sound of guns, and someone told me that the young men were killing buffalo.
Soon after we had made camp, they began to come in, some carrying loads of
meat on their backs, and others dragging over the snow a big piece of
buffalo hide, sewed up into a sack, and full of meat. Everyone was
good-natured, and each young man was laughing and joking with his fellows,
and sometimes playing tricks on them. That night a friend took a piece of
buffalo hide and sewed it up, and partly dried it over the fire, and then
turned it inside out, and stuffed it full of meat, and gave it to me,
saying, "Here is a pack for you to carry."
We traveled on for several days; but it was not long after this that the
scouts came in, and told us that they had seen signs of people, a trail
where a large camp had passed along only a few days before. When I heard
this I was a little frightened, for I thought to myself, "Suppose we were
to be attacked, how could I run away with this big pack on my back?" But I
said nothing, and no one else seemed to be afraid; all were happy because
there was a chance that we might meet enemies. They laughed and talked with
one another, and said what a good time we should have if there should be a
fight. Nevertheless, that night the leader told the young men to bring logs
out of the timber, and pile them up around the war lodges, so that if we
should be attacked we might fight behind breast works. Also, he told them
that if we should be attacked we must not run out of the lodges, but must
stay in them, where we could fight well, and be protected and safe. Also,
he said, "Everyone must be watchful; it may be that enemies are near;
therefore, act accordingly."
The next morning the leader sent out two parties of scouts, to go in two
directions to look for enemies. He told them where they should go, and
where they should meet the main party, which was to keep on its way,
traveling carefully, and out of sight.
At night, after we had reached the appointed place, and had camped there,
the scouts came in, and told us that they had found the enemy, and that
their camp was not far off. When the leader learned that, he said, "It will
be well for us to go to-night to the camp of these enemies, and try to take
their horses." The distance was not great, and after we had eaten, all set
out. When we had come near to the camp, we could see in some of the lodges
the fires still burning, and knew that all the people had not gone to bed.
In a low place we stopped, and there put down all our things. Here the
leader told us what we must do, calling out by name certain men who should
go into the camp, and certain other men, younger, who should go about
through the hills and gather up loose horses, and drive them to the place
where we had left our packs. My name he did not speak, and I did not know
what to do. While I sat there, doubtful, all the others started off. Then I
made up my mind that I, too, would go into the camp, and would try to do
something, and I followed the others. After a little time I overtook them,
and followed along, and as we went on and drew nearer and nearer to the
camp, men kept turning off to one side, until presently, when we were quite
near the camp, most of them had disappeared into the darkness; but I could
still see some, walking along ahead of me. Presently we reached the outer
circle of the lodges, and a moment or two after that I could see none of
our people. I was walking alone among the lodges. Now I was afraid, for I
did not know how to act, nor what I wanted to do, and I thought that
perhaps one of the enemy might see me, and see that I did not belong to his
tribe, and attack me and kill me. I held my head down, and walked straight
along. Not many people were about, and no one passed me. Presently I came
to a lodge in which a little fire was burning, and not very far away was
another lodge, in which people were singing and drumming, as if for a
dance. I stopped, and looked into the first lodge. The fire was low, but
still it gave some light, and I could see plainly that no one was there.
Then suddenly it came to me that I would go into this lodge, and take
something out of it, which should show to my friends that I, too, had been
in the camp. I did not think much of the danger that someone might come in,
but, stooping down, entered the lodge, and looked about. Hanging over the
bed, at the back of the lodge, was a bow-case and quiver full of arrows. I
stepped quickly across and took this down, and putting it under my robe,
went out of the lodge, and walked back the way I had come.
As I had entered the camp I had seen horses standing, tied in front of the
lodges, and now, as I was going back, I stooped down in front of a lodge,
where all was dark, cut loose a horse, and walked away, leading it by its
rope. No one saw me, and when I had passed beyond the furthest lodge I
mounted the horse and rode along slowly. After I had gone a little further,
I went faster, and soon I was at the place where we had left our things.
There were many horses there, brought in by the younger men that had been
looking for loose horses, and some cut loose by those who had gone into
camp. Every minute other men kept coming up, and presently all were there.
The young men had filled their saddle-pads with grass, and now each one
chose a good horse, and mounting it drove off the herd. I had only one
horse, yet my heart was glad, for it was the first I had ever taken.
For a time we rode slowly, but presently, faster; and when day had come we
had gone a long way. The horses were still being driven in separate
bunches, so that each man should know which were his--the ones he had
taken; but soon after day broke, and there had been time for each to look
over his animals, they were bunched together, and we went faster.
Nevertheless, the leader said to us: "Friends, do not hurry the horses too
much; they are poor, and we must not run them too hard. The horses on which
the Crows will follow us are poor also, and they cannot overtake us."
We rode fast until afternoon, when we came down into the valley of a river,
and there stopped to let our horses feed. Two young men with fresh horses
were left behind, on top of the highest hills, to watch the trail, to see
whether the enemy were following us. After we had been there for a time,
and the horses had eaten, the leader called out, "Friends, the enemy are
pursuing; we must hurry on the horses." In a moment we had caught our
animals, and mounted, and were driving on the herd; for, far back, we could
see the scouts who had been left behind coming toward us, riding fast, and
making signs that people had been seen. After we had left the valley, and
were among the hills, the leader left two other young men, on fresh horses,
behind, to see whether the enemy crossed the river, and followed; while we
went on with the horses. We rode all that night and part of the next day,
and then stopped again; and that night, in the middle of the night, the
scouts overtook us, and told us that the enemy had not crossed the river,
where we had first slept, but had turned about there, and had gone back.
"There were only a few of them," they said. "We two were almost tempted to
attack them, but we had been told only to watch them, and we thought it
better to do that." Four days afterward we reached our village.
I had no saddle, and when I reached the camp I was very sore and stiff from
riding so long without a saddle. Nevertheless, I was pleased, for I had
taken a horse that was fast, long-winded and tough; and I had taken also a
fine bow and arrows, with an otter-skin case. The leader spoke to me, and
told me that I had done well to go into this lodge. He said to me, "Friend,
you have made a good beginning; I think that you will be a good warrior."
Also, when we reached the village, my uncle praised me, and said that I had
done well. He looked at the bow and the arrows, and told me that to have
taken them was better than to have taken a good horse, and that he hoped
that I would be able to use them in fighting with my enemies. Such was my
first journey to war.
_A Grown Man._
That summer my uncle gave me a gun, and now I was beginning to feel that I
was really a man, and I hunted constantly, and had good luck, killing deer
and elk, and other game.
One day the next year, with a friend, I was hunting a two days' journey
from the camp. We had killed nothing until this day, when we got a deer,
and toward evening stopped to cook and eat. The country was broken with
many hills and ravines, and before we went down to the stream to build our
fire I had looked from the top of a little hill, to see whether anything
could be seen. My friend was building a fire to cook food, and I had gone
down to the fire and spread my robe on the ground, and was lying on it,
resting, while our horses were feeding near by, when suddenly I had a
strange feeling. I seemed to feel that I was in great danger, and as if I
must get away from this place. I was frightened. I felt there was danger;
that something bad was going to happen. I did not know what it was, nor why
I felt so, but I was afraid. I seemed to turn to water inside of me. I had
never felt so before. I sat up and looked about; nothing was to be seen. My
friend was cutting some meat to cook over the little fire, and just beyond
him the horses were feeding. My friend was singing to himself a little war
song, as he worked.
My feelings grew worse instead of better. I stood up, took my gun, and
walked toward a little hill not far from where we were, and my friend
called out to me, "Where are you going? I thought you wished to rest." I
said to him, "I will go to the top of that little hill, and look over it."
When I got there I looked about; I could see nothing. It was early summer,
and the grass was green. The soil was soft and sandy. For a long time I
looked about in all directions, but could see nothing, but then I could not
see far, for there were other little hills, nearly as high, close to me.
Presently I looked at the ground a few steps before me, and I thought I saw
where something had stepped. It was hard for me to make up my mind to walk
to this place, but at length I did so. When I got there I saw where a horse
had stood--a fresh horse track. Near it were two tracks made by a man, an
enemy. I could see where he had stood, with one foot advanced before the
other. When I saw these tracks I knew what had happened; an enemy had stood
there looking over at us, and when he saw me with my gun start toward the
top of the hill he had gone away. Standing where he had stood, I looked
back toward our horses; I could hardly see their backs, but a man taller
than I could have seen more of them, and the heads of the two men. I turned
to follow the tracks a little way, and as I walked, it did not seem to me
that my bones were stiff enough to support my body; I seemed to sway from
side to side, and felt as if I should fall down. I was frightened.
I saw where the man had led his horse a little way back from the hill, and
then had jumped on it and ridden off as hard as he could gallop. A little
further on was the place where another horse had stood; it, too, had turned
and gone off fast; its rider had not dismounted. One of the men had said to
the other: "You wait here, and I will go up and take a look. If these
people sleep here we will attack them when it is dark, and kill them and
take their horses."
I cannot tell you how much I wanted to run back to my friend and tell him
what I had seen; but I had courage enough to walk. I felt angry at myself
for being so frightened. I said to myself: "Come, you are a man; you belong
to brave people; your uncle and your father did not fear things that they
could not see. Be brave. Be strong." It was no use for me to say this; I
was so frightened I could hardly control myself. I felt as if I must run
away.
I walked until I was close to my friend. He was cooking meat, and was still
singing to himself. When I was pretty near to him I said, "Friend, put the
saddle on your horse, and I will saddle mine, and we will go away from
here." He turned and looked at me, and in a moment he had dropped the meat
that he was cooking, and was saddling up. He told me the next day that my
face had changed so that he hardly knew me; my face was like that of one
dead. I said to him, "Do you go ahead, and go fast, but do not gallop." He
started off without a word, and I followed him. It was now growing dark,
but you could still see a long way. As I rode I seemed to have three heads,
I looked in so many different directions. We traveled fast. My courage did
not come back to me. I was still miserable.
About the middle of the night I said to my friend, "Let us stop here, so
that the horses may eat." We stopped and took off our saddles, and held the
ropes of our horses in our hands, and lay down on the ground together,
looking back over the trail that we had come. My friend's horse was eating,
but mine stood with his head high, and his ears pricked, and kept looking
back toward where we had come from. Every now and then he would snort, as
if frightened. Sometimes he would take a bite or two of grass, and then
would again stand with his head up, looking and snorting. This made me more
afraid than ever; and now my friend was as badly frightened as I.
At last I could stand it no longer, and I said to him, "Let us turn off the
trail, and go along a divide where no one is likely to follow us." We
started, loping. After we had gone some distance we stopped, took off our
bridles, and again lay down, looking back over the way we had come. The
night was dark, but we could see a little, and we watched and listened.
Still my horse would not eat, but kept looking back over the trail.
Suddenly, my friend said, "There he is. Do you see?" I looked, and looked,
but could see nothing. "Where is it?" said I. With my head close to the
ground I looked in the direction in which he pointed, but could see
nothing. My friend saw it move, however. I said to him, "Here, let us
change places;" and I moved to his place, and he to mine. Then I looked,
and in a moment I saw just in front of my face a weed-stalk, and when I
moved my head the stalk moved. This was what he had seen.
For the first time since this feeling had come over me in the afternoon I
laughed, and with a rush my courage came back to me. I felt as brave and
cheerful as ever. All through the evening I had not wished to smoke, and if
I had wished to, I should have been afraid to light my pipe. Now I filled
my pipe, lighted it, and we smoked. When I laughed my friend's courage came
back too. We lay down and slept, and the next day went on to the village.
_A Sacrifice._
During the next two years I went to war five times, always as a servant,
but always I had good luck. This was because early, after my first trip to
war, I had asked an old man, one of my relations, to teach me how to make a
sacrifice which should be pleasing to those spirits who rule the world.
It was in the early summer, when the grass was high and green, not yet
turning brown, that, with this old man, Tom Lodge, I went out into the
hills to suffer and to pray, to ask for help in my life, and that I might
be blessed in all my warpaths. Tom Lodge had told me what I must do, and
before the time came I had cut a pole, and brought it and a rope, and a
bundle of sinew, and some small wooden pins near to the place where we were
to go, and had hidden them in a ravine.
It was before the sun had risen that we started out, and when we came to
the hill where the things were, I carried them to the top of the hill, and
there Tom Lodge and I dug a hole in the soil with our knives, and planted
the pole, stamping the earth tightly about it, and then putting great
stones on the earth, so that the pole should be held firmly. Then Tom Lodge
tied the rope to the pole, and with sinew tied the pins to the rope, and
then holding the pins and his knife up to the sun, and to the sky, and then
placing them on the earth, he prayed to all the spirits of the air, and of
the earth, and of the waters, asking that this sacrifice that I was about
to make should be blessed, and that I should have help in all my
undertakings. Then he came and stood before me, and taking hold of the skin
of my breast on the right side, he pinched it up and passed his knife
through it, and then passed the pin through under the skin, and tied the
end to the rope with another strand of sinew. In the same way he did on the
left side of my breast. Then he told me that all through the day I should
walk about this pole, always on the side of the pole toward which the sun
was looking, and that I should throw myself back against the rope and
should try to tear the pins from my skin. Then, telling me to pray
constantly, to have a strong heart, and not to lose courage, he set out to
return to the village.
All through the long summer day I walked about the pole, praying to all the
spirits, and crying aloud to the sun and the earth, and all the animals and
birds to help me. Each time when I came to the end of the rope I threw
myself back against it, and pulled hard. The skin of my breast stretched
out as wide as your hand, but it would not tear, and at last all my chest
grew numb, so that it had no feeling in it; and yet, little by little, as I
threw my whole weight against the rope, the strips of skin stretched out
longer and longer. All day long I walked in this way. The sun blazed down
like fire. I had no food, and did not drink; for so I had been instructed.
Toward night my mouth grew dry, and my neck sore; so that to swallow, or
even to open my mouth in prayer hurt me. It seemed a long time before the
sun got overhead and the pole cast but a small shadow; but it seemed that
the shadow of the pole grew long in the afternoon much more slowly than it
had grown short in the morning.
I was very tired, and my legs were shaking under me, when at last, as the
sun hung low over the western hills, I saw someone coming. It was my
friend, Tom Lodge; and when he had come close to me, he spoke to me and
said, "My son, have you been faithful all through the day?" I answered him,
"Father, I have walked and prayed all day long, but I cannot tear out these
pins." "You have done well," he said; and, drawing his knife, he came to
me, and taking hold first of one pin and then of the other, he cut off the
strips of skin which passed about the pins, and set me free. He held the
strips of skin that he had cut off, toward the sky, and toward the four
directions, and prayed, saying: "Listen! all you spirits of the air, and of
the earth, and of the water; and you, O earth! and you, O sun! This is the
sacrifice that my son has made to you. You have heard how he cries to you
for help. Hear his prayer." Then at the foot of the pole he scraped a
little hole in the earth and placed the bits of skin there, and covered
them up. Then he gave me to drink from a buffalo paunch waterskin that he
had brought.
"Now, my son," said he, "you shall sleep here this night, and to-morrow
morning, as the sun rises, leave this; hill, and everything on it, as it
is, and return to the camp. It may be that during the night something will
come to you, to tell you a thing. If you are spoken to in your sleep,
remember carefully what is said to you."
After he had gone I lay down, covering myself with my robe, and was soon
asleep, for I was very tired. That night, while I slept, I dreamed that a
wolf came to me, and spoke, saying: "My son, the spirits to whom you have
cried all day long have heard your prayers, and have sent me to tell you
that your cryings have not been in vain. Take courage, therefore, for you
shall be fortunate so long as these wars last. You shall strike your
enemies; your name shall be called through the camp, and all your relations
will be glad.
"Look at me, and consider well my ways. Remember that of all the animals,
the wolves are the smartest. If they get hungry, they go out and kill a
buffalo; they know what is going to happen; they are always able to take
care of themselves. You shall be like the wolf; you shall be able to creep
close to your enemies, and they shall not see you; you shall be a great man
for surprising people. In the bundle that you wear tied to your necklet,
you shall carry a little wolf hair, and your quiver and your bow-case shall
be made of the skin of a wolf." The wolf ceased speaking, yet for a time he
sat there looking at me, and I at him; but presently he yawned, and stood
up on his feet, and trotted off a little way, and suddenly I could not see
him.
So then in these five times that I went to war, once I counted the first
coup of all on an enemy; and three times I crept into camp and brought out
horses, twice going with other men who went in to cut loose the horses, and
once going in alone. For these things I came to be well thought of by the
tribe. My uncle praised me, and said that the time was coming when I would
be a good warrior. All my relations felt proud and glad that I had such
good luck.
I knew why all this had come to me. I had done as the wolf had said, and
often I went out from the camp--or perhaps I stopped when I was traveling
far from the village--and went up on a hill, and, lighting a pipe, offered
a smoke to the wolf, and asked him not to forget what he had said to me.
I was now a grown man, and able to do all the things that young men do. I
was a good hunter; I had a herd of horses, and had been to war, and been
well spoken of by the leaders whose war parties I went with. I was old
enough, too, to think about young girls, and to feel that some day I wanted
to get married, and to have a lodge and home of my own. There were many
nice girls in the camp; many who were hard workers, modest, and very
pretty. I liked many of them, but there was no one whom I liked so much as
Standing Alone. I often saw her, but sometimes she would not look at me,
and sometimes she looked, but when she saw me looking at her she looked
down again; but sometimes she smiled a little as she looked down. It was
long since we had played together, but I thought that perhaps she had not
forgotten the time, so many years ago, when she pretended to be my wife,
and when she had mourned over me once when I was killed by a buffalo.
As I grew older I felt more and more that I wished to see and talk with
her. Of course I was too young to be married yet, but I was not too young
to want to talk with Standing Alone. I used to go out and stand by the
trail where the women passed to get water, hoping that I might speak to
her, but often there was no chance to do so. Sometimes she was with other
girls, who laughed and joked about me, and asked whom I was waiting for.
They could not tell who was standing there, for my robe or my sheet covered
my whole body, except the hole through which I looked with one eye. But one
day when Standing Alone was going by with some girls, one of them
recognized the sheet that I had on, and called out my name, and said that
she believed that I was waiting for Standing Alone. I was surprised that
she should know me, and felt badly, but I did not move, and so I think
neither she nor the girls with her knew that she had guessed right; and the
next time I went I wore a different sheet, and different moccasins and
leggings.
One evening I had good luck; all the women had passed, and Standing Alone
had not appeared. I supposed that all had got their water, and was about to
go away when she came hurrying along the trail, and passed me and went to
the water's edge. She filled her vessel and came back, and when she passed
me again I took hold of her dress and pulled it, and dropped my sheet from
my head. She stopped and we stood there and talked for a little while. We
were both of us afraid, we did not know of what, and had not much to say,
but it was pleasant to be there talking to her, and looking at her face.
Three times she started to go, but each time I said to her, "Do not go;
wait a little longer"; and each time she waited. The fourth time she went
away. After that, I think she knew me whenever I stood by the trail, and
sometimes she was late in coming for water, and I had a chance to speak to
her alone.
[Illustration: "DO NOT GO; WAIT A LITTLE LONGER"]
In those days I was happy; and often when the camp was resting, and there
was nothing for me to do, I used to go out and sit on the top of a high
hill, and think about Standing Alone, and hope that in the time to come I
might have her for my wife, and that I might do great things in war, so
that she would be proud of me; and might bring back many horses for her, so
that she could always ride a good horse, and have a finely ornamented
saddle and saddle-cloth. If I could take horses enough, I should be rich,
and then whatever Standing Alone might desire, I could give a horse for it.
_A Warrior Ready to Die._
It was not long after this that buffalo were found, and we began to kill
them, as we used to do in the old times; and then a great misfortune
happened to me.