranks, the seers were so damned aggravating."
Thus one may be a vegetarian without malice, in so far as one is
opposed on principle to uric acid in the blood. Or one may prefer,
quite reasonably, the gift of vision to the juiciest buffalo steak.
There is no harm in claiming merit for a meatless diet approved by
sound physicians on the one part, by mystics on the other. Offense
only begins when one calls one's friends foul feeders even as pigs
and dogs, or taunts the neighbors with the suggestion that eaters of
rabbits are quite capable of devouring the baby. An enthusiast
without the restraint of common sense or the slightest fear of
consequences, Rain commended the vegetarian tenets to Red Indians who
must train themselves in hunting, live by the chase, and migrate with
the game on pain of being starved in peace, or rudely scalped in war.
So much said Rising Wolf outright, but the priestess, very calm and
aloof, observed that he was quite ignorant without being at all
clever. Yet the adventurer knew, as Rain did not, how lewd,
frivolous young savages in the camps make no end of fun out of the
vegetarian doctrine, while Many Horses and other chiefs used to say
that the sacred woman was becoming a holy nuisance.
If Rain led, Storm was a close follower. Having sacrificed his gun,
and afterwards his wife's bow and arrows to the Sun Spirit, he began
to observe that the vicinity of the holy lodge was looked upon by the
birds and the beasts as a sanctuary. He loved them. They trusted
him. They let him witness all sorts of their affairs, and their
ceremonies, such as the small bird's jig in lugging the rest of a
worm out of the ground, or the bear's height mark scored on a tree
trunk from time to time as he grows, the field mouse dance, or
ructions at porcupine lodge. Many animals with a sense of humor
would come to hear him sing "Tom Bowling," or, with much gravity and
deportment, play at congregation while he preached.
Unhappily there settled in the neighborhood a family of cougars who
proceeded, without regard to doctrine or respect for the holy man, to
eat their way through his parishioners.
Much prayer guided a very strenuous hunting, until at last, far up in
the fells, Storm came one afternoon to the residence of the cougar
family; and, firmly resolved to slay the parents, he fell in love
with their delightful kittens. The result was a misunderstanding,
because the father and mother on their return from hunting supposed
Storm to be molesting the babies. Their combined rush felled him.
Either of these nine-foot cats could have finished the business, but
that the cave was rather small, they got in each other's way, and he
found time to draw his hunting knife. The scrimmage was frantic, a
whirling fury, so that when at last the man dispatched them both, he
fainted from loss of blood.
Rain saw the affair in a vision, and by hard riding reached the scene
in time to save her husband from bleeding to death. She loaded him
on her pony, got him to camp, and kept him alive by her strong
spiritual power; but the wounds, being poisonous, festered. Storm
was long in delirium, weak when he rallied, slow in recovery.
Afterwards he walked rather lame, and had also a deep scratch which
won for him among the Blackfeet the sacred name of Scarface.
So far as critic Rising Wolf, who found Storm an invalid on his
second visit, could see, no harm whatever; but presently, when Storm
felt well enough, that seer put up crosses, a big one in front of the
holy lodge and little ones five miles east and five miles west at the
trail side, to mark the limits of sanctuary for all wild creatures.
A pilgrim must lay down his arms at the foot of the boundary cross,
or was sent back an hour's journey to do so before either Rain or
Storm would give an audience.
Ingenious visitors would evade the extra ride by lying; but Storm,
who would read their thoughts, would then deny to liars that
sanctuary which was freely given to mountain sheep and goats, elk,
caribou, deer, the beaver, and the bears.
Now it so happened that Two-shakes, and Worm-in-the-bud, warriors of
the Snake tribes, riding on a knight-errantry to this far country,
learned by the sign talk from some friendly Crows about this
Truce-of-God in the northern mountains. They came afoot over the
hills until they looked down into the valley, where they descried two
tipis beside the sanctuary cross upon the eastward trail. Quite
naturally they mistook this cross for the one which stood before the
holy tipi and the guest lodge. They supposed that they would get for
a trophy of war Storm's famous golden hair, by long odds the finest
scalp in the known world.
Their surprise attack just before dawn of a winter morning was quite
a success, for the knights-errant counted coups on the scalps of Four
Bears, chief of the East Kutenais, Sings-all-night, the eminent
medicine man, his famous medicine pipe, Mrs. Four Bears, whose name
was Weeping Tit, Mrs. Sings-all-night, whose name was
Back-hair-parted, and her little boy, whose name was Dark-in-places.
When day broke it was a bitter disappointment for the Snake braves
that Storm's hair was not included in the treasure; but they consoled
themselves with two guns, many robes, and a nice bunch of spotted
ponies. While they drove long and hard it was their misfortune to
leave tracks in the telltale snow, whereby they were traced,
overtaken, and captured alive by the East Kutenais, who burned them
with much pomp and circumstance at the mouth of Wild Horse Creek.
Afterwards the story ran like fire through the tribes that Four Bears
and Sings-all-night had lied to Storm concerning the deposit of their
weapons at the east cross, that he refused to receive them as
pilgrims and had barred sanctuary. Their fate most terribly enhanced
Storm's reputation and made the pilgrims meek.
In modern national parks, where there is truce for the animals, they
become self-conscious, show themselves off with ostentation, are
disposed as residents to look down upon mere tourists. So, under
Storm's protection, did that born _poseur_ the big-horn, that low
comedian the bear, and even the porcupine who in the wilds flies for
his life from man at a mile an hour. The skunk, of course, has right
of way on all trails, so that men, grizzlies, cougars, even the
lordly elk must step aside to let his lordship pass disdainfully by;
but that all the animals should expect the polecat's honors was gall
and wormwood to free-born warriors. When, as critic Rising Wolf
mentioned the subject, Storm seemed a little truculent, and said it
served them right. "I've been thirty years among 'em," answered
Rising Wolf, "but you may know more than I do. I only warn
you--don't make enemies for fun."
When Rising Wolf, on first meeting the seers, accused them of
avarice, they gave away their ponies, robes, everything they
possessed that was worth having. It was typically Indian. A squaw
in mourning for an uncle, a cousin, or a brother, without consulting
her husband, may present the whole of his property to the poor.
Surely nobody could be more generous than that. An Indian gives in a
very large-hearted way, and nothing grieves, hurts, or insults him as
much as a refusal to accept his present; but the seers, having
stripped themselves to bare necessities, would now accept from the
pilgrims nothing whatever except a little dried fruit, a few wild
vegetables, or a catch of trout. The sick restored to health, the
mourners comforted, the men in grave dilemmas shown the way, found
all their gifts declined. They were dishonored. Their gratitude
turned sour.
All this they would reveal to their tribal medicine men, who earned a
living, supporting wives and families on the fees received in their
practice. To such professionals, any magician who wrought cures for
love was worse than amateurish. He was a menace. Not that the
medicine man said anything outright, or exposed himself to a
suspicion of jealousy by using such words as unprofessional, cheat,
charlatan, black-leg, unorthodox. Only he would hint.
"String halt? Dear, dear! To get as lame as all that the horse must
have been on high, rough, broken ground. Been in the mountains
lately?"
"So you don't like the weather? Well, well, the Thunder Bird, and
the Spirits of the Storm, and the Rain, have a deal to answer for."
"A war party ambushed? Tut, tut, very curious, very odd indeed.
Now, if they'd mentioned their plans to a neutral, one who meets the
enemy, and tells him about our raids, why, of course, of course! But
no! That's quite out of the question. Quite. Odd, though, how many
warriors we lose just after they've gone on pilgrimage."
Were the traders overcharging for their goods? "Why, what can you
expect? We depart from the faith of our fathers to pick up every
wind of heresy which blows about in the mountains, and yet you
complain because your medicine goes bad!"
Were there scandals among the women. "Ah! How different in the days
of our mothers, when there were no magicians calling up evil spirits!"
"It seems ungracious," said Rising Wolf in after years, recalling old
events. "I don't want to set myself up as a critic of saints, for
Rain and Storm were saints, and I'm no more than a sinner. Many a
time when they would get a meal for the pilgrims, they went hungry
themselves because there was nothing left to eat. They'd be up all
night with people sick or in trouble. They never showed a sign of
peevishness, or said an ill word of anybody. Both of them worked
what one has to call miracles. They had far-reaching influence among
the tribes, always used for the good of others. There was no trace
of sham or trickery, but everything straightforward, unpretentious,
real. Rain was really a very beautiful woman, and she would charm a
bird off a tree. Storm was good-looking, too, in his way, a matter
of coloring with his fierce blue eyes and that gorgeous mane of hair.
Of course he had a slight truculence, a bit of defiance about him
which choked one off until one knew him better. You know he began as
a sailor before the mast, and his people, I take it, were in very
humble life; but 'pon my soul he was a damned sight more like some
duke. I never met one, but I mean what I think a duke ought to be
like, with the grand air, the simple direct manners, the courtesies,
the thoughtfulness for everybody which goes only with real
thoroughbreds. The pilgrims just worshiped them--at the time; and
yet when they went away, out of the glamour so to speak, they'd feel
they'd been talked down to, their self-respect bruised, their plumes
a little rumpled. There was the bend in the arrow.
"You mark my words. This human species runs in herds. If we forsake
the herd life to run apart, we get out of focus like a burning-glass
at the wrong distance, we see ourselves in the wrong proportion--not
enough world, too much me. When the trouble came, the average human
person helped by these big saints wanted to see them taken down a peg
or two. Of course the tribes were shocked and all that, but human
people rather enjoy a sensation. And if Rain and Storm were so
mighty powerful, why didn't they help themselves? After all, it was
their business to work wonders."
Rising Wolf paid four visits to the holy lodge, the first to expose
fraud, the other times to seek advice in his own troubles. Of wider
experience than any Indian, a deeper man than most and very shrewd,
he had for thirty years kept almost the whole of the Blackfoot trade
in the hands of the Hudson's Bay Company; and thanks to him, this
nation, for all its alleged ferocity, shed no white man's blood.
"They're gentlefolk," said he, "that's all. One only needs a little
tact, and it would take a downright cad to quarrel with such fellows
as Many Horses." Indian names wear out, and are discarded about as
frequently as we change hats, but among the young bucks of that
period were chiefs, now remembered by whites and Indians alike with
kindly reverence as Crowfoot, Mad Wolf, and Brings-down-the-sun. In
any land or age such men would have been distinguished as very
perfect and most gentle knights, but there were hundreds of men
worthy to ride with these.
Sooner or later, inevitably as the tide marches from neap to flood,
the waves of American settlement must lap the upper plains, and
pioneers find their way into the hunting grounds of the Blackfeet.
"Kill one," said Rising Wolf to the Council, "and a thousand will
come to the funeral."
The first American to secure a foothold among the Blackfeet was the
Crow, a mulatto, and according to one version of the story an escaped
slave. Other accounts allow for his being part negro, but for the
rest a Mexican Indian. Certainly he had a touch of the Spaniard in
his manner. He would make a statement, and finish it with a
query--"Yes?" "No?" He would commence a sentence in words and end
it with a gesture. The fellow passed himself off as an Indian, an
authentic Absaroka warrior with three Crow wives and a litter of
children; and he was known to the tribes as the Crow. Rising Wolf
described him as a big, lusty, hearty, jovial ruffian, lavish with
gifts, fond of display, hail-fellow-well-met with the chiefs, a
braggart, a monstrous liar, without fear; and, under that surface of
him, subtle, sinuous, fork-tongued, secret, deadly.
When Rain advised the chief medicine man of the Absaroka, had she
been a little thoughtful of her own benefit, she might have foreseen
the calling together of the Absaroka Council, the delivery of her
message to the chiefs, and the conveyance of every word with
embellishments to the Crow for his information and action. The
Blackfoot priestess was not worldly-wise. The Crow was all that. He
went to the chiefs in council and called them a pack of fools. "You
wanted fire water," said he, "and I delivered the goods. You did not
engage me to ruin your enemies the Blackfeet. It would have paid me
just as well to ruin them."
They asked him what he meant.
"I am the Devil's merchant," he explained. "The Devil pays me pretty
good money for bringing destruction to silly Indian tribes. How much
will you pay me to go and ruin the Blackfeet, as I ruined you?"
"If the white man's Devil pays you," asked the chief, "why should we
hire you?"
"All right," said the Crow. "I guess I can put up the same goods for
your allies, the Snakes. I don't run half the risk there that I
would with the Blackfeet."
The head chief lost his temper. "We'll burn this trader's wagons,
share his ponies, and put a price on his scalp. Then he can go to
the Devil."
"Of course," observed the Crow, "all traders will know how you kept
faith with me, and what to expect if they come with trade goods to
your camps. May the Blackfeet," he added piously, "drive off the
rest of your ponies, scalp the rest of your braves, enslave your
women, butcher your children, and blot out your camp fires. They
will too. My medicine says they're coming, and your rotten tribes
are in poor shape to meet them."
In the end the Absaroka Council hired the Crow to ruin the Blackfeet.
Afterwards, he said, he would marry that Blackfoot priestess. Rain
should be his squaw.
The Crow bragged of such intentions at Fort Benton, well within
earshot of the Blackfoot tribes. His talk was cynical, pungent
enough to be repeated, to pass into the general gossip of the
Blackfoot country, with comments on Rain's character to spice the
scandal, and derision of the old-fashioned Hudson's Bay Company which
could hardly fail to reach the ears of Rising Wolf. The Blackfeet
were interested, amused, and curious to see this trader who
advertised so boldly, who was going to undersell the Company, blacken
the face of Rising Wolf, and take Rain the sacred woman down a peg or
two. As to their pending ruin, all the surrounding nations would
threaten as much or more when the mood took them. Threatened tribes
live long.
The Blackfoot nation was blind to any danger. Rising Wolf alone saw
the extent and nature of the peril. For once he lost his head.
Where tact and humor would have won for him the exclusion of the Crow
from the Blackfoot villages, he went raving before the Council,
pleading with the Blackfoot chiefs for the mulatto's death. That was
a blunder. By seeking the murder of a rival trader he put himself in
the wrong, meeting his first rebuff from Many Horses, who told him
curtly to do his own killings. To give Rising Wolf justice, he
challenged the Crow, a man four times his size, to fight with any
weapons--this in presence of the Blackfoot Council. "That's all
right," was the Crow's cheery rejoinder. "I reckon I name the
weapon--cannon, loaded with buffalo horns!"
The white adventurer failed to meet with jest the gale of laughter
which presently drove him out of camp, leaving the Crow in
possession. And the Crow was clever, distributing to the Blackfoot
chiefs and medicine men gifts of axes and guns, of scarlet cloth and
beads, every treasure the heart of man could covet, silks for the
women, toys for the children, liquor by the keg. The Crow offered
subsidy to every important leader, so long as he traded in safety
with the Blackfoot nation. That night he had a wagon load of robes
and a tribe drunk.
Instead of reporting his failure to the Hudson's Bay Company, which
does not suffer fools gladly, their agent, Rising Wolf, went on his
third visit to the holy lodge, and laid the whole of the troubles
before the Sacred Woman.
Now did Rain see that her people were doomed to destruction. "My
eyes are opened," she said, "and I see all the warrior spirit of our
people change to cowardice. O fallen chiefs! O childless mothers,
starving lodges, broken tribes driven to beggary. Aye, and the
Stonehearts come with their cold charity--all through my fault, my
fault!"
"How can that be your fault?" asked Rising Wolf.
The spirit of prophecy forsook her; she was all woman as she answered
him.
"I try," she confessed, "to be a Christian, but I'm a little heathen
inside. A Christian wouldn't have told the Absaroka Council, as I
did, to burn the Crow's wagons, to steal his horses, and take his
scalp if he came back again. 'Twas I who had the Crow turned loose
to ruin my own dear Blackfeet people. If I wasn't really and truly a
Christian I'd paint my face black, cut off one or two fingers, and
howl all night. Then Storm would beat me, and it would do me good."
And then she fell to crying.
Rain and Storm had spent the whole of their working years, as well as
their arduous dream-life, in practical application of every principle
contained in the Sermon on the Mount. So intensely literal were
they, that Rain would sometimes devote an hour to slapping her man's
face, while he turned one cheek or the other, until his complexion
became that of a roast of beef on a spit. Had an eye offended either
of them, it would have been plucked out, and that with no hesitation;
indeed, they lived ever in fearful hope that they would not be
obliged to take offense at the conduct of a leg or an arm. On this
occasion the pair of them spent a night fasting in the cold fog on
the altar hill, while they tried to forgive the Crow for ruining the
Blackfeet; but in the morning they hated him worse than ever. It
seemed for the time as though the Sermon on the Mount had failed them.
Urgent, then, was their appeal to Hiawatha as guide, who delivered to
them a lecture full of original thought, and high inspiration,
beautifully phrased, elusive as a fine, rare melody, difficult to
remember, and to all appearance wide of the point.
In meditation they saw great angels and all the Heavens opened, but
when they came to earth again they had no practical or direct advice
for Rising Wolf. Only they felt with final conviction the
irrevocable law which binds us each to live his own life guided by
such light as he can find. Storm summed it all up when he rode with
Rising Wolf to speed him on his way back to the tribe. "The
Blackfeet are a flock of sheep. A wolf has got into the fold. You
are the shepherd."
Of Rising Wolf's duel that summer with the Crow there are few
particulars remembered now. The fighting seems to have been
prolonged, in several successive phases, beginning on horseback with
guns at extreme range, and closing on foot with axes. Hand to hand
the little adventurer had no chance against a man of longer reach and
enormous muscular strength. For weeks afterwards he lay between life
and death, during the rest of a year a convalescent nursed by his
wife. In the moon of berries 1846, she brought him, an invalid, a
shadow of his former self, on his fourth visit to the holy lodge.
"I don't want," he said, "to make things out worse than they are.
It's better to keep a cool head, and calculate without losing one's
temper. In the first place, the Crow is a pretty good fellow in his
way, with a very big heart. He's never been in camp without coming
to see me or sending his wives with presents--invalid food that
wasn't come by without sending especially to St. Louis. That corn
meal helped, and the dressings for my wound. The Crow wants me to
chuck the Hudson's Bay Company and come into partnership--can't for
the life of him see any difference between our old merchant
adventurers trading honest goods and his own horrible poison.
"By the way, it isn't so very poisonous. I tried a drink once, nasty
but harmless. It's just neat alcohol, mixed, one part to four in
water. He sells a pint mug for one buffalo robe, and doesn't put a
thumb inside to shorten the measure. A pint makes an Indian think
he's on the Happy Hunting grounds, a second knocks him out, and
then--well, a lot of the warriors drop on the way back to their
tipis, and in winter they freeze to death. In liquor most of the
bucks think they're fierce and dangerous, so that the squaws and the
children take to the woods. A few people are killed in the squabbles.
"Then there's a limit. The hunters get so many buffalo, the women
dress that many robes, and each pelt fetches one pint. You see, a
very few gallons of alcohol buys enough robes to load a prairie
schooner; so on the whole the drinking doesn't last long enough to do
the men very much harm. They can't get to delirium tremens, as white
men do in the settlements.
"The men hunt all the time, instead of taking the war trail. The
women have to dress robes instead of curing meat, camas, and berries
for the winter. It means that the men get soft. The enemy grows
bold and runs our horses with impunity. We're liable to a general
massacre, and there's horrible danger of famine. It would make you
cry, Rain, to see how poor our people are since the Crow came, to
cart away the whole wealth of the Blackfoot nation. He keeps the
chiefs rich, while the rest are beggared. That's why some of the
women have taken to drink, which isn't good for the children. And
some of the men have sold their wives to the Crow. He takes the
three tribes by turns. He's with the Piegans now. And Rain, your
brother, my dear friend, Heap-of-dogs, is falling under the influence
of this devil."
Rain and her man had abandoned all other service in their dream-life,
and for a year past had visited the sleep and the meditation of the
Blackfeet, prompting them to good thoughts, new resolutions, kindly
impulses, helpful deeds, to the overthrow of the trader, even to the
rigors of the war trail, the sport of stealing ponies. They had
helped Rising Wolf to keep the soul in his body, inspired his
flagging courage, prayed earnestly for his welfare and he alone rose
clear above temptation. The rest kept their resolves until they
tasted liquor. And Rain knew that her own brother had become a
drunkard.
"I understand," said Storm, when Rising Wolf had spoken. "The enemy
killed my father, hanged my Uncle Joey, damned my Uncle Thomas, and
got my mother murdered. Even as you spoke, Rising Wolf, I felt the
old craving to get drunk. It's in my blood. It's harder to fight
than cougars, but it's got to be faced at last.
"We must go to the Blackfoot nation. We must set up the holy cross
in front of this trader's wagon. Nothing except the cross has power
to save the people. Besides, there's Heap-of-dogs, your own brother,
Rain, my brother, and your chum, eh, Rising Wolf? We must save him."
"You're taking a terrible risk," said Rising Wolf.
"What risk?" asked Rain, bridling at the word.
"Death!" was the answer.
"The Crow," said Storm, "risks more than we do."
"What do you mean?" asked Rising Wolf.
"Hell!" answered Storm--"Hell! If he's brave enough to risk Hell,
we're not cowards enough to shirk so little a thing as death."
"We must go," said the priestess. "Yes, we must go. Else must my
people perish.
"The lodge poles of our tipi"--Rain looked up at them--"have rooted
and sprouted, so that I have to trim the buds off every spring. I
thought our roots had struck here, that we should never leave our
home. I must cut new poles for our journey."
"Why drag them across the World Spine?" asked Storm. "I'll cut a new
set before we come out on the plains, and a cross to set up in front
of our lodge door"--he leaned over and clutched his wife's work-worn
hands--"to remind us of home," he added, "as well as to save the
people."
"I must make a decent frock before we start," said the woman.
Storm laughed, for she had a dozen splendid and unworn dresses in her
trunks of arrowproof hide.
"Rags!" she cried. "Rags! I've nothing fit to be seen, and you'll
want a pack of moccasins for this trail. Besides, poor Rising Wolf
needs a rest before he's fit to travel. And oh! how shall we ever
manage with only two pack ponies and the colt? We'll have to load
our saddle beasts and walk."
It was ten years now since Storm had entered the wilderness, and
seven of these had been spent with his wife in the sweet vale below
the Apse of Ice. Their home was very dear to both of them, filled as
it was with happy memories. They pretended that they would like to
see the world, take part in the stirring affairs of the Blackfoot
nation, attend the ceremonies, the buffalo hunting, the gambling at
the wheel game, the dancing, and the feasts. That was all
make-believe. They perhaps of all mankind were the most widely
traveled, for with the clarity of the dream-state they had seen the
innermost life of imperial palaces and cities, traveled in regions
unexplored, ascended mountains never scaled by climbers, walked the
sea floor in groves of living coral, attended armies in battle,
passed unharmed through burning forests, earthquake-shattered towns,
devastating floods. To them the astral plane was familiar ground
with its amazing vistas of past ages from the dawn of Time, its lands
of glamour and fairy, its cities and settlements of the "dead" who
live. They had been beyond the astral to regions infernal,
purgatorial, and spiritual, attending worship at temples eternal in
the Heavens where the priests are angels ministrant and the music
celestial in chords of living light. "Seeing the world!" With such
phrases they consoled one another concerning this journey to a
Blackfoot camp with all its people drunk.
"The berries are nearly ripe," said Rain as they struck camp. "I
wish we could stay to get our supply for the winter."
The men were loading a pony.
"My wife," Storm said to Rising Wolf, as they balanced the packs on
the sling rope, "my woman is still a child--all make-believe, all
let's-pretend." He laid the cooking gear between the panniers. "She
is not grown up, and never will be."
"I don't follow," objected Rising Wolf. "Of course you'll want a
winter store of berries."
They drew the manta, a bed robe, over the horse-load.
"Why, 'of course'?" asked Storm, as he passed the bight of the lash
rope, and Rising Wolf hooked on.
"I wouldn't hint such things to my woman," said Rising Wolf
reproachfully. "The hook's clear," he added.
Storm made the pony grunt as he set his knee to the pack, and hauled
sharp home. Then he crossed the lines.
"If Rain knew the meaning of fear," he said, "I'd keep my mouth
shut." He made his basket line, and Rising Wolf, with a foot on the
end of the pack, took in all that. He also made his basket line,
completing the diamond hitch. He made all fast.
"Rain and I," Storm smiled as he patted the pony on the neck, "are
making the big trail, the long trail, the Wolf Trail, climbing the
Milky Way, the great white Road of Stars. You"--he looked Rising
Wolf in the eyes--"will live to see the plains covered with the white
man's buffalo, the free water fenced, the free men like dogs begging
for their rations, the women selling themselves to the Stonehearts
because their children are hungry. I see vulgar white people tear
down the burial scaffolds to rob the bodies of our Indian chiefs. I
see them peeping in at the window of your cabin to see the squaw man
at dinner, and say 'Now, ain't that jest too quaint!' My friend, you
will live until your grandsons ride to the iron road, to see the
train, and sell war bonnets whose every feather records a deed of
war. Wouldn't you rather ride the Wolf Trail with Rain and Storm?
"The dead, the comforted, are sorry for the mourners who cry in the
night outside the desolate lodges."
"Come," said Rain, "you who are speaking in the owl talk, and keep
the ponies waiting with their groans all ready for the lash rope."
Rising Wolf's woman laughed heartily as she folded the lodge skin.
"Thus," she said, "days fly when Stonehearts talk."
The guest lodge was left standing to shelter travelers; the poles of
the holy lodge to grow into a little grove of trees; and Rain laid
the ashes from her hearth at the foot of the cross. Her man led her
away.
Rising Wolf and his woman had spare ponies for them to ride, driving
the small remuda down through the valley. The falling waters called
to them through the berry groves, but they dared not look back to
where the desolate cross, gray in the dawn light, stood out against
the junipers, where the winding trail went up the altar hill, and far
above that, the mighty spires of icy rock full in the rose flush of
the sunrise pointed to the skies.
"The valley seems full of shadows," said Rising Wolf's woman
fearfully. "I'm so frightened."
"It is the valley of the shadow," answered Storm.