h, in whom
he thought he saw a development. From being a mere humbug, the young
Indian seemed to be getting a belief in himself as something genuinely
out of the common. His success in creating a party had greatly increased
his conceit, and he walked with a strut, and his face was more unsettled
and visionary than ever. One clear sign of his mental change was that he
no longer respected his father at all, though the lonely old man looked
at him often with what in one of our race would have been tenderness.
Cheschapah had been secretly maturing a plot ever since his humiliation
at the crossing, and now he was ready. With his lump of newspaper
carefully treasured, he came to Two Whistles.

"Now we go," he said. "We shall fight with the Piegans. I will make big
medicine, so that we shall get many of their horses and women. Then
Pretty Eagle will be afraid to go against me in the council. Pounded
Meat whipped my horse. Pounded Meat can cut his hay without Cheschapah,
since he is so strong."

But little Two Whistles wavered. "I will stay here," he ventured to say
to the prophet.

"Does Two Whistles think I cannot do what I say?"

"I think you make good medicine."

"You are afraid of the Piegans."

"No, I am not afraid. I have hay the white man will pay me for. If I go,
he will not pay me. If I had a father, I would not leave him." He spoke
pleadingly, and his prophet bore him down by ridicule. Two Whistles
believed, but he did not want to lose the money the agent was to pay for
his hay. And so, not so much because he believed as because he was
afraid, he resigned his personal desires.

The next morning the whole band had disappeared with Cheschapah. The
agent was taken aback at this marked challenge to his authority--of
course they had gone without permission--and even the old Crow chiefs
held a council.

Pretty Eagle resorted to sarcasm. "He has taken his friends to the old
man who makes the thunder," he said. But others did not feel sarcastic,
and one observed, "Cheschapah knows more than we know."

"Let him make rain, then," said Pretty Eagle. "Let him make the white
man's heart soft."

The situation was assisted by a step of the careful Kinney. He took a
private journey to Junction City, through which place he expected
Cheschapah to return, and there he made arrangements to have as much
whiskey furnished to the Indian and his friends as they should ask for.
It was certainly a good stroke of business. The vic