“Suppose that he sent me to you,” argued Torridon, abandoning hopelessly one part of his argument, “does that show that I can make rain?”
“Friend,” said the Cheyenne gently, “I went out to do some good thing for my people and for myself. I prayed to the Sky People. They sent me you. Well, you have done something for me. You have answered that part of my prayer. Because of that I am your friend. My blood is your blood. My lodge is your lodge, and my weapons are your weapons.” He said this with a voice not raised, but deepened and trembling with emotion. Then he went on: “You have given back my life to me, White Thunder. You had cool hands. You killed the fire inside me. So I had one half of my prayer granted to me. Now I ask you to grant me the other half. You have done much for me. But what am I? I am only one man. All my people now are in trouble. I wish you to do good to them. Why do you shake your head? Why are you angry with me? Why do you make me sad, my brother? The great chief is very angry because you do nothing for us. Now, even if I wanted to, I could not take you away. He knows that you have great power.”
Torridon grew paler than ever, and sweat burst out on his forehead.
Seeing this, the Cheyenne continued more gently than ever: “You do not need to make a great rain. Only a few drops to show that you are trying to help us. Or only bring the clouds across the face of the sky . . . then our own wise men can make medicine that will bring down the rain out of the clouds.”
There was no answer to make to this last appeal, and Torridon knew it. He had made an effort through persuasion and that effort had failed signally. Now he reverted to a thought that had been forming in his mind since he was first challenged. He turned to Standing Bull as a cloud of dust enveloped them, for the wind, which had been hanging for ten days in the north, now was shifting suddenly to the south.
“Let us go back to High Wolf. I shall talk with him.”
Anxiously Standing Bull led him back to the impatient old war leader, whose lips were working as he regarded the white man.
“I have talked to Standing Bull, my friend,” said Torridon. “He tells me that I must really try to make the rain come. Very well, I shall do my best.”
At these words a smile, half delighted and half grim, came upon the face of the old man. “To make that medicine,” he said, “tell us what you need. We have horses and dogs to sacrifice. Also, we have painted robes and many other good things, and everything that the medicine men can bring to you from their lodges you shall have . . . rattles and masks, and everything that you wish.”
“Brother,” said Torridon, delighted with this speech, “is it true that I was sent down from the clouds?”
“It is true,” said the chief, staring earnestly at Torridon’s face as though he wished to make surety a little more sure.
“Well, then,” went on Torridon, “if the Sky People are willing to grant my prayer, they need only to hear my voice and to see and recognize me.”
“Good,” said High Wolf. “I know that great things often are simply done. It is not always the largest war party that brings home the most scalps or the most horses. Can we give you nothing?”
“Nothing,” said Torridon. “Only give me what I brought to your city. I had some weapons, and a pack, and two horses.”
Standing Bull exclaimed suddenly. Torridon dared not look at the warrior, who now cried: “High Wolf, this man has two horses that are as fast as the wind! Once he has them how could he be caught if he wished to run away?”
“That is true, also,” remarked the chief. “And why should you need the two horses, my friend?”
“Tell me,” said Torridon, his heart beating fast, but his face sedulously kept calm, “in what way I was sent down from the clouds?”
“With Standing Bull. Is not that true?”
“That is true, of course. But did we come on foot?”
“No, you had two horses.”
“Therefore I must have them again.”
“Why, brother?”
“Because how will they know me? It is a long distance to the Sky People. They are the ones who must send the rain, are they not?”
“Yes, that is true, of course.”
Delighted that his trend of thought was accepted this far, Torridon went on: “If I stand and cry from the midst of the prairie, then it is only a small sound that will come up to their ears.”
“Not if the right words are used,” said the chief instantly, as one sure of himself.
“I myself,” said Torridon, “have sat on the clouds and heard the Cheyennes crying out for pity, and even when the whole tribe was crying out together, and the medicine men were shaking their rattles, and the horses were neighing, the sound came up to my ear as faint and as small as the hum of a bee, half lost in the wind.”
The circumstantial nature of this account opened the eyes of the chief. He waited.
“But when I heard that small sound and looked down I could recognize the whole tribe. Now if they heard my small voice, they would look down and say it is the voice of White Thunder. Then they would call one another and say . . . ‘Is not that White Thunder calling to us?’ And the others would come and look and say . . . ‘It sounds like his voice, but it cannot be he. We sent him off with two horses, one white and one black, so that we could know him easily. But now he has neither of the two.’”
Broke in Standing Bulclass="underline" “They would simply think that you had lost them.”
“How could I lose them?” answered Torridon, smiling. “I have done nothing but good to the Cheyennes, and the Sky People know it. They would never think that the Cheyennes could have taken my horses away from me.”
Standing Bull bit his lip. He was silenced for the moment but he was far from convinced. Then the war chief said quietly: “What White Thunder says has a good sound to my ears. We will let him have the two horses to ride out where the Sky People may see him and Heammawihio may hear his voice.”
“You will never see him again,” said Standing Bull. “He will go to Fort Kendry like a bird through the air.”
“No.” The chief smiled. “The truth is that, when we send him out, we will not send him alone.”
“What will you do?”
“We will send twenty braves to be around him, and all the rest of the people will be not far off to watch.”
Torridon blinked. It was a mortal blow to his plan, which had been exceedingly simple once he had the matchless power of Ashur beneath him. “High Wolf!” he exclaimed. “What are you thinking of? To send me out, and surround me with a crowd so that Heammawihio will not be able to pick me out from the crowd?”
“I have said the thing that seems to me good,” responded High Wolf. “No man can do better than his best. Now, White Thunder, go and make yourself ready to call the clouds over the sky. Standing Bull, you will bring in the two horses, the black and the silver. I shall prepare the twenty warriors to go with the rain maker.”
XI
The first hope that had sprung so high in the heart of Torridon was half eclipsed by the announcement of the powerful escort in the midst of which he should have to work. But once on the back of Ashur, given half a chance to break free, he would take that chance and depend upon the dizzy speed of the great stallion to make the bullets of the Indians miss if they fired upon him. He felt that he had a faint opportunity left, and the process of the festival might offer him a ghost of a chance.
He went back to the village with the south wind so strongly against him that he had to lean to meet it. Through staggering gusts he advanced down the street of the town. The men were pouring out from their lodges. He felt their eyes upon him already with awe. And presently he made out one of their murmurs: “Already he has put the wind in the south. This is to have a real medicine.”