Sometimes, too, I was present in my uncle’s lodge when he gave a feast to friends; and often among them were chiefs and older men, who in their day had done great things, and brought credit to the tribe.  At such feasts, after all had eaten, and my uncle had filled the pipe, and pushed the tobacco board back under the bed, he gave the pipe to some young man, who lighted it and handed it back to him; and then he smoked, holding the pipe to the sky, and to the earth, and to the four directions, and made a prayer to the spirits, and then passed the pipe along to the end of the circle on his left; and, beginning there, each man smoked and made a prayer, and the pipe passed from hand to hand.  After this the guests talked and joked, and laughed, and stories were told, perhaps of war or adventure, perhaps of hard times when food was scarce and the cold bitter, perhaps of those mysterious persons who rule the world, and of the kindly or the terrible things that they have done.

[Illustration:  HOLDING THE PIPE TO THE SKY AND TO THE EARTH]

I remember well one such feast, when for the first time my uncle told me to sit on his right hand, and behind him; and when he had filled it, told me to light the pipe.  I reached over to the fire, and with a tongs made of willow took up a small coal and lighted the pipe, and after it was going well, passed it to my uncle.  And so I lighted all the pipes that were smoked that night.  It was during the second of these pipes that an old man, Calf Robe, told a story of a thing that had happened in the tribe long ago, when he was a young man.  He was a little man, thin and dried up, but in his time he had been a great warrior.  Now he was old and poor, his left arm thin, withered and helpless, and on his side a great scar, much larger than my two hands, where people said his ribs on that side had all been torn away.  I had heard of his adventures, how once the animals had taken pity on him, and brought him, after he was sorely wounded on a war journey, safe back to his people and his village.  It was on this night that I first heard the story of the Medicine Circle.  This was what he said: 

“It was winter.  The people were camped on Lodgepole Creek near the Big Horn Mountains.  Buffalo were close and small game plenty.  The snow was deep, and the people did not watch their horses closely, for they thought no war parties would be out in such cold and in such deep snow.

“The chief of this camp had strong mysterious power.  On the ground at the right of his bed in his lodge was always a space, where red painted wooden pegs were set in the ground in a circle.  Above this hung the medicine bundles.  No one was allowed to step or sit in this circle.  No one might throw anything on the ground near it.  No one might pass between it and the fire.  It was sacred.

“It was a very cold night.  The wind blew the snow about so that one could hardly see.  The chief had gone to a feast in a lodge near his own, and his wives were in bed, but one of them was still awake.  The fire had burned down, and the lodge was almost dark.  Suddenly the curtain of the doorway was thrown back.  A person entered, passed around to the back of the lodge, and sat down in the medicine circle.