And so he told me the story of Rain's adventures during the Winter of Death.
IV
When the buffalo hunting failed, Many Horses took his women and children up into the valleys of the World-Spine and there, through the moon of falling leaves, they had meat in plenty. But when cold weather came, he and his woman Owl-calling-"Coming," out hunting far from camp, got snowed up for more than a week. Only after much prayer and sacrifices to Old Man were they able to climb through the soft snow and get a back-load of meat to their home lodge on Cut-Bank Creek. And then they came too late.
When Many Horses told me that, I had my eye at the knot-hole to watch the sign talk. He finished with a sort of apologetic squint as though he hated to worry me with trifles. It seems that toward the end of the long waiting, his little son, aged five, had moved to the chief's place, facing the door of the lodge, and there said family prayers with the sacred pipe in his little frozen hands. So his father found him, and the two younger wives with all the children sat in their places, dead.
Owl-calling-"Coming" ran mad, but Many Horses got her down to Two Medicine Lake, hoping for human company to lure her spirit back. There they found a lodge with Tail-Feathers and his woman Rain, dying of hunger.
It was in a dry, cold, dreary way that Many Horses answered my questions concerning his sister Rain. She had married Tail-Feathers because he wished her to. Now she was very poor, her property and that of her man being sold for food in the early days of the famine. Moreover, instead of hunting, Tail-Feathers would tumble down dead and lie doggo, until Rain snared a rabbit and he smelt food. But the big snow had put an end to Rain's poor foraging, and the man lay doggo while the woman prayed.
It was then she vowed that if her man got well she would dedicate a temple to the Sun God. Rain's prayers were very strong, for sure enough her brother came with meat, and her man got well. So she sat for days chirping and twittering like a small brown squirrel while she fed her man with soup, and his strength returned. In those days, Owl thawed to weeping, and her spirit came back to her body.
When all the meat was finished, Rain's secret helper came in a dream bidding her send the two men, Tail-Feathers, her husband, and Many Horses, her brother, to steal ponies from the Stone-hearts, and use them for hunting the white man's buffalo (cattle). The men obeyed and very soon her lodge was red with meat.
Now it was time, said Rain, to lay her vow before the chiefs in council, so they broke camp and went down to the agency. There they found the great chiefs begging the agent to have mercy upon their people, for already a fourth part of them were dead, and the rest were dying.
But the agent fed their corn to his fat chickens, and said he was grieved at the deplorable superstitions of the Indians. Then the chiefs starved in council until Rain sent them a pony-load of meat, so that their hearts were warm, and they consented to her plea. If the tribe lived at the full moon, in the moon of falling leaves she should be made a priestess, and dedicate a temple to the Sun.