When my mother came out of the lodge she was astonished; she could hardly believe that it was I who had killed this buffalo.  Nevertheless, she took the rope from me, and began to take the meat from the horse; and I went into the lodge and lay down on the bed by the fire to rest, for this too was what my uncle had told me to do.

The next time the camp made a surround, I rode alone, and this time I did not do so well.  It is true that I killed a cow, but also I shot another animal, which carried away three of my arrows.  It was afterward killed by a man a long way off, and the next day he gave me back my arrows, which he had taken from the cow.  I felt ashamed of this, but, nevertheless, I kept on, and before the hunt was over I killed many buffalo, and my mother dressed the hides.

[Illustration:  I KILLED MANY BUFFALO AND MY MOTHER DRESSED THE HIDES]

In the Medicine Circle.

Soon after I had killed my big buffalo, my uncle had sent for me and when I had gone to his lodge, he said, “Come with me”; and we walked out on the prairie where his horses were feeding.  He carried a rope in his hand, and, throwing it over the fast buffalo horse, that he had told me to ride when I first hunted buffalo, he put the rope in my hand, and said:  “Son, I give you this horse; he is fast, and he is long-winded.  You have seen that he can overtake buffalo.  I tell you now that he is a good horse for war.  If you ride him when you go on the warpath, you can get up close to your enemy, and strike him; he will not be able to run away from you.”

This was the first horse I had, and I was proud to own it.  Also, later, my uncle said to me, “My son, if you need horses for riding, catch some of those out of my band, and use them.”  This I did, sometimes.  My uncle had plenty of horses, and was always going to war and getting more.

I was now a big boy, and began to think more and more about going to war.  Ever since I had been little I had talked with my companions, and they with me, about the time when we should be big enough to do the things that our fathers and uncles did; and the thing that we most wished to do was to go to war against the enemy, and to do something brave, so that we should be looked up to by the people.  As we grew older the wish to do this increased.  That summer, when the old men used to come out of their lodges, and sit in the sun, smoking, or to gather in little groups, and gossip with one another, I used to listen to their talk of the things that had happened in past years, when they were young.  They told of many strange things that had happened; of war; journeys that they had made against their enemies, of fights that they had had, and horses that they had taken.  They spoke, too, of treaties that they had made with other tribes; and told how they had visited the camps of people who lived far off, whose names I had heard, but of whom I knew nothing.