ied for their country, yet he
was not unmindful that he had _screamed_, and this weakness would be
apt to recur to him many times in the future.

We had some quiet plays which we alternated with the more severe and
warlike ones. Among them were throwing wands and snow-arrows. In the
winter we coasted much. We had no "double-rippers" or toboggans, but
six or seven of the long ribs of a buffalo, fastened together at the
larger end, answered all practical purposes. Sometimes a strip of
bass-wood bark, four feet long and about six inches wide, was used with
considerable skill. We stood on one end and held the other, using the
slippery inside of the bark for the outside, and thus coasting down
long hills with remarkable speed.

The spinning of tops was one of the all-absorbing winter sports. We
made our tops heart-shaped of wood, horn or bone. We whipped them with
a long thong of buckskin. The handle was a stick about a foot long and
sometimes we whittled the stick to make it spoon-shaped at one end.

We played games with these tops--two to fifty boys at one time. Each
whips his top until it hums; then one takes the lead and the rest
follow in a sort of obstacle race. The top must spin all the way
through. There were bars of snow over which we must pilot our top in
the spoon end of our whip; then again we would toss it in the air on to
another open spot of ice or smooth snow-crust from twenty to fifty
paces away. The top that holds out the longest is the winner.

We loved to play in the water. When we had no ponies, we often had
swimming matches of our own, and sometimes made rafts with which we
crossed lakes and rivers. It was a common thing to "duck" a young or
timid boy or to carry him into deep water to struggle as best he might.

I remember a perilous ride with a companion on an unmanageable log,
when we were both less than seven years old. The older boys had put us
on this uncertain bark and pushed us out into the swift current of the
river. I cannot speak for my comrade in distress, but I can say now
that I would rather ride on a swift bronco any day than try to stay on
and steady a short log in a river. I never knew how we managed to
prevent a shipwreck on that voyage and to reach the shore.

We had many curious wild pets. There were young foxes, bears, wolves,
raccoons, fawns, buffalo calves and birds of all kinds, tamed by
various boys. My pets were different at different times, but I
particularly remember on