“‘I will take them later,’ said the Kootenai. ‘And now, call in your leading men.’
“Mountain Chief went outside and shouted the names of the men he wanted: a medicine man; several old, wise men; some warriors of great name. They came and were given seats in his lodge, each man according to his standing in the tribe. Said the Kootenai then: ‘I have a sacred song that I want you all to learn. I will sing it over three or four times, then you sing it with me.’
“He sang the song. It was low in tone, and slow; a strange and beautiful song that gripped one’s heart. But it was not hard to learn; after the Kootenai had sung it over four times, all there could sing it with him.
“Then the Kootenai told Mountain Chief to have the women build for him a little lodge there inside the big lodge. This they did by leaning the sticks of two tripods against one of the poles of the lodge, their lower ends making a half-circle, and then covering them with buffalo leather. Into this little enclosure crept the Kootenai, taking with him a bird wing-bone whistle, and a medicine rattle, and as soon as he was inside he ordered the women to smooth down carefully the leather coverings so that he would be in the dark. He then said to the people, sitting there in the big lodge: ‘We will now sing the song four times. It is a call song to all living things: the birds, the animals, the trees, the rocks—yes, even they have life. All will come when we sing this song, and we will question them as to the whereabouts of the two missing horses.’
“They sang the song four times, and then the Kootenai, alone in his dark little lodge, sang another song, keeping time to it with his rattle, and the people, listening, heard outside the sighing of the wind through a big pine tree, although no such tree was near; and the Kootenai questioned the pine tree, and it answered that it had no knowledge of the missing horses.
“Then, at his summons, came the different birds and the animals; one could hear outside the flutter of their wings, the tread of their feet; and the Kootenai questioned them, and one by one they answered that they had not seen the horses. Came then a big rock, hurtling down through the sky and through the smoke hole of the lodge right into the fireplace, scattering ashes and coals all around the lodge, and frightening the people sitting there. And the Kootenai questioned it, and it answered that it knew nothing of the lost horses.
STREAM FROM UNNAMED GLACIER POURING INTO CUTBANK CAÑON
“‘Let us sing the sacred song again,’ the Kootenai called out from his dark little lodge, and the people sang it with him, not once, but four times. The Kootenai then blew his whistle four times, four long, loud whistles. At the time there was no wind, but soon they heard, far off, the roar of an approaching wind of terrible force. Said the Kootenai then: ‘I have called him, he is coming, Old-Man-of-the-Winds: be not afraid; he will not harm you.’