The Crow bragged of such intentions at Fort Benton, well within earshot of the Blackfoot tribes. His talk was cynical, pungent enough to be repeated, to pass into the general gossip of the Blackfoot country, with comments on Rain's character to spice the scandal, and derision of the old-fashioned Hudson's Bay Company which could hardly fail to reach the ears of Rising Wolf. The Blackfeet were interested, amused, and curious to see this trader who advertised so boldly, who was going to undersell the Company, blacken the face of Rising Wolf, and take Rain the sacred woman down a peg or two. As to their pending ruin, all the surrounding nations would threaten as much or more when the mood took them. Threatened tribes live long.
The Blackfoot nation was blind to any danger. Rising Wolf alone saw the extent and nature of the peril. For once he lost his head. Where tact and humor would have won for him the exclusion of the Crow from the Blackfoot villages, he went raving before the Council, pleading with the Blackfoot chiefs for the mulatto's death. That was a blunder. By seeking the murder of a rival trader he put himself in the wrong, meeting his first rebuff from Many Horses, who told him curtly to do his own killings. To give Rising Wolf justice, he challenged the Crow, a man four times his size, to fight with any weapons—this in presence of the Blackfoot Council. "That's all right," was the Crow's cheery rejoinder. "I reckon I name the weapon—cannon, loaded with buffalo horns!"
The white adventurer failed to meet with jest the gale of laughter which presently drove him out of camp, leaving the Crow in possession. And the Crow was clever, distributing to the Blackfoot chiefs and medicine men gifts of axes and guns, of scarlet cloth and beads, every treasure the heart of man could covet, silks for the women, toys for the children, liquor by the keg. The Crow offered subsidy to every important leader, so long as he traded in safety with the Blackfoot nation. That night he had a wagon load of robes and a tribe drunk.
Instead of reporting his failure to the Hudson's Bay Company, which does not suffer fools gladly, their agent, Rising Wolf, went on his third visit to the holy lodge, and laid the whole of the troubles before the Sacred Woman.
Now did Rain see that her people were doomed to destruction. "My eyes are opened," she said, "and I see all the warrior spirit of our people change to cowardice. O fallen chiefs! O childless mothers, starving lodges, broken tribes driven to beggary. Aye, and the Stonehearts come with their cold charity—all through my fault, my fault!"
"How can that be your fault?" asked Rising Wolf.
The spirit of prophecy forsook her; she was all woman as she answered him.
"I try," she confessed, "to be a Christian, but I'm a little heathen inside. A Christian wouldn't have told the Absaroka Council, as I did, to burn the Crow's wagons, to steal his horses, and take his scalp if he came back again. 'Twas I who had the Crow turned loose to ruin my own dear Blackfeet people. If I wasn't really and truly a Christian I'd paint my face black, cut off one or two fingers, and howl all night. Then Storm would beat me, and it would do me good."
And then she fell to crying.
Rain and Storm had spent the whole of their working years, as well as their arduous dream-life, in practical application of every principle contained in the Sermon on the Mount. So intensely literal were they, that Rain would sometimes devote an hour to slapping her man's face, while he turned one cheek or the other, until his complexion became that of a roast of beef on a spit. Had an eye offended either of them, it would have been plucked out, and that with no hesitation; indeed, they lived ever in fearful hope that they would not be obliged to take offense at the conduct of a leg or an arm. On this occasion the pair of them spent a night fasting in the cold fog on the altar hill, while they tried to forgive the Crow for ruining the Blackfeet; but in the morning they hated him worse than ever. It seemed for the time as though the Sermon on the Mount had failed them.