Apparently the medicine man had completed his story, but he didn’t make the sign of dismissal. Bent Arrow waited.
“I have had a medicine dream about you,” Clawing Bear resumed. “Not all of it was clear. However, there will be trouble with the Sioux. You and Flying Arrow will be in great danger. There was something about an eagle or an eagle feather, it wasn’t clear which. Yet I saw you running swiftly. I saw that your leg was well.”
Bent Arrow’s face glowed. He hardly heard the words about danger. The medicine man’s dream meant that he would be well. Already he could see himself winning a great race and earning a new name much better than Bent Arrow.
“How are you doing with your swimming lessons?” Clawing Bear interrupted his thoughts.
Bent Arrow shivered at the memory of the morning’s icy dip. There hadn’t actually been ice on the water, but there had been frost on the grass along the path to the river. Crow boys were required to swim every day until the ice on the river was too thick to be broken.
“I swim well,” Bent Arrow explained, “but my diving isn’t very good. The other boys ducked me again this morning.”
Clawing Bear nodded understandingly.
“Keep practicing,” he advised. “It won’t be long until you dive well enough so that the boys will have no excuse to duck you.”
“I don’t know why it is so hard for me to learn to do things,” Bent Arrow said, with a touch of complaint in his voice. “My uncle does everything well.”
“Your uncle learned the same way you are learning,” Clawing Bear answered sharply. “Every Crow is expected to do his best. See that you are a good Crow.”