Storm bent his head in acknowledgment. "Does the old humbug," he wondered, "think he is fooling me? If I'm a member of tribe and council they'll claim that I'm subject to the chief—unfit to hold property unless he adopts me as brother, to look after me, to look after the old man's wealth."
Sitting Wolf had heard the medicine man's talk with ill-concealed impatience. "As member of tribe and council," he said, "open your heart to us, young man, as to the affairs of our friend who has departed."
Swift as a flash of lightning Storm's mind went back to Margate beach of a Sunday afternoon. Once more he was Bill Fright in ragged slacks and jersey, where Dolly, the cuddlesome little 'tweenie, sat between his knees upon the sands. She had cotton gloves to hide her grubby hands, and these must not be touched lest he should soil their new-washed whiteness, though he might kiss the place where the hair tickled just close behind her ear. "No, silly! The left ear!" Then she recited word for word the very latest squabble between her mistress, Lady Travis, and Sir Julian—a cat-and-dog fight, no less.
A tear ran down Storm's cheek. If only to take a penn'orth of shrimps for mother's tea on board the Polly Phemus at the quay side, he would forfeit his share to these painted savages. Stanch friends and earnest instructors had they been: Sitting Wolf in woodcraft, horsemanship, and canoe work, Beaver Tail in the language, the sign talk, herb lore, hypnotic medicine, and the deep things of Kutenais religion. What if the medicine man trapped him in tribal and council membership that the chief might overrule his claim on Fatbald's wealth! These Indians were the only friends he had, or ever could have now, on earth.
He did not think of Rain as of the earth. His body had never dared to worship her, his love was as yet untarnished by any breath of passion. She was of the spirit, and in the spirit beloved, beyond, above all earthly creatures, a priestess serving at the Apse of Ice, a High Place sacred to the All-Father.
He looked at the grave faces of his friends, knowing them all so deeply, loving them so dearly. There were no braver men on earth, none more chaste, religious, hospitable, sweet-tempered, honorable than these large-handed, large-footed, great-hearted mountaineers. He was proud to have their friendship, and yet in the recesses of his soul he was a man, and these were only children, who painted their faces.
One must have lived alone with savages before one realizes that in the most ignorant white man of the Northlands there resides age-long experience, a will which never rests, a high authority and sovereignty commanding their obedience.
Rough on the surface only, Storm in the soul of him was a man of unusual force, with powers far beyond the average of his race. Humbly and simply as he spoke to these Indians his words bit deep, his power gripped their hearts, while still they were unconscious, as he was himself, of anything unusual.
"My words are air, just frosty clouds of air. See." The lodge was so cold that his breath showed white as he spoke. "Only my hands can thank you for all your friendship, all your love. I am a seaman of the big canoes on the salt water. There my hands are trained. But here, on these plains and forests and high snows, it needs the training of a lifetime up from childhood to be a hunter and warrior as you are hunters, as you are warriors. Three snows are not enough to train a man."
"How!" they muttered their approval—"how!"