May my children and relatives live to be old.’
“Another time I was ill; the doctors said I was going to die. A messenger carried this news to my son Cross Guns who was camped on Badger Creek. It was midnight when he was told. He looked up to the sky and prayed:
“ ‘Moon and Stars! Have pity on my mother.
May she live!
If she recovers from this night,
I promise you she will give the Sun Dance.’
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“Cross Guns generally prayed to the Sun. But that night he prayed to the Moon and Stars, because they were in the sky. Next day he came to my tepee and made known his vow.
“We began our preparations in the early spring, before the snow was gone. We gathered tongues for the food and purchased a sacred headdress. I fasted and prayed day and night. On our way to the circle camp I had three travois, for the sacred tongues and my clothes.”
Then the old woman changed from the subject of the Sun Dance and began to tell about her first experience with a Medicine Pipe. She said: