"So I'm put off," said Rising Wolf sarcastically, "until Leaf Fall for your proof!"
"My dear guest," Rain laughed at his ill-humor, "did I ask you to come? Did I seek your opinion? Will you judge me as you judged your horse?"
Rising Wolf thought deeply, and his was a quick intellect. If the Chief Many Horses had sent a messenger, the priestess might know that his charger was a piebald, lame in the off fore, but not of a red stone arrowhead behind the shoulderblade. Had the Snake warriors, who raided his camp beside the old buffalo trap, been here and told the story? Of course this must be some sort of cheap conjuring. Was Heap-of-dogs guiding Rain his sister in the sign talk, or how was the trick worked?
"Even cheap conjuring," Rain answered his unspoken thoughts once more, "is puzzling until one knows the trick."
Gentle her smile, and womanly her conduct, yet without the least offense she made him catch his breath, amazed, startled, almost frightened. Under the straight, strong brows her eyes were shadowed, but the glance was penetrating, looking right through him. By her smile she seemed to be sorry for him. And she was beautiful, pure, austere, making his lurking suspicion feel caddish.
"Many Horses is not pleased," she said, "that his enemies the Absaroka are being rescued, that the Crow is to be driven from their camps, that the fire water shall not destroy them any more. Are the Blackfeet afraid lest their enemies be fit for war? Is Many Horses frightened? Are you turned coward?"
Then Rising Wolf knew that Many Horses had sent no messenger. This witch had powers beyond all things possible.
"Poor Doggie!" she whispered. His father had called him that far back in childhood, a nickname forgotten these forty years.
"Your father," said Rain, "sends you that token."
Nobody in the West knew who his father was, but in quaint, broken English, unable to pronounce the letters l and r, "Co'on'ee Mon'oe," she said.