After they had gone some distance, they stopped. Sun Dog said: “Soon we will have to part, but first I must tell you what the Sun has commanded you to do. If there are any sick or dying among your people, in order to make them well you must build the Medicine Lodge. First you must get one hundred buffalo tongues. Select four pure women of your tribe to help. Let one woman make the medicine, another cut thin and dry the tongues, and the other two boil the tongues. Go into the tall brush and clear a place for the Medicine Lodge. When everything is ready, call the people together to take part in the dance. Let each take a piece of the tongue, and let all say together, ‘Great Sun, let us eat together, and grant to us that our people may recover.’ If the women you select to make the medicine and to cut and boil the tongue are pure women, the sick and the dying [[124]]among your people will recover; if not, they will die.
“Now, my brother,” continued Sun Dog, “you have heard the commands of the Sun. You will soon find yourself on the butte you came from. We must now part.” They shook hands. Sun Dog said, “Shut your eyes.” Scarface shut his eyes, and when he opened them he found himself sitting at the foot of the butte from which he came. The circular camp lay before him.
He went to his grandmother’s lodge, but no one recognized in the handsome young man the one who had left them so poor and ugly. All gathered about him to listen to his wonderful story. He told them of the commands of the Sun, and a short time after made the Medicine Lodge as the Sun had commanded. This was the first Medicine Lodge.
Scarface became a great chief and all listened to his wise words. The beautiful girl came to him and said, “You are very handsome now, and a great chief, and I will marry you.” But he sent her away. He married good women and lived a long time. When he died Sun Dog took him back to the Sun, where he lives forever. [[125]]
Thunder Maker and Cold Maker
[[127]]
In ancient times, before horses had come from the south and been taught to bear burdens, the people did not move camp often, but remained in one place so long as sufficient game could be found to furnish food. They shrank from taking down their lodges and travelling over the prairie to fresh hunting-grounds, for their dogs could not pack everything, and they themselves were forced to carry heavy loads on their backs. One season they had hunted on a little stream in the foot-hills since early spring. The summer passed, the leaves began to fall, and with the approach of winter the great herds of buffalo slowly grazed out on the plains, and finally disappeared to the eastward. Hardy and warmly furred as they were they feared the deep snow and the cold of the mountain country. [[128]]
When the last of the buffalo had gone, a great hunter named Low Wolf thought that it was also time for him to move. He said to the chiefs: “Come, now, the buffalo have gone; they are our food; let us too move away from the mountains and follow them.”
But the chiefs said they would not break camp for a while. “Snow will not fall for one or two moons,” they said, “and there are still plenty of elk, deer, moose, and other small game close by. Do not be impatient. Let us wait.”