“‘But if he doesn’t come, will you marry me?’ Crow Man asked.
“‘We will talk about that later. I will say now, though, that I like you very much. I have always liked you,’ she replied.
“More moons passed, and as each one came, Crow Man never failed to ask Mink Woman to marry him. She kept refusing to do so. But after two winters had gone by, and Thunder Man still failed to appear and claim her, why, her refusals became faint, and fainter, until, finally, she would do no more than shake her head when asked the great question. Then, at last, in the Falling Leaves moon of the second summer, when Crow Man asked her again, and she only shook her head, he took her hand and raised her up and drew her to him and whispered: ‘You know now that that sky god is never coming for you. And you know in your heart that you have learned to love me. Come, you are now my woman. Let us go to my lodge, my lodge which is now your lodge.’
“And without a word of objection Mink Woman went with him. Ai! She went gladly! She was lonely, and she had for some time loved him, although she would not acknowledge it.
“It was a good winter. Buffalo were plentiful near camp all through it, and Crow Man kept the lodge well supplied with fat cow meat. He and Mink Woman were very happy. Then came spring, and one day, in new green grass time, Thunder Man was heard approaching camp, and the people went wild with fear; they believed that he would destroy them all as soon as he learned that Mink Woman had married Crow Man. They all crowded around his lodge, begging him to give her up, to send her at once back to her father’s lodge.
“But Crow Man only laughed: ‘I will show you what I can do to that sky god,’ he told them, and got out his medicines and called Cold-Maker to come to his aid. By this time Thunder Man was come almost to camp; was making a terrible noise just overhead. But Cold-Maker came quickly, came in a whirling storm of wind and snow. Thunder Man raged, shooting lightning, making thunder that shook the earth. Cold-Maker made the wind blow harder and harder, so that some of the lodges went down before it, and he caused the snow to swirl so thickly that the day became almost as dark as night. For a long time the two fought, lightning against cold, thunder against snow, and little by little Cold-Maker drove Thunder Man back: he could not face the cold, and at last he fled and his mutterings died away in the distance. He was gone!
“‘There! I told you I could drive him away,’ said Crow Man. ‘Mink Woman, you people all, rest easy: Thunder Man will never again attempt to enter this camp.’ And with that he told Cold-Maker that he could return to his Far North home. He went, taking with him his wind and storm. The sun came out, the people set up their flattened lodges, and all were once more happy.
“And Lame Bull, he retained the pipe, and found that its medicine was as strong as ever. And from him it had been handed down from father to son and father to son to this day, and still it is strong medicine.
“Kyi! That was the way of it.”