is the great bird that is coming to our lodge?  I am afraid of it,” and then she and the children ran in the door.  Then they came out again, and when I reached the lodge, all looked at the bird, and said how big it was, and how fine, and that it must be shown to my uncle before it was cooked.  They sent word to him, asking him to come to the lodge, and soon he did so, and when he saw what I had killed, he was glad, and told me that I had done well, and that I was lucky to have killed a crane.  “There are many grown men,” said he, “who have never killed a crane; and you have done well.  I wish to have this known.”

He called out in a loud voice, and asked Bellowing Cow, a poor old woman, to come to the lodge and see what his son had done; and he sent one of the boys back to his lodge, telling him to bring a certain horse.  Soon the boy returned, leading a pony; and when Bellowing Cow had come, my uncle handed her the rope that was about the pony’s neck, and told her to look at this bird that his son had killed.

“We have had good luck,” he said; “my son has killed this wise bird; he is going to be a good hunter, and will kill much meat.  In the time to come, after he has grown to be a man, his lodge will never lack food.  His women will always have plenty of robes to dress.”

Then Bellowing Cow mounted her horse and rode around the village, singing a song, in which she told how lucky I had been; that I had killed a crane, a bird that many grown men had not killed; and that I was going to be a good hunter, and always fortunate in killing food.  My uncle did not give the bird to Bellowing Cow; he kept it, and told my mother to cook it; and he said to her:  “Save for me the wing bones of this bird, and give them to me, in order that I may make from them two war whistles, which my son may carry when he has grown old enough to go to war against his enemies.”

I was proud of what had happened, and it made me feel big to listen to this poor old woman as she rode through the village singing her song.

What he did at this time showed some things about my uncle.  It showed that he liked me; it showed that he was proud of what I had done; and it showed, too, that he was a person of good heart, since he called to see what I had done a poor old woman who had nothing, and gave her a horse.  It would have been as easy for him to have called some chief or rich man who had plenty of horses, and then sometime this chief or rich man would have given him a horse for some favor done him.

I had killed the crane with a pointed arrow, of which I had three, though in my hunting for little birds I still used blunt arrows.  My uncle had made me another bow, which was almost as large as a man’s bow; and I was practicing with it always, trying to make my right arm strong, to bend it, so that it might send the arrow with full force.