Rain's brother was strikingly handsome, a showy horseman, a dandy, a leader of fashion. Moreover, he shone with several different kinds of reflected glory, as son-in-law to a rich chief, as brother to the famous prophetess, and presently as guide to Rising Wolf. For this occasion he sported the top hat of a paleface chief, from which he had cut out the crown to use the thing as a sort of flowerpot from whence rose a bush of scalps. From his rump waved the tail of a horse. Large shaving glasses formed his necklace, which blazed in the sunshine, visible for miles to friends and enemies. As to the design of his face-paint, even Blackfoot society was surprised, ladies of our own tribes would have fainted with envy, and clocks would have stopped at the sight.
"Take off those mirrors," said Rising Wolf. "I don't want to be ambushed and scalped."
When this was done, they started, each with a wife to drive the baggage ponies and make camp, while the two men scouted ahead and killed meat for each day's provisions. They rode across the Rockies by way of Crow's Nest Pass, they forded the Upper Columbia below Lake Windermere, and they threaded the little trail up Toby Creek, this in the first week of a bright September. So, nearing the sources of Toby Creek in the heart of the Selkirk Range, they cantered through glades of bunch grass, by orchards of wild fruit and stately pine woods, with vistas now and then of glaciers at the head of the valley and snow-crowned walls against clear azure. The heights were bathed in a splendor of sunshine, but the vale in a mist of perfume where the organ of falling waters played for a choir of birds. The beauty of the place was overwhelming.
"You never told me," Rising Wolf complained, "that it would be like this."
"There are not words," answered Rain's brother, "or signs to tell with."
They passed through the herd, two hundred head of spotted and dappled ponies.
"We call Rain the Kutenai woman," said Heap-of-dogs, "because she likes the spotted ponies. How the herd grows!"
"Considering," answered Rising Wolf, "that every man in every tribe is a natural-born horse thief, have these ponies no fear of being run?"
"They know," said Rain's brother, "that they are the sacred herd. They expect us to get out of their way because they are important."
Now there opened out a glade commanding the head of the valley, and the eastward glaciers of the Apse. The westward glaciers were hidden by the altar hill on the right, a dark wall clothed with juniper and snow-crowned. At its base nestled the holy tipi and the guest lodge. As the custom was, the visitors dismounted, approaching the tents on foot. Both proved to be empty, but when a voice hailed them cheerily from overhead, they saw the priestess and her husband riding down the breakneck zigzag trail.