THE WARRIOR AND THE BLACK LIGHTNING ARROW. 85 
cainp somewhere upon the Platte River. Then the leader was told by 
his scouts that there were some buffalo at a short distance from them. 
The leader, instead of sending others to kill the buffalo, said, ‘‘I will go 
and shoot, and if I kill the buffalo you people must come and skin and 
cut the meat.’’ He took the arrow from his neck and placed it in 
another man’shands. Ashe went he thought of hisarrow. The buffalo 
were west, so that the young man looked towards the west always as he 
went to kill the buffalo. As he raised up to aim at a buffalo he sawa 
dark cloud coming from the west. He shot at the buffalo, threw down 
his bow, and ran to the place where the other warriors were, and when 
the warriors saw him coming they were frightened. They thought that 
he had seen enemies, but when he called for the arrow they knew that 
something was wrong. As soon as he took the arrow he told the people 
to get on top of him and to try to help him to keep the arrow. The people 
drew around him and climbed on top of him as the dark cloud came 
rapidly from the west. The lightning struck all around where the 
people were, and there was a great noise of wind coming through the air 
like the flapping of many large wings. The man with the arrow at the 
- bottom of the crowd called to the others: ‘‘Press down hard on me; 
the arrow is slipping from me.’’ The people began to pile closer on top of 
him, but somehow they rolled off, and as they rolled they pulled the man 
with the arrow over, and the arrow slipped through his hands. It went 
back into the clouds and became a part of Lightning again. 
The young man cried and mourned on account of the loss of the arrow. 
He stood for many days and at last he went to sleep. The same man 
whom he had seen in his dream before, he saw in his dream again. This 
man said: ‘‘I intended to make you a great warrior. I did not make 
you promise me, but you made the promise yourself, and said that the 
arrow should always be present with you. You broke your promise. 
The gods have taken the arrow back, but they will make you a great 
watrior anyway; but you will never become a chief. Go. Your party 
shall be successful. You shall capture many ponies.’”’ When the young 
man awoke he told the people that they were to continue on the war- 
path. They went, and in a few days they found a village of enemies 
and there they captured many ponies. After the young man lost his 
arrow he went upon the war-path only when the strange being appeared 
to him in a dream and told him that he would be successful. If the 
being told him that a party would not be successful, he would always 
tell the men and persuade them not to go. He became a great warrior, 
but not as great as he would have been if he had kept the arrow. He 
was never made chief. 
