Before the end of this long ritual the sun had gone down behind the westward heights, the hearth fire burned low, and the Indians were huddled in their robes of elk or bison while Storm, with only his deer-skin hunting dress, felt chilled to the bones. With the covering of the pipe, Sitting Wolf ceased to be priest celebrant and was the chief, jealous, envious, with something in his leathery dark face sinister, boding. Storm knew that his own heirship to old Tschirikov stripped Two Bits of great wealth, and the chief, who intended to marry the widow, had been brooding over her losses.
"We have purified our bodies," began the chief indifferently, as one who patters a set form of words, "with prayer have cleansed our hearts, and with smoke of the sacred pipe-have cleared our heads for counsel. Now for the leaders here, and for the tribe, I speak to you Storm, adopted son and sole heir of him who has passed. He was our friend, but never a priest, a chief, or leader in our tribe. Having a sit-beside-him wife, he lived with other women out of wedlock, according to the custom of his people, which by our law is very wrong.
"He came of a tribe beyond the western sea, you come of a tribe beyond the eastern sea, and you have different customs. The question of the council is, will you obey our laws?"
"Aye."
Sitting Wolf lifted his eyebrows as though surprised, turned down the corners of his lips as if he were disappointed. If this white man obeyed the tribal law, he could not well be fined or his property made forfeit.
"Storm," he said, "we have watched you these three snows. We see, all of us here, that in your tribe beyond the eastern sea, you came of a bad father."
The challenge would have been insulting to an Indian, but Storm assented easily.
"Aye," he said—"aye."
"Poor chap!" was the inner thought, "Thinks I'm robbing him of a trade house full of furs, three hundred ponies in pasture, five canoes, no end of saddles and harness, the dog teams, and carrioles."
"Aye," he said, "a bad father."