For Many Horses, that day was one of bewilderment. From the interpreter he learned that I was the very man he had come to kill, that I had offered to serve his sentence for him, and that he was pardoned. On his release at sundown I met him outside the gates and gave him a long knife, just borrowed from the cook-house. "You came," said I, "to kill me. When does the fun begin?"
For a long time he stood looking down into my eyes, then swung the knife close to my ribs to see if I would flinch.
"Frightened?" I asked.
He dropped the knife between us in the snow.
"If I kill you," he muttered, "and they hang me, Rain will have no friends."
I gave him some tobacco and my pipe. Then we sat down in the snow and smoked, while some of the boys were jeering at us from the gateway. But we spoke in signs and in Blackfoot, so that they did not understand.
The man's very slow mind was working out new ideas. "We are Rain's friends," he said, holding the pipe to the four winds, to sky, and then to earth.
"And we believe," I said, "that she is innocent."
He made the sign of assent.
"You are ready," I asked, "to stake your life that Rain is innocent?"