“I grew skillful. I could do many things white people never see. I could be buried deep in the ground, while a mighty stone which six men alone could lift was rolled upon me. Then in the darkness, when I cried to the Great Spirits, they came swiftly and put their hands to the stone and threw it far away, and I rose and walked forth, and the people wondered. I cured many people by the healing of my hands, and by great magic like this: I had a dried mouse, and once when a man came to be stiff and cold with a hole in his side, I said, ‘Put him before me.’
“When they did as I bid, I took the mouse and put it before the man who was dead, and I blew smoke upon the mouse and said: ‘Great Spirits, help me to do this great magic.’ Then the mouse came to life, and ran to the dead man and put his beak in the hole, and pulled out the bad flesh, and the wound closed up and the man rose.
“These wonderful things I did, and I became rich. I had a fine, large tepee and many horses and skins and blankets. People said: ‘See, there goes Rising Wolf. He is young, but he has many horses.’ Therefore, I came to be called ‘Many Horses’; but I had only one wife, Sailing Hawk. I cared only for her.”
The chief’s handsome face had long since become grave and rapt. Now it suddenly grew grim. His little wife moved uneasily in her seat by his side, and he looked at her with a strange glance. Between them had crept the shadow of Sailing Hawk’s death.
“One day while I sat with Sailing Hawk in my tepee, a big, black cloud came flying from the west like an eagle, and out of it the red fire stabbed and killed my wife and set my tepee on fire. My heart was like ice when I rose and saw my Sailing Hawk dead. I seized my gun. I fired many times into the cloud. I screamed at it in rage. My eyes were hot. I was crazy.—At last I went away, but my wife was dead, and my heart empty and like ashes. I did not eat for many days, and I cared no more for the Great Spirits. I prayed no more. I could not smoke, but I sat all night by the place where my Sailing Hawk lay, and no man dared come to me. My heart was very angry toward everybody and all things. I could not see the end of my trail. All was black before me.
“My people at this time were living on their own lands. The big fight with ‘Long Hair’ had passed away, and we were living at peace once more; but the buffalo were passing also, and we feared and wondered.
“Then the white man came with his soldiers, and made a corral here in the hot, dry country, and drove us therein, and said, ‘If you go outside we will shoot you.’ Soon we became poor. We had then no buffalo at all. We were fed poor beef, and had to wear white men’s clothes which did not fit. We could not go to hunt in the mountains, and the land was waterless and very hot in summer, and we froze in winter. Then there were many sick, but the white men sent a doctor, and he laughed at me, and ordered me not to go near the sick ones. This made my heart black and sorrowful, for the white man gave strange white powders that were very bitter in the mouth, and the people died thereafter.
“But many times when he had gone I went in and made strong magic and cured the sick, and he thought it was his white powders. Nevertheless, more and more of my people came to believe in the white man, and so I grew very poor, and was forced to get rations like the rest. It was a black time for me.
“One night there came into our midst a Snake messenger with a big tale. ‘Away in the west,’ he said to us in sign talk, ‘a wonderful man has come. He speaks all languages, and he is the friend of all red men. He is white, but not like other white men. He has been nailed to a tree by the whites. I saw the holes in his hands. He teaches a new dance, which is to gather all the Indians together in council. He wants a few head men of all tribes to meet him where the big mountains are, in the place where the lake is surrounded by pictured rocks. There he will teach us how to make mighty magic and drive away the white man and bring back the buffalo.’
“All that he told us we pondered long, and I said: ‘It is well, I will go to see this man. I will learn his dance.’