Do you remember that our Lord was forty days away in the spirit teaching souls in prison? He may not have mentioned His Jewish name to them. They may have called Him Love, for that is the real name of the Only Son.
And if He came again, do you think it would be to the stupendous temples, which the white men need as trumpets to make their prayers heard above the deafening clamor of the cities? Would not the Indians be swifter to give Him welcome?
The world-storm died away in the far distance.
Give me the weal of being, which is no shadow flying away at sunset, for when my sun goes down, I shall pass into star-clad night, to be immortal in eternal heavens.
II
The homestead in Lonely Valley belonged to the señora, not to me. For any larger career than that of pioneer farmer my penmanship was childish, my spelling gaudy, while as to sums, well—if I added two and two, it made one blot, which I had to wipe up with my tongue. And as to being a threadbare marquis in old Spain, I think I am still too much alive for that.
Very high and pompous with my dreams, I put on my buckskin war-dress as Charging Buffalo, the Piegan Chief, loaded a couple of pack-ponies and set out from Lonely Valley riding my lop-eared, wall-eyed pinto cow-horse. That night in camp, I boiled a tea of herbs, which gave me the Indian color.
Next day, a pack-horse had my saddle in his load, for I was riding once again bareback, as Indians ride, rejoicing in the natural and perfect savage grace of a horsemanship whose rhythm is like the easy flight of birds. The half-forgotten language came back phrase by phrase, until I could think in Blackfoot as a poet might think in verse. The Indian life was coming back to me, the hardy, resourceful, abstemious habit of the war trails. Mount Rising Wolf lifted his head above the northern skyline, and on the fourth evening, I trailed across the meadows beside Two Medicine Lake where once—
The mile-wide ring of the tribal camp was gone like any snowdrift, empty was the field where I had killed Tail-Feathers in the ordeal of battle. Now, as then, the low sun filled the valley with a dust of gold, and out of that my enemy had come in a whirling cloud. Standing behind my horse I had sighted—waiting—and clenched my hand on the gun as that thundering charge swept home. There his horse leaped and crashed to the ground in death. Here, the man's smashing fall, and he lay, twitching horribly—
Out of the golden haze came a cluster of mounted people, men and women, not the fierce warriors, Blackfeet of six years ago, but the poor blanket Indians of the reservation, cowed broken paupers on their way to draw their weekly rations at the agency.