n's heart soft so
he cannot fight." He paused for effect, but his hearers seemed
uninterested. "You have come pretty far to see us," resumed the
orator, "and I, and my friend Two Whistles, and my father, Pounded
Meat, have come a day to meet you and bring you to our place. I have
brought you a fat dog. I say it is good the Crow and the Sioux shall
be friends. All the Crow chiefs are glad. Pretty Eagle is a big chief,
and he will tell you what I tell you. But I am bigger than Pretty
Eagle. I am a medicine-man."

He paused again; but the grim old chiefs were looking at the fire, and
not at him. He got a friendly glance from his henchman, Two Whistles,
but he heard his father give a grunt.

That enraged him. "I am a medicine-man," he repeated, defiantly. "I have
been in the big hole in the mountains where the river goes, and spoken
there with the old man who makes the thunder. I talked with him as one
chief to another. I am going to kill all the white men."

At this old Pounded Meat looked at his son angrily, but the son was not
afraid of his father just then. "I can make medicine to bring the rain,"
he continued. "I can make water boil when it is cold. With this I can
strike the white man blind when he is so far that his eyes do not show
his face."

He swept out from his blanket an old cavalry sabre painted scarlet.
Young Two Whistles made a movement of awe, but Pounded Meat said, "My
son's tongue has grown longer than his sword."

Laughter sounded among the old chiefs. Cheschapah turned his impudent
yet somewhat visionary face upon his father. "What do you know of
medicine?" said he. "Two sorts of Indians are among the Crows to-day,"
he continued to the chiefs. "One sort are the fathers, and the sons are
the other. The young warriors are not afraid of the white man. The old
plant corn with the squaws. Is this the way with the Sioux?"

"With the Sioux," remarked a grim visitor, "no one fears the white man.
But the young warriors do not talk much in council."

Pounded Meat put out his hand gently, as if in remonstrance. Other
people must not chide his son.

"You say you can make water boil with no fire?" pursued the Sioux, who
was named Young-man-afraid-of-his-horses, and had been young once.

Pounded Meat came between. "My son is a good man," said he. "These words
of his are not made in the heart, but are head words you need not count.
Cheschapah does not like peace. He has heard us sing our wars and the
enemie