re like an hour-hand. With every hour
they, and the "Guardians of the Pole," and all the Dipper stars move in
the same direction as the sun one and one-half the distance between the
stars forming the top of the Big Dipper's cup. The Scout with a good
memory and a good eye for distance can guess pretty nearly how time
passes.

He has another method, too. The circuit of the stars is not quite the
same as the circuit of the sun; for the stars swing about from
starting-place to starting-place in about four minutes less than
twenty-four hours, so that every month they gain 120 minutes, or two
hours. On May 1, at nine in the evening, the "Pointers" of the Big
Dipper are straight overhead, and point downward at the Pole Star, and
if we could see them twelve hours later, or at nine in the morning, we
should find them opposite, below the Pole Star, and pointing up at it.
On June 1, they would arrive overhead two hours earlier, or at seven in
the evening, and by nine o'clock would be west of overhead, while at
seven and nine in the morning they would be opposite, or halfway around.
On August 1 their halfway places would be at three in the afternoon and
three in the morning.

So, figuring each month, and knowing where the "Pointers" are at nine,
or at midnight, or at three in the morning, the Scout can read, for
several nights running without appreciable change, what time it is. And
on the plains the old trappers were accustomed to look up out of their
buffalo-robes and say, "By the Pointers it is midnight."

The Big Dipper swings on such a wide circle that sometimes it drops into
the hills or into mist. The Little Dipper stays high in the sky.
Therefore sailors choose the two brighter stars in the end of the cup of
the Little Dipper, and watch them, for an hour-hand.

The Blackfeet Indians call the Big Dipper the Seven Brothers, and they,
and also other plains people such as sheep-herders and cowboys, tell the
time by the "Last Brother," which is the star in the end of the handle.
"The Last Brother is pointing to the east," or "The Last Brother is
pointing downwards to the prairie," say the Indians. And by that they
mean the hour is so and so.

Note 42, page 109: The "Papoose on the old Squaw's Back" is a tiny star,
Alcor, very close to the star Mizar which forms the bend in the handle
of the Big Dipper. To see this tiny star is a test for eyesight. The
Sioux Indians say that the Big Dipper is four warriors carrying a
funer