And it happened after the thinking of the big chief that a council was called—a coming-together of the leaders of the bands. And the leaders came together, and sat with big thoughts. It was evening, and among the assembled leaders sat Rain Walker. His face was thin and cruel as a stone axe stained with blood. Then the big chief raised his voice, and words to be heard grew there in the big lodge. “This man who sits with us has been wronged. When our brothers, the Poncas, were among us for the feasting and the talking together, Mad Buffalo was among them. “A woman is a thing not to be understood. Now she dies on long winter trails for a man, or grows old and wrinkled suckling his _zhinga zhingas_; and now she leaves him for another; yet it is the same woman. I knew a wise man once; but he shook his head about these things; and so do I. “You know of whom I speak. It was Sun Eyes; and she was this man’s woman. Mad Buffalo smiled, and she went with him.” Rain Walker’s breath, that hissed through his teeth, filled up the silence that followed. His face was thin and sharp and eager, even as the barbed head of a war arrow. “And this man has come to me crying for war,” continued the head chief. “Think hard, and let us talk together.” And he of the Big Elk band said: “Let the Poncas come down in the night and drive away our ponies, and I will gather my band about me. But it has not been so.” And he of the Hawk band said: “Let the Poncas destroy our gardens, and I will think of my weapons.” And he of the No-Teeth band said: “Let the Poncas speak ill of us, and my band will put on the war paint.” Then a silence grew and the head chief filled it with few words. “Let us pass the pipe; and all who smoke it smoke for war.” And there were ten chiefs in the council, sitting in a circle. The first touched the pipe lightly and passed it on as though it burned his fingers; and so the second and third, even to the tenth. And next to him sat Rain Walker. His breath came drily through his teeth, like a hot wind in a parched gulch. With hands that trembled he grasped the pipe from the tenth, who had not placed it to his lips. Rain Walker placed it to his lips nervously, eagerly, as one who touches a cool water bowl after a long thirst. He struck a flint and lit it. Then he arose to his feet, tall, straight, trembling—a Rage grown into a man! “_I smoke!_” he cried; “I smoke, and through all the sunlights that come I shall walk alone and kill! The lonesome walker—I am he! “I shall speak to the snake, and he shall teach me his creeping and his stinging. I shall speak to the elk, and he shall teach me his fleetness, his strength that lasts, his fury when he turns to fight. And I shall speak to the hawk and learn the keenness of his eyes!” Rain Walker puffed blue streamers of smoke into the still twilight of the lodge, seeming something more than man in the fog he made.