With the Indians in the Rockies

by James Willard Schultz

I had nothing to say. We listened; the droning grew louder; it seemed all about us, and yet we could see nothing unusual.

"Come on! Let's get away from here!" Pitamakan cried.

[CHAPTER VIII]

"Where shall we go?" I asked. "This noise seems to come from everywhere and nowhere."

I looked up at the top of the mountain which we were on, and saw a long streak of snow extending eastward from it like an immense pennant.

"Look! It is nothing but the wind that is making that noise!" I exclaimed. "See how it is driving the snow up there!"

"Yes," Pitamakan agreed. "But listen. The sound of its blowing does not come from there any more than from elsewhere. It comes from every direction up there in the blue."

We could now see snow flying from the tops of the mountains on the opposite side of the valley. In a few moments the whole summit of the range was lost in a vast haze of drifting, flying snow. But where we were there was only a gentle breeze from the west, which did not increase in force. I remembered now that in winter, when fierce northwest winds blew across the plains, the summit of the Rockies was always hidden by grayish-white clouds. It was a strange sensation to hear the drone of a terrific wind and not feel it, and I said so.

"Everything is strange in this country," my partner said, dully. "Here Wind-Maker lives; and many another of the mountain and forest gods. We have to make strong medicine, brother, to escape them."