Rain steered us clear of the few and scattered homes of frontiersmen, wide of the camp grounds used by possibly hostile savages, and at the end of the tenth week, led me to the high western scarp of the Cypress Hills.
Beneath us the grass, with many a tawny ridge and faint blue vale, reached away into golden haze, and like a cloud belt far above soared the gray World-Spine, streaked and flecked with snow. Yonder, beside the Rockies, lived her people. Here at our feet was the Writing-on-Stone by Milk River, where my young brother worked for Shifty Lane.
For that day's rations we chewed rabbit skins, and at sundown came to Lane's trading post, expecting after we make camp to barter for provisions. But while Rain unloaded the ponies, and I composed myself upon a robe to watch her, Miss Lane rode over from the house. The trader's half-breed daughter was eager to show off in her dress of cotton print, a sunbonnet, real shoes of leather and jewelry of rolled gold set with gems of glass, insignia of her grandeur and importance.
"K'ya!" she cried, when Rich Mixed had finished barking, then reining her roan cayuse, surveying our beggarly camp. "Kyai-yo." She patted her lips with one hand, so that the exclamation came out in broken gusts. "Ky-ai-i-yo-o! You poor, hungry ones!"
"I have a horse," said I, "to trade for food." But she ignored me, pattering in Blackfoot. "Don't," she chattered, "don't think of trading horses to my father. All people try to trade them off for food, but we haven't enough grub for winter, and he gets mad. So then they go away and eat a pony."
"My rifle," said I, "won't he take that in trade?"
"No buffalo left," said Miss Lane, "and the people can't find any deer. Why, Flat Tail's band are reduced to fish, and you know that the Sun God forbids them to eat fish."
"Don't you hear?" asked Rain. "Oh, Got-Wet, we'll sell the rifle."
But Got-Wet stared at me, then turned to Rain with a grin as she declared in English, "He sham Injun!"
Rain bribed the girl to silence with a gift from St. Boniface Mission, a pincushion cover made of Berlin wool, which represented a blue cat on a green sky, seated, head at right turn, eyes of pink beads. In excruciating raptures, Got-Wet promised a supper after dark. Meanwhile, she stayed for a gossip, advising Rain in the art of pitching camp, with now and again a peep at the sham Indian, followed by great pantomime of fright. As for me, I was too proud to be routed out of camp by a girl's impudence, too hungry to search for my brother, too shy to interview the trader and buy food. How could I, with Rain's last streak of yellow face-paint across my lordly nose, confront a white man? I sat in high gloom, disdaining to notice Got-Wet.