Others there are of us who have ourselves been hurled by elemental passions against raw issues of life or death; and whether we be believers in Death or whether we be Christians, we shall claim that there can be no greater deed of love, no higher act of valor.
Reeling, staggering, brandishing his rifle, shouting to the Indians to come and see the fun, laughing hysterically at the man crucified, at the woman dying, No-man came in front of the cross, and at point-blank range with exact and perfect aim shot Storm through the heart, Rain through the forehead, releasing both of them.
Then he reloaded his weapon to kill the Crow. Already the trader, roused to action by the hundred-tongued clamor of the event, was threatening with his pistol from behind the bar, waving to the Indians to stand clear.
Without the slightest warning he let drive through the white man's back, breaking the spinal cord.
* * * * * * *
At dusk came Rising Wolf with some few friends from the Piegan tribe, who followed him in uncertainty, pacing their horses among the people who lay drunk on the prairie.
The wagon fort, and the village beyond, seemed strangely empty. No evening smoke went up from the tipis. The usual clamor of those who called the names of guests bidden to feasting, of the camp crier, of the dancing, the pony racing, the games, was hushed as though night had fallen. The boys failed to bring the night horses, which should be at the lodge doors. Neither were there maids to scurry along the watering trails, nor lovers to watch them pass. Only dogs prowled along the skirts of the tipis. Over the meadow hung a sense of terror, of desolation, and sometimes far away, or sometimes near at hand, the startling death wail of the mourners cleft a boding silence.
Within the wagon fort the Crow lay, stricken with rending pain; but it was not for him that his women were wailing. His children also had contracted smallpox, which now spread from lodge to lodge through the whole camp, where cry after cry of sharp-edged despair attended each new discovery of the pestilence.
Rising Wolf buried the bodies of his friends at the foot of the cross, where, on the blood-stained timber, he carved an inscription to their memory.
RAIN
STORM
NO-MAN
TOOK THE WOLF TRAIL
MOON OF BERRIES 1846
GLORIA IN
EXCELSIS
DOMINE.