like an island,
For on an island I got my power.
In battle I live
While people fall away from me.

While he sang this, he had in his hand the stick which the beaver had given
him. This was his only weapon.

He ran to the bank, jumped in and dived, and came up in the middle of the
river, and started to swim across. The rest of the Blackfeet saw one of
their number swimming across the river, and they said to each other: "Who
is that? Why did not some one stop him?" While he was swimming across, the
man who had been making the speech saw him and went down to meet him. He
said: "Who can this man be, swimming across the river? He is a stranger. I
will go down and meet him, and kill him." As the boy was getting close to
the shore, the man waded out in the stream up to his waist, and raised his
knife to stab the swimmer. When Api-k[)u]nni got near him, he dived under
the water and came up close to the man, and thrust the beaver stick through
his body, and the man fell down in the water and died. Api-k[)u]nni caught
the body, and dived under the water with it, and came up on the other side
where he had left his friend. Then all the Blackfeet set up the war whoop,
for they were glad, and they could hear a great crying in the camp. The
people there were sorry for the man who was killed.

People in those days never killed one another, and this was the first man
ever killed in war.

They dragged the man up on the bank, and Api-k[)u]nni said to his brother,
"Cut off those long hairs on the head." The young man did as he was
told. He scalped him and counted _coup_ on him; and from that time forth,
people, when they went to war, killed one another and scalped the dead
enemy, as this poor young man had done. Two others of the main party came
to the place, and counted _coup_ on the dead body, making four who had
counted _coup_. From there, the whole party turned about and went back to
the village whence they had come.

When they came in sight of the lodges, they sat down in a row facing the
camp. The man who had killed the enemy was sitting far in front of the
others. Behind him sat his friend, and behind Wolf Tail, sat the two who
had counted _coup_ on the body. So these four were strung out in front of
the others. The chief of the camp was told that some people were sitting on
a hill near by, and when he had gone out and looked, he said: "There is
some one sitting way in front. Let somebody go out and see about it." A
young man