Urgent, then, was their appeal to Hiawatha as guide, who delivered to them a lecture full of original thought, and high inspiration, beautifully phrased, elusive as a fine, rare melody, difficult to remember, and to all appearance wide of the point.
In meditation they saw great angels and all the Heavens opened, but when they came to earth again they had no practical or direct advice for Rising Wolf. Only they felt with final conviction the irrevocable law which binds us each to live his own life guided by such light as he can find. Storm summed it all up when he rode with Rising Wolf to speed him on his way back to the tribe. "The Blackfeet are a flock of sheep. A wolf has got into the fold. You are the shepherd."
Of Rising Wolf's duel that summer with the Crow there are few particulars remembered now. The fighting seems to have been prolonged, in several successive phases, beginning on horseback with guns at extreme range, and closing on foot with axes. Hand to hand the little adventurer had no chance against a man of longer reach and enormous muscular strength. For weeks afterwards he lay between life and death, during the rest of a year a convalescent nursed by his wife. In the moon of berries 1846, she brought him, an invalid, a shadow of his former self, on his fourth visit to the holy lodge.
"I don't want," he said, "to make things out worse than they are. It's better to keep a cool head, and calculate without losing one's temper. In the first place, the Crow is a pretty good fellow in his way, with a very big heart. He's never been in camp without coming to see me or sending his wives with presents—invalid food that wasn't come by without sending especially to St. Louis. That corn meal helped, and the dressings for my wound. The Crow wants me to chuck the Hudson's Bay Company and come into partnership—can't for the life of him see any difference between our old merchant adventurers trading honest goods and his own horrible poison.
"By the way, it isn't so very poisonous. I tried a drink once, nasty but harmless. It's just neat alcohol, mixed, one part to four in water. He sells a pint mug for one buffalo robe, and doesn't put a thumb inside to shorten the measure. A pint makes an Indian think he's on the Happy Hunting grounds, a second knocks him out, and then—well, a lot of the warriors drop on the way back to their tipis, and in winter they freeze to death. In liquor most of the bucks think they're fierce and dangerous, so that the squaws and the children take to the woods. A few people are killed in the squabbles.
"Then there's a limit. The hunters get so many buffalo, the women dress that many robes, and each pelt fetches one pint. You see, a very few gallons of alcohol buys enough robes to load a prairie schooner; so on the whole the drinking doesn't last long enough to do the men very much harm. They can't get to delirium tremens, as white men do in the settlements.
"The men hunt all the time, instead of taking the war trail. The women have to dress robes instead of curing meat, camas, and berries for the winter. It means that the men get soft. The enemy grows bold and runs our horses with impunity. We're liable to a general massacre, and there's horrible danger of famine. It would make you cry, Rain, to see how poor our people are since the Crow came, to cart away the whole wealth of the Blackfoot nation. He keeps the chiefs rich, while the rest are beggared. That's why some of the women have taken to drink, which isn't good for the children. And some of the men have sold their wives to the Crow. He takes the three tribes by turns. He's with the Piegans now. And Rain, your brother, my dear friend, Heap-of-dogs, is falling under the influence of this devil."
Rain and her man had abandoned all other service in their dream-life, and for a year past had visited the sleep and the meditation of the Blackfeet, prompting them to good thoughts, new resolutions, kindly impulses, helpful deeds, to the overthrow of the trader, even to the rigors of the war trail, the sport of stealing ponies. They had helped Rising Wolf to keep the soul in his body, inspired his flagging courage, prayed earnestly for his welfare and he alone rose clear above temptation. The rest kept their resolves until they tasted liquor. And Rain knew that her own brother had become a drunkard.
"I understand," said Storm, when Rising Wolf had spoken. "The enemy killed my father, hanged my Uncle Joey, damned my Uncle Thomas, and got my mother murdered. Even as you spoke, Rising Wolf, I felt the old craving to get drunk. It's in my blood. It's harder to fight than cougars, but it's got to be faced at last.
"We must go to the Blackfoot nation. We must set up the holy cross in front of this trader's wagon. Nothing except the cross has power to save the people. Besides, there's Heap-of-dogs, your own brother, Rain, my brother, and your chum, eh, Rising Wolf? We must save him."