The Indians starve and are cold.
Break up the clouds and shine upon us.
Take what I say and send the Chinook.
Father, the Sun, have pity and help my people.”
At last came a day with signs of better weather. At dawn the sky was vivid green with clouds of pink and gold; and at midday water was dripping from the roof and the thick frost melted from the windows.
Then on Kutenai I went forth to hunt, following the tops [[151]]of the ridges. I saw tracks of a wolf pack, and the large round footprints of a pair of Rocky Mountain lions, with marks where their long tails dragged in the snow. But I had no luck. The traveling was bad; the low places and gullies were choked with snow, and the plains covered with huge drifts, following one another like billows of the ocean, with smaller waves on top. The bright sun was blinding on the white surface snow, and the air filled with particles of floating ice. My horse’s hoofs rang on the icy crust; sometimes it bore our weight; at others his feet broke through. One moment his hind quarters were down, at another he seemed to be standing on his head. Once he slipped on an ice-covered hill and turned a complete somersault. I flew over his head and landed safely in a snowdrift. The only game I saw was a bunch of antelope. But they were feeding on the bare summit of a ridge with no cover near, and I had no way of stalking them. After that I turned back because the sun was getting low.
I remember well how the cabin looked that night, after my trip on the snowy wastes. Our table was covered with a cloth of bright red; the steam rising from a bountiful supper of rib-roast; the glow of the firelight over all, and the glistening of frost-covered windows.
Then the south wind rose and the river was covered with mist. Misty clouds hung along the horizon, and I saw two rainbows at a distance from the sun. Banks of heavy clouds settled low over the Rocky Mountains, with another great bank higher up. In the west the sky became as black as ink and the color of indigo at the zenith. The wind went down and there came a strange stillness.
Suddenly, from out of the west I heard a dull roar, like the roll of distant thunder. “Listen!” cried the scout. “The Chinook! At last! Good-Old-Man comes from the mountains to run out over the plains.”
I looked towards the Rockies and saw dense clouds of snow [[152]]swept into the air by the force of a mighty wind. It passed the foothills and came swiftly over the plains, like banks of driven fog. Then the gale struck us carrying masses of melting snow, which covered us from head to foot. In a few minutes the temperature rose forty degrees.