al
weeks before, at a fort some two hundred miles distant. While all our
clan were wailing and mourning their loss, my grandmother calmly bade
them cease, saying that her son was approaching, and that they would see
him shortly. Although we had no other reason to doubt the ill tidings,
it is a fact that my uncle came into camp two days after his reported
death.

At another time, when I was fourteen years old, we had just left Fort
Ellis on the Assiniboine River, and my youngest uncle had selected
a fine spot for our night camp. It was already after sundown, but my
grandmother became unaccountably nervous, and positively refused to
pitch her tent. So we reluctantly went on down the river, and camped
after dark at a secluded place. The next day we learned that a family
who were following close behind had stopped at the place first selected
by my uncle, but were surprised in the night by a roving war-party,
and massacred to a man. This incident made a great impression upon our
people.

Many of the Indians believed that one may be born more than once,
and there were some who claimed to have full knowledge of a former
incarnation. There were also those who held converse with a "twin
spirit," who had been born into another tribe or race. There was
a well-known Sioux war-prophet who lived in the middle of the last
century, so that he is still remembered by the old men of his band.
After he had reached middle age, he declared that he had a spirit
brother among the Ojibways, the ancestral enemies of the Sioux. He even
named the band to which his brother belonged, and said that he also was
a war-prophet among his people.

Upon one of their hunts along the border between the two tribes, the
Sioux leader one evening called his warriors together, and solemnly
declared to them that they were about to meet a like band of Ojibway
hunters, led by his spirit twin. Since this was to be their first
meeting since they were born as strangers, he earnestly begged the young
men to resist the temptation to join battle with their tribal foes.

"You will know him at once," the prophet said to them, "for he will not
only look like me in face and form, but he will display the same totem,
and even sing my war songs!"

They sent out scouts, who soon returned with news of the approaching
party. Then the leading men started with their peace-pipe for the
Ojibway camp, and when they were near at hand they fired three distinct
volleys, a signal of