My grandfather’s was a large thirteen-skin tepee, pitched with fifteen poles. It sheltered twelve persons; my grandfather, Small Ankle, and his two wives, Red Blossom and Strikes-many-woman; his sons, Bear’s Tail and Wolf Chief, and their wives; my mother, Buffalo Bird Woman, daughter of Small Ankle, and Son-of-a-Star, her husband; Flies Low, a younger son of Small Ankle; and Red Kettle and Full Heart, mere boys, brothers of Flies Low.
Ascending the west bank of the Missouri, my tribe reached the mouth of the Yellowstone at their eleventh camp; here the Missouri narrows, offering a good place to cross. A long sand bar skirted the south shore; tents were pitched here about noon. There was not room on the narrow bar to pitch a camping circle, and the tepees stood in rows, like the houses of a village.
My grandfather pitched his tent near the place chosen for the crossing. The day was cold and windy; with flint and steel, my grandfather kindled a fire. Dry grass was laid around the wall of the tent and covered with robes, for beds. Small logs, laid along the edges of the beds, shielded them from sparks from the fire.
At evening the wind died; twilight crept over the sky, and the stars appeared. The new moon, narrow and bent like an Indian bow, shone white over the river, and the waves of the long mid-current sparkled silvery in the moonlight. Now and then with a swi-i-s-sh, a sheet of water, a tiny whirl-pool in its center, would come washing in to shore; while over all rose the roar, roar, roar of the great river, sweeping onward, the Indians knew not where.
At midnight a dog raised himself on his haunches, pointed his nose at the sky, and yelped. It was the signal for the midnight chorus; and in a moment every dog in camp had joined it, nose-in-air, howling mournfully at the moon. Far out on the prairie rose the wailing yip-yip-yip-ya-a-ah! of a coyote. The dogs grew silent again and curled up, to sleep.
And I came into the world.
Wrapped in a bit of robe, I was laid in my mother’s arms, her first born; she folded me to her breast.
The morning sky was growing gray when my father came home. He raised the tent door and entered, smiling.
“I heard my little son cry, as I came,” he said; “It was a lusty cry! I am very happy.”