"Rain's brother, Heap-of-dogs, wants me to dine with him."
The big chief chuckled. "A young man," said he, "newly admitted to serve in the Camp Police. The impudence! Why, all the chiefs' wives, including mine, would take the warpath. If you refused their feasts and dined with this young upstart, they'd dance your scalp, my friend. Take him as guide to the holy lodge, but as you love me, do not dine with him."
"I only said I'd think it over," answered Rising Wolf. "Indeed, he bores me. Haven't you noticed, Many Horses, that a young man or a young woman who goes in for being excessively beautiful, as this young spark does, is always the very dullest company? It's the plain fellows like you and me who have to be attractive with humor, wit or skill, learning or valor."
"How you do paint yourself!" The great chief loved a chance of poking fun at his counselor. "Now, don't blush. Your gifts are most becoming."
"Let me off, or I'll turn flatterer and sicken you. This Heap-of-dogs, Rain's brother, is really beautiful."
"A fop, as you say—a fop."
Rain says that white people will not understand her brother's name—Heap-of-dogs—unless it is explained.
So you must know that in Red Indian custom when a mother carries her new born baby into the sunshine, she looks about her, and the first thing she sees amusing or unusual suggests a name for her child.
Thus when Rain's mother, Thunder Feather, had been delivered of her firstborn child, her son, she went with him to the lodge door, and looked out at the sun-lit camp. And as it happened, the Stony Indians, come upon a visit, were pitching their tipis close by the tribal camp. But though the tribes were at peace, the dogs were at war, engaged in battle, all of a writhing heap.
So did Thunder Feather name her son Heap-of-dogs.