een afraid of big buffalo, and
should not have dared to go near enough to kill one, but should have been
content to kill calves. My mind was still big for what I had done, and I
felt thankful to my uncle for making me do it. I wanted to pass my hands
over him--to express my gratitude to him--for all his kindness to me. No
father could have done more for me than he had done, and always did.

That night when we came back to the camp my horse was carrying a great pile
of meat; and when I stopped in front of the lodge, I called out to my
mother to come and take my horse, and take the meat from it; for so my
uncle had told me to do. "Now," he said, "you have become a man; you are
able to hunt, and to kill food, and you must act as a man acts."

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 ou