May 12, 1906. | 
BORE beAND STREAM. 
a oer oe 

upon a large buffalo chip. Long before, I had 
heard, his dream had commanded this, and ever 
since the pipe he smoked had never been laid 
on the ground. As in the lodges of other 
medicine men, no one was permitted to walk 
entirely around the fire, thus passing between 
it and the medicines, nor could any one remove 
fire from the lodge, for by so doing the power of 
his medicine might be broken. 
Ancient Sleeper mixed tobacco and I’herbe, 
chopping it fine, filled his pipe, passed it to me 
to light, and we smoked together by turns. 
When I received the pipe, I took it from him 
with one hand; when I passed it to him, he 
grasped the stem with both hands, palms down, 
spreading and crooking his fingers, seizing, 
pouncing upon it, in imitation of the way of a 
bear. Thus did all medicine pipe men; it was 
a sign of their order. We talked a little—about 
the weather; the game; the whereabouts of the 
people. The women set before us some food, 
and I ate of it as in duty bound. I had gone 
to the lodge with a purpose, and I began to 
edge around to it. I, told him I had at various 
times in various places killed mountain lions. 
“I see you have the skin of one there,’ I con- 
cluded. “Did you kill it. or was it a present?” 
“The Sun was good to me,” he replied. “I 
killed it. It was all ik-ut’-o-wap-i (very sun 
power; very—let us translate it—supernatural) 
that which occurred. : 
“IT was a man. I had a lodge of my own, my 
three women whom you see here. My body was 
strong. I was successful in everything. I was 
happy. And then all this changed. If I went 
to war, I got wounded. Ii I took horses, I lost 
them again; they died, or were stolen, or 
crippled themselves. Although I hunted hard, 
somehow I often failed to bring home meat. 
And then came the worst of all, sickness. Some 
bad ghost or evil thing got inside of me, and at 
times would grip my heart, so that the pain was 
terrible. When it did that, no matter where I 
was, what I was doing, the pain was so great 
that I became dizzy and staggered, and some- 
times I just fell over and died for a short time 
(fainted). I doctored; I had the medicine men 
pray for me, giving a horse here, a horse there. 
I did not get any better, and I became very 
poor. At last we had only enough horses with 
which to move camp. Parties would no longer 
allow me to go to war with them; they feared 
that I would die on their hands, or in some way 
bring misfortune. I heard of a man, a Gros 
Ventre, who had suffered with the same trouble. 
He had bought a medicine pipe of great power, 
and by its use he had got well. He would sell 
the pipe, I was told, but I could not buy it. I 
had no fifteen or twenty horses to give for it, 
‘not even one. I preferred to die rather than 
have my women go afoot. Neither had I rela- 
tives to help me, nor had my women any who 
could do so. Oh! I was very poor: Still, some- 
how I kept up courage, trying in every way to 
get well, and to provide for me and mine. At 
last my dying times became so frequent that I 
no longer went hunting nor anywhere, except 
when one of my women accompanied me. 
They would not let me go off by myself. 
“She there, my last woman, went with me one 
day on a hunt. We were camping at the time 
on the Pi-is-tun-is-i-sak-ta (Deep Creek) away 
up toward the headwaters, and we went on foot 
up into the pines of the Belt Mountains in 
search of anything that was meat. The camp 
had been in that locality for more than a 
moon and the game had moved away to further 
foothills, and high up on the mountain. We 
traveled far before we found much fresh sign. 
At last, away up high on the mountain side I 
saw a band of elk move across an opening and 
disappear in the timber which surrounded it. 
The wind was right and I followed them, my 
woman keeping close behind me. Down into a 
deep coulée they went, across the stream at 
the bottom of it, and up the other side. But 
when we came to the stream we stopped, for 
there in the trail, fresh on top of the hoof 
marks of the elk, were the footprints of a real 
bear, a very large one. He, too, was hunting, 
and he was before me on the trail of the elk. 
I gave it to him and turned back. I did not 
wish to meet him there among the thick pines. 
We came again to the opening and went into 
the timber in another direction, up toward the 
summit of the mountain. We found more fresh 
elk sign and followed it very cautiously step 
by step, looking, looking everywhere for sight 
of the animals. At last we came to the foot of 
a high cliff. Under it were broken rock, 
bushes, low pines. Right out where the sun shone 
on it full, lay an elk, a two-year-old bull, head 
bent around to its side, fast asleep. I had but 
my bow and arrows. To make a sure shot, I 
must get close either above or below it, for the 
animal lay lengthwise with the cliff, and I had 
approached it from behind. It were useless to 
shoot it in the haunches; I must send an arrow 
down through its back, or from below up into 
its side. I chose to go along the foot of the 
cliff, and shoot downward. Never did I step 
more carefully, more slowly. I had to get that 
elk, for we were without meat, had lived for 
some days on that given us by more successful 
hunters. My woman had stopped and sat down 
to give me more chance in the approach. I 
glanced back and saw her looking at me, at the 
elk, signing me to be cautious. I went even 
more carefully, if that were possible, and was 
at last in a good position to shoot. I drew 
back the bow and let go the string. I saw the 
arrow sink down into the elk, saw it struggle 
to rise, saw blood stream from its nostrils, and 
then the pain gripped my heart. I staggered 
and died. 
“I was a very long time dead, for when I 
came to life the sun had set and the last of his 
colors were fading behind him. I was lying in 
a sort of cave where my woman had carried 
me. I felt too weak to get up. She brought 
plenty of wood and made a little fire at the 
mouth of the cave. Then she brought water in 
a piece of the elk skin, and some meat. I drank, 
and she fed me, some roast liver, a marrow 
bone, a kidney, but I was not hungry; I could 
eat only a few mouthsful. Neither could she 
eat; we felt very sad; both knew that this time 
I had almost really died. She came and lay 
down beside me and smoothed my forehead, 
speaking words of courage, and after a little 
time I fell asleep. Then my shadow went forth 
from my worn body. I was free, as light as the 
bubble on the stream. I felt able to travel 
wherever I wished to, and to understand all 
things. Thus, as if I had been led, or shown 
the way, I came to a fine, new, big lodge stand- 
ing all by itself at the edge of a grove, in a deep, 
wide valley in which was a beautiful stream. 
Without hesitating, without bashfulness, I raised 
the door skin and entered the lodge. An old, 
old man was its owner, and he welcomed me, 
gave me a seat beside him, told his woman to 
prepare food. We smoked, and he asked many 
questions. I told him all, all the story of my 
life, how I now suffered. ‘Yes,’ he kept saying, 
and ‘Yes,’ and ‘Yes.’ ‘I know—I understand.’ 
“We ate that which the women set before us, 
and he again filled the pipe. ‘Listen,’ he said, as 
we smoked. ‘Listen. Once I suffered as you 
do, and, like you, I sought everywhere, in many 
ways for help, and at last it was given to me. 
I regained my health. My hair has turned white, 
my skin wrinkles, I am very, very old; yet 
still my body is strong and sound, and I provide 
myself the meat for this lodge. All this be- 
cause I found a powerful helper. I pity you. 
As I was told to do, I will now tell you; heed 
my words and follow the advice, and you, too, 
will live to great age. 
~  Birst,waswto. yOu sickness: “some ghost; 
perhaps that of an enemy you have killed, has 
in some way entered your body and set up an 
evil growth in your stomach. It must be re- 
moved, for it grows larger and larger, pressing 
against the heart, and unless it is checked, will 
soon press so hard that the heart cannot work: 
then death. You must kill a mountain lion, 
have the skin tanned, leaving the claws on the 
feet. You must take good care of this skin, and 
at nights hang it or place it near the head of 
your couch. So, when you lie down to sleep 
you will pray, saying, ‘Hai’-yu! maker of claws; 
Hai’-yu! maker of sharp, cutting claws, I pray 
you to aid me; claw away this thing which is 
threatening my life, and will surely kill me 
without your aid!’ Thus you must pray to the 
maker of claws, to the shadow of the ancient 
lion himself. Also, you must learn these songs— 
and he taught me three [here Ancient Person 
sang them, needless to say, with all the deep, 
sincere feeling that the devout express in their 
sacred songs]. ‘Also,’ he said, ‘that I must 
always lay my pipe on a buffalo chip, for the 
buffalo was a sacred animal, and that when I 
prayed, blowing smoke to the four directions 
of the world, to those above, and to our mother 
(earth) my prayers would have more power.’ 
“Tt must have been far away where I found 
that good, old man, for my shadow did not 
return to my body until after sunrise. I awoke 
and saw it shining into the cave. My woman 
had rebuilt the fire, was cooking. ‘Let that be 
for a time,’ I said, ‘and come and sit with me.’ 
I told her all; where I had been, what the kind, 
old man had said, and she was glad. Right there 
one-half of the arrows in my quiver, with the 
tongue of the elk I had killed, we hung up as 
a sacrifice, and then we went home, my woman 
carrying meat, as much as was possible for her 
to handle. I could carry but little. 
“T had a North gun (Hudson’s Bay Com- 
pany’s make), but no powder and no balls; the 
one flint was bad. From a friend I borrowed a 
trap and in a short time I caught six beavers 
with it. Another friend going in to Fort Ben- 
ton to trade took them with him and brought 
me what I needed, new flints and ammunition, 
and then I began to hunt mountain lions. I had 
never hunted mountain lions; neither had any 
of our people. Some one occasionally came 
across one and killed it, and he was thought to 
be a lucky man, for the skins of these animals 
