PAWNEE
Hero Stories and Folk-Tales

WITH NOTES ON
THE ORIGIN, CUSTOMS AND CHARACTER OF
THE PAWNEE PEOPLE

BY

GEORGE BIRD GRINNELL

New York
Forest and Stream Publishing Company
1889

Copyright, 1889, by
George Bird Grinnell.

SIGNAL—“WHO ARE YOU?” ANSWER—“PA´-NI.”

TO THE MEMORY OF
MAJOR FRANK NORTH
—Pa´-ni Le-shar—
This Record of His People is Inscribed.

NOTE.

Last spring I visited the Pawnee Agency in the Indian Territory. On the day after my arrival, I rode over to the house of Eagle Chief, whom, under his warrior name, White Eagle, I had known for many years. Entering the door, I found myself in the presence of the Chief, who, after quickly putting his hand over his mouth in his astonishment, greeted me with a cordial deep-voiced Lau. Then we sat down and filled the pipe and talked. Through all our talk I could see that he was curious to know the object of my visit. At last he said, “My son I am glad that you have come to us once more. My mind is big when I look at you and talk to you. It is good that you are here. Why have you come again to the Pawnee village? What brings you here at this time?”

I answered, “Father, we have come down here to visit the people and to talk to them; to ask them about how things used to be in the olden times, to hear their stories, to get their history, and then to put all these things down in a book, so that in the years to come, after the tribe have all become like white people, the old things of the Pawnees shall not be forgotten.”

The Chief meditated for a while and then said, “It is good and it is time. Already the old things are being lost, and those who knew the secrets are many of them dead. If we had known how to write, we would have put all these things down, and they would not have been forgotten, but we could not write, and these stories were handed down from one to another. The old men told their grandchildren, and they told their grandchildren, and so the secrets and the stories and the doings of long ago have been handed down. It may be that they have changed as they passed from father to son, and it is well that they should be put down, so that our children, when they are like the white people, can know what were their fathers’ ways.”

Most of the material contained in this little book was collected on that visit.

CONTENTS.

THE PAWNEES AND THEIR STORIES.

ONCE the Pawnees were a great people. They were very numerous. They were undisputed masters of a vast territory. They had everything that heart could wish. Their corn and their buffalo gave them food, clothing and shelter; they had weapons for war and for the chase. They roamed over the country without let or hindrance. In peace they were light-hearted and contented; in war cunning, fierce and successful. Their name was a terror to their enemies. This was in the past. Now they are few in number, poor, a prey to disease, a vanishing race.

My acquaintance with the tribe began in 1870. From that time to the present I have had frequent intercourse with them; have lived in their villages; and been with them on their buffalo hunts. During the weeks and months spent in camp and village, I have listened to many stories of Pawnee heroes and to folk-tales of the miraculous doings of the olden time. In my intercourse with the tribe, extending over a period of nearly twenty years, I have been deeply impressed by the high qualities of the Pawnee character; and the more familiar I have become with this people, the more strongly have I felt that a permanent record should be made of the tales which reflect that character. Unless thus collected now, much of this lore must inevitably be forgotten.

For the Pawnees are passing away. When I first joined them on their buffalo hunts from their old home on the Loup Fork in Nebraska, the tribe numbered three thousand; last March in the Indian Territory I found but eight hundred. And more rapidly than the dwindling of the people are their traditions lapsing from memory under the changed conditions of the tribe’s life. The lore, which sprang up as an indigenous growth of the wide-stretching prairie and the wilderness where the wild Pawnee warrior hunted free, finds scanty nurture in the uncongenial soil of fields tilled by Pawnee followers of the plow. With the new modes of living come new views of life, new motives, new sympathies—in a word, civilization. To earn a living by toil, to wrest subsistence from the earth, this is the problem confronting the Pawnees to-day, the task which is engaging the sinew and purpose of the tribe. In the transition stage, the memory of the old days, of old manners and rites and ceremonies and of old heroes, is with the elders of the race, those ancient braves whose lives bridge the past and the present. When I visited the Agency last March, it was to write down from the lips of these old men such material as I could collect. When they shall die much of the unwritten lore will perish too, for with them will cease that sympathetic and perfect credence, which alone gives to folk-lore vitality and lastingness. What is written in this volume then belongs distinctly to the wild Indian.

The task that I have set for myself is that of a recorder. No attempt has been made to give a literary color to the hero stories and folk-tales here written out. I have scrupulously avoided putting into them anything of my own. The stories are told to the reader as they were told to me. They are not elaborated. I have tried to show how Indians think and speak, rather than to make their stories more entertaining by dressing them up to suit the civilized taste. My object in giving these narratives in their present shape is to make a book which shall be true to life, and shall faithfully reflect the Pawnee character, as the story tellers have themselves painted it. In a very few cases I have added some words explaining matters so well understood by those familiar with the Indians as to need no explanation. If these tales have any ethnological value, it will be enhanced by their being given in the precise form in which they were told by those to whom they have been handed down from generation to generation; but quite apart from this is another point which is entitled to consideration.

The entire ignorance concerning Indians, which prevails among the general public, can be dispelled only by letting that public understand something of the ways of life of the wild Indian, something of the subjects about which he thinks and talks, as well as of how he looks at these subjects, and what he has to say about them.

The late Mrs. Jackson’s charming story, “Ramona,” did much to bring the more intelligent class of readers in touch with the Indians, and to awaken sympathy for them by pointing out the unnumbered wrongs perpetrated on this race by the Government. Mrs. Jackson’s book was a story, a novel; wonderfully well told and full of truth and feeling; but while it may have been a relation of facts, it did not profess to treat of actual persons. It is looked upon by many readers as a mere romance. It is a book about which I was once asked, skeptically, “Did you ever see any Indians like those?” In the Pawnee stories here set down there is no romance nor coloring. The Indians themselves are talking, and whatever the faults and weak points of these tales—and some of them are sufficiently obvious—they at least give the reader a true conception of Indians as they have actually lived. They are stories of Indians by Indians. There is about them nothing of the white man; and the intelligent person, who is sufficiently interested in the subject to read this book through, will gain from it a new insight into Indian character.

The Indian of Cooper—with his bravery, his endurance, his acuteness, his high qualities of honesty, generosity, courtesy and hospitality—has been laughed at for half a century. Yet every man who has mingled much with the Indians in their homes has known individuals who might have sat for the portraits which Cooper drew of some of his aboriginal heroes. There are good men among Indians, just as among the whites. The prevalent notion of the Indian has been formed from the worst class of this people, the lazy, filthy beggars who haunt the settlements of the West, who to their own vices have added new ones picked up from their surroundings, and who are hopelessly degraded. These are not typical Indians, and it is unjust to judge a whole race from such degenerate specimens. There is still another notion of the Indian fondly cherished by many worthy people, whose sympathies have been wrought upon by the cruelty and injustice with which we have treated this race. These good people look upon all Indians as simple children of nature, who would do no wrong if they had not been contaminated by contact with vicious whites. It is unnecessary to say that this notion of the Indian is also incorrect.

The Indian is neither a fiend nor a saint. There are good ones and bad ones. As a rule, perhaps they try to act up to their ideas of what is right, but the standard of a race of barbarians cannot be the same as that of a civilized people, and in judging of their character we must make allowances for this difference. The standard of right and wrong among civilized people is a growth, the product of the experience of thousands of years. The Indian races have not been through a like experience. They have regarded as virtues some things which seem to us the worst of crimes. The Indian differs from the white man in education and manner of life, and so, of course, in his modes of thought. He has not been taught the lesson of self-control, which his surroundings oblige each civilized man to begin to learn as a child. He has known until recent times no law save that of strength. He has been taught that war is the noblest of pursuits—the only one worthy of man. And that war has consisted in making forays upon his enemies, taking their possessions, and, if possible, their lives and their scalps. His warfare consisted in surprises rather than open combat. A scalp taken was a trophy of victory, and the scalp of a woman was almost as eagerly sought as that of a brave or of a chief. It was an evidence of injury inflicted on the enemy. To steal horses from the enemy was an achievement creditable and also profitable.

We commonly speak of the raids of war parties as horse stealing expeditions, but this is wholly misleading, because to the civilized understanding the phrase horse stealing carries with it an idea of dishonesty. No such meaning attaches to the Indian equivalent of this phrase. They take horses by stratagem or secretly, by the usual, and to them legitimate, methods of warfare. To speak of their stealing horses, using that verb in the sense which we commonly give it, would be like saying that an army stole the cannon which it captured in an engagement with the enemy. Captured horses were the legitimate spoils of war. The wealth of the Indians was in their horses. They had no fortified places, no ships of war, no cannon, no works of art. Their only valuable possessions were their horses. These were the only property that could be carried off. Therefore, when an expedition was made against a hostile tribe, scalps and horses were naturally its object. Horses, being their only valuable possessions, constituted their medium of exchange, so far as they had any. Did a man wish to purchase an ornament, or an article of dress which took his fancy, he gave a horse for it. If he bought a wife he paid for her in horses. The most valuable present that could be made was a good horse; and horses were often given by the well-to-do to their friends and relations who had been sick or unfortunate. On the other hand, when, as was sometimes the case, a conquered tribe was condemned to pay a war indemnity, they paid it in horses. It is related that when the Skidi broke their treaty with the other bands, and were afterward conquered by them, they were obliged to pay such a fine.

This view of Indian warfare being understood, the motive of the hero stories here given, and of many of the folk-tales, becomes plain.

The Pawnees are essentially a religious people. They worship Ti-ra´-wa, who is in and of everything. Unlike many of the Indian tribes of the West, they do not adore any material thing. They regard certain places as sacred, but these are so only because blessed by the Divine presence. The Pawnee Deity is not personified. He is intangible, quite as much so as the God of the Christians. The sacred character of Ti-ra´-wa extends to animal nature. The fishes which swim in the rivers, the birds of the air and the beasts which roam over the prairie, have sometimes intelligence, knowledge and power far beyond those of man. But they are not gods. Their miraculous attributes are given them by the Ruler, whose servants they are, and who often makes them the medium of his communications to man. They are his messengers—his angels—and their powers are always used for good. Prayers are made to them; sometimes for direct help in time of need, but more often for intercession. Often in the folk-tales it will be seen that when the blessing asked for is some small thing, a prayer is made to the animals (Nahu´rac), but if the petitioners are asking for some great thing, something which is very difficult to grant, then the prayer is made to “One Above,” to “The Ruler,” that is, to the Supreme Being.

Nothing of importance was ever undertaken without a prayer for help, for success. All the serious undertakings of the year, whose success would affect the general welfare, were preceded by religious ceremonies, when all the tribe took part, and prayers were made and sacrifices offered to Ti-ra´-wa; and in all lesser enterprises, the individuals who were interested humbled themselves and implored the Divine assistance. A party starting off on the warpath prayed for success and made a burnt offering. Prayer and sacrifice always marked the beginning of the feast, and often its end. Success in their undertakings was acknowledged by grateful offerings to the Ruler. The victorious warrior sometimes sacrificed the scalp torn from the head of his enemy, and this was burned with elaborate ceremonies by the High Priest. He who brought back from a foray many horses, gave one to the priest as a thank-offering to the Ruler. One of the well-known Seven Brothers said to me, “It is our aim, after we have been helped, to give thanks.”

The feeling of these Indians toward their God is one of humility and reverence. They do not love him, but they look to him for help at all times. The young are exhorted to humble themselves before him, to pray to him, to look to One Above, to ask help from the Ruler. In the stories which are included in this book the allusions constantly made to Ti-ra´-wa—the Supreme Power—the prayers offered and the humility and self-abnegation so often expressed, show faith, profound religious feelings, and great elevation of thought.

Among tribal names of North American Indians, none is more familiar to us than Pawnee; yet of no tribe is less known. Frequent allusions to them occur in the writings of early travelers in the West; but only one satisfactory attempt has been made to write a connected history of this family. In the Magazine of American History for 1880 Mr. John B. Dunbar published a most interesting account of this tribe, but his sketch is mainly historical, and does not profess to treat exhaustively of the lives and modes of thought of this people. It is, however, a history of very great importance and value, and in preparing the historical matter which is included in this volume, I have not hesitated to draw on Mr. Dunbar’s papers, which must form the basis of any subsequent account of the Pawnees, and which should be read by all who are interested in this people.

I owe much of my interest in and knowledge of the Pawnees to my long intimacy with the late Major Frank North, who from his extended intercourse and close connection with this people—a connection which lasted more than thirty years—was unquestionably better informed about them than any other white man has ever been; and with Capt. L. H. North, his brother, who was for many years associated with Major North in command of the Pawnee Scouts.

In gathering the material here presented I have been assisted also by James R. Murie, a nephew of Comanche Chief; by Ralph J. Weeks, a half-brother of Lone Chief; by Harry Kuhns, by Eagle Chief and Bear Chief, Skidis; by Good Chief and Curly Chief, Kit-ke-hahk´-is; by Secret Pipe Chief and Frank White, Chau-is, and by many others of my Pawnee friends, to all of whom my acknowledgments are due.

In the pronunciation of the few Pawnee words used in these stories, the vowel sounds, as nearly as I can give them, are as follows: a as in father, e as the a in ale, i as e in cede, ū long as oo in pool, ŭ short as in us, au as ou in house. These sounds depend somewhat on the letters which follow the vowels, and the spelling does not always conform to the rule laid down. The last two syllables in the word Pita-hau-erat, for example, are pronounced ērăt or idot. The sounds of d, l, n and r are difficult to express by English letters; r sometimes has its own sound quite distinctly, at others more the sound of d; n often has a d sound, and l a sound of n. It will be noted that throughout this volume I have used the familiar English word Pawnee instead of the evidently more correct Pa´-ni.

Finally I have refrained from commenting on the stories, though there is abundant opportunity for comment.

G. B. G.

July, 1889.

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Hero Stories.

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COMANCHE CHIEF.

The Peace-Maker.

I.

MANY years ago there lived in the Ski´-di village a young man, about sixteen years old. His name was Kut-a´wi-kutz (the hawk). At this time the Pawnees wore their hair in the ancient fashion, cut as the Osages wear theirs; the whole head was shaved except a roach running back from the forehead beyond the scalp lock.

A war party went off to the south and he joined them as a servant. They went a long way and a long way, traveling far, but they got no horses and came back. Afterward another party started off on the warpath, and he went with it. They traveled many days, going to the southwest, and at length they came to a camp, and hid themselves to wait until it was dark. It was a camp of the Comanches.

When night had come they all went into the camp to steal horses. This young man went to a lodge near which stood three horses, two spotted horses and one gray. They were tied near the door of the lodge, and from this he thought they must be fast, for the Indians usually tie up their best horses close to the lodge door, where they will be under their eyes as much as possible. He went to the lodge to cut the ropes, and just as he was about to do so he thought he heard some one inside. He stepped up close to the lodge, and looked in through a little opening between the door and the lodge, and saw a small fire burning, and on the other side of the fire was sitting a young girl, combing her long hair. The young man looked around the lodge to see who else was there, and saw only an old man and an old woman, and the fire-maker. He cut the ropes of the two spotted horses standing outside, led the horses out of the camp, and met his companion. To him he said, “Now, brother, you take these horses and go to the hill where we were hiding to-day, and wait for me there. I have seen another fine spotted horse that I want to get; I will go back for it and will meet you before morning at that place.”

He went back, as if to get the spotted horse, but returned to the lodge where the girl was. He went all around it, and looked at it carefully. He saw that there were feathers on the lodge, and rows of animals hoofs hanging down the sides, which rattled in the wind, and to one of the lodge-poles was tied a buffalo tail, which hung down. Then he went back to the door and looked in at the girl again. She had braided her hair and was sitting there by the fire. He stayed there a long time that night looking at her. Toward morning he went to look for his companion. When he met him he told him that some one had taken the spotted horse before he got to it; he could not find it. When the party all met next morning, they found that they had taken a lot of horses, and they started north to go home. They reached the Pawnee village, and every one was glad of their success.

After this, whenever this young man saw anything that was nice or pretty, such as medals, ear-rings, finger rings for women, beadwork leggings, bracelets, necklaces, wampum, beads—things that the Comanches did not have—he would give a pony for it. For one year he went on like this, gathering together these pretty things. When the year had gone by he had no horses left; he had given them all away to get these presents. He packed all these things up in a bundle, and then spoke one night to his friend, saying, “I intend to go off on the warpath again, and I would like to have you go with me; we two will go alone.” His friend agreed to go.

II.

Before the time came to start, other young men heard of it, and several joined them. There were eight of them in all. Kut-a´wi-kutz was the leader. He told his young men that they were going to a certain place where he knew there were lots of spotted horses to steal. They started out on foot. After traveling many days, they came to the place where the camp had been at the time he saw the girl. There was now no camp there.

They went on further, and at length came to a camp and hid themselves. When night came the leader told his men to remain where they were hiding, and he would go into the camp and see if there were any horses to take. He went through all the camp looking for the lodge in which he had seen the girl, but he did not find it. Then he went back to where the young men were hiding, and told them that this was not the camp they were looking for; that they did not have here the spotted horses that they wanted. In the camp of the year before there had been many spotted horses.

The young men did not understand this, and some of them did not like to leave this camp without taking any horses, but he was the leader and they did as he said. They left that camp and went on further.

After traveling some days they came to another camp, and hid themselves near it. When night came on Kut-a´wi-kutz said to his young men, “You stay here where you are hiding, and I will go into this camp and see if it is the one we are looking for.” He went through the camp but did not find the lodge he sought. He returned to the hiding place, and told the party there that this was not the camp they were looking for, that the spotted horses were not there. They left the camp and went on.

When they had come close to the mountains they saw another camp. Kut-a´wi-kutz went into this camp alone, and when he had been through it, he went back to his party and told them that this was the camp they had been looking for. Then he sent the young men into the camp to steal horses, and he put on his fine leggings and moccasins that he had in his bundle, and painted himself and went with them. He took a horse and his friend took one. They met outside the village. He told his friend to get on his own horse and lead the other, and with the rest of the party to go off east from the camp to a certain place, and there to wait for him. “I have seen,” he said, “another fine horse that I like, and I wish to go back and get it.”

His friend looked sorrowfully at him and said, “Why are you all dressed up like this, and why is your face painted? What are you doing or what is in your mind? Perhaps you intend to do some great thing to-night that you do not want me, your friend, to know about. I have seen for a long time that you are hiding something from me.”

Kut-a´wi-kutz caught his friend in his arms and hugged him and kissed him and said, “You are my friend; who is so near to me as you are? Go on as I have said, and if it turns out well I will tell you all. I will catch up with you before very long.”

His friend said, “No, I will stay with you. I will not go on. I love you as a brother, and I will stay with you, and if you are going to do some great thing I will die with you.”

When Kut-a´wi-kutz found that his friend was resolved to remain with him, he yielded and told him his secret. He said to him, “My brother, when we were on the warpath a year ago, and I took those two spotted horses, I heard a little noise in the lodge by which they were tied. I looked in and I saw there a girl sitting by the fire combing her hair. She was very pretty. When I took the spotted horses away, I could not put that girl out of my mind. I remembered her. Brother, when we went back home that girl was constantly in my mind. I could not forget her. I came this time on purpose to get her, even if it shall cost me my life. She is in this camp, and I have found the lodge where she lives.”

His friend said, “My brother, whatever you say shall be done. I stay with you. You go into the camp. I will take the horses and go to that high rocky hill east of the camp, and will hide the horses there. When you are in the village I will be up in one of the trees on the top of the hill, looking down on the camp. If I hear shooting and see lots of people running to the lodge I will know that you are killed, and I will kill myself. I will not go home alone. If I do not see you by noon, I will kill myself.”

Kut-a´wi-kutz said, “It is good. If I am successful I will go up there after you, and take you down into the camp.”

They parted. The friend hid the horses and went up on the hill. Kut-a´wi-kutz went into the camp.

III.

It was now the middle of the night. When he came to the lodge, he saw there was a fire in it. He did not go in at once; he wanted the fire to go out. He stayed around the lodge, and gradually the fire died down. It was dark. He went into the lodge. He was painted and finely dressed, and had his bundle with him. He took his moccasins off and his leggings, and hung them up over the girl’s bed; then strings of beads, then five or six medals, bracelets, ear-bobs, beaded leggings, everything he had—his shirt. He took his blanket, and spread it over the bed where the girl was lying, stepped over the bed, and crept under his own blanket, and lay down by her side.

When he lay down she woke up, and found that there was some one lying by her, and she spoke to him, but he did not answer. He could not understand her, for he did not know Comanche. She talked for a long time, but he did not speak. Then she began to feel of him, and when she put her hands on his head—Pi-ta´-da—Pawnee—an enemy! Then she raised herself up, took a handful of grass from under the bed, spread the fire and put the grass on it. The fire blazed up and she saw him. Then she sprang up and took the top blanket, which was his, off the bed, and put it about her, and sat by the fire. She called her father and said, “Father get up; there is a man here.”

The old man got up, and got his pipe and began smoking. This old man was the Head Chief of the Comanches. He called the servant, and told him to make a fire. The girl got up and went over to where her mother was lying and called her. The mother got up; and they all sat by the fire.

The old man smoked for a long time. Every now and then he would look at the bed to see who it could be that was lying there, and then he would look at all the things hanging up over the bed—at the medals and other things. He did not know what they were for, and he wondered. At length the old man told the servant to go and call the chiefs of the tribe, and tell them to come to his lodge.

Presently the chiefs came in one by one and sat down. When they had come there was still one brave who ought to have come that was not there. His name was Skin Shirt; the father wanted him. He sent for him three times. He sent word back to the chief to go on with the council, and that he would agree to whatever they decided. The fourth time he was sent for he came, and took a seat by the chief, the girl’s father. This brave spoke to Kut-a´wi-kutz, and told him to get up, and take a seat among them. He did so. The girl was sitting on the other side of the fire. When he got up, he had to take the blanket that was left, which was the girl’s. He put it around him, and sat down among them.

When the chiefs came in, there was among them a Pawnee who had been captured long ago and adopted by the Comanches, and was now himself a chief; he talked with Kut-a´wi-kutz and interpreted for him, telling him everything that was said as each one spoke.

After the young man had seated himself, the chief filled his pipe, and gave the pipe to his brave to decide what should be done with this enemy. The brave took the pipe, but he did not wish to decide, so he did not light it, but passed it on to another chief to decide. He passed it on to another, and he to another, and so it went until the pipe came back to the Head Chief. When he got it again, he asked Kut-a´wi-kutz, “Why have you come here this night and lain down in my lodge, you who are an enemy to my people? And why have you hung up in the lodge all these strange things which we see here? I do not understand it, and I wish to know your reasons.”

The boy said to him, “A long time ago I came south on the warpath to steal horses. I traveled until I came to your camp. I saw three horses tied outside a lodge, two spotted horses and a gray. While I was cutting one of the ropes, I heard a little noise inside the lodge, and pushing aside the door I looked in, and saw that girl combing her hair. I stole the two spotted horses, and took them out of the camp, and gave them to a friend of mine, and came back to your lodge, and kept looking at the girl. I stayed there until she went to bed. For a long year I have been buying presents; beads and many other things, for I had made up my mind that I would go after this girl. I came down here to find her. I have been to where you were camped last year, and to two other camps that I discovered. She was not in these and I left them, and came on until I found the right camp. This is the fourth place. Now I am here. I made up my mind to do this thing, and if her relations do not like it they can do as they please. I would be happy to die on her account.”

When he had spoken the old chief laughed. He said: “Those two spotted horses that you stole I did not care much about. The gray horse was the best one of the three, and you left him. I was glad that you did not take him. He was the best of all.” Then for a little while there was silence in the lodge.

Then the chief, the girl’s father, began to talk again; he said, “If I wanted to decide what should be done with this man, I would decide right now, but here is my brave, Skin Shirt, I want him to decide. If I were to decide, it would be against this man, but he has my daughter’s blanket on, and she has his, and I do not want to decide. I pass the pipe to my brave, and want him to light it.”

The brave said, “I want this chief next to me to decide,” and he passed him the pipe, and so it went on around the circle until it came to the Head Chief again. He was just about to take it and decide the question, when they heard outside the lodge the noise made by some one coming, shouting and laughing; then the door was pushed aside and an old man came in, and as he passed the door he stumbled and fell on his knees. It was the girl’s grandfather. He had been outside the lodge, listening.

The pipe was passed to the chief, and he gave it again to his brave to decide. While the brave was sitting there, holding the pipe, the old grandfather said, “Give me the pipe, if you men cannot decide, let me do it. In my time we did not do things this way. I never passed the pipe; I could always decide for myself.”

Then Skin Shirt passed him the pipe, and he lit it and smoked. Then he said, “I do not wish to condemn to death a man who is wearing my granddaughter’s blanket.” The interpreter began to tell Kut-a´wi-kutz that the old man was going to decide in his favor, and that when he got through speaking he must get up and pass his hands over him, and thank him for taking pity on him, and so to all the others. The old man continued, “Now, chiefs, do not think hardly of what I am going to say, nor be dissatisfied with my decision. I am old. I have heard in my time that there is a tribe up north that is raising from the ground something that is long and white, and something that is round; and that these things are good to eat. Now, chiefs, before I die, I want to eat of these things, and I want my granddaughter to go and take her seat by this man, and for them to be man and wife. Since I was young we have been enemies, but now I want the two tribes to come together, join hands and be friends.” And so it was decided.

The young man got up and passed his hands over the old man, and over the brave, and passed around the circle and blessed them all. The Pawnee, who was interpreter, now told him to get up, and get a medal and put it on the brave, and then another and put it on the chief, and so on until all the presents were gone. And he did so, and put on them the medals, and ear-rings, and strings of beads, and breast-plates of wampum, until each had something. And these things were new to them, and they felt proud to be wearing them, and thought how nice they looked.

IV.

By this time it was daylight, and it had got noised abroad through the camp that there was a Pawnee at the Head Chief’s lodge, and all the people gathered there. They called out, “Bring him out; we want him out here.” They crowded about the lodge, all the people, the old men and the women and the young men, so many that at last they pushed the lodge down. They shouted: “Let us have the Pawnee. Last night they stole many horses from us.” The chiefs and braves got around the Pawnee, and kept the Comanches off from him, and protected him from the people. The Cheyennes were camped close by, near the hill southeast of the Comanches, and they, too, had heard that the Comanches had a Pawnee in the camp. They came over, and rode about in the crowd to try and get the Pawnee, and they rode over a Comanche or two, and knocked them down. So Skin Shirt got his bow and arrows, and jumped on his horse, and rode out and drove the Cheyennes away back to their camp again.

The Cheyennes saw that the Comanches did not want the Pawnee killed, so they sent a message inviting him over to a feast with them, intending to kill him, but Skin Shirt told them that he was married into the tribe. While the Cheyennes were parading round the Comanche camp, they were shooting off their guns in the air, just to make a noise. Now, the young Pawnee on the hill, who was watching the camp to see what would happen to his friend, saw the crowd and heard the shooting, and made up his mind that Kut-a´wi-kutz had been killed. So he took his knife, and put the handle against a tree and the point against his breast, and put his arms around the tree and hugged it, and the knife blade passed through his heart and he fell down and died.

In the afternoon when all the excitement had quieted down, the Cheyennes came over again to the Comanche camp, and invited the Pawnee and his wife to go to their village, and visit with them. Then Skin Shirt said, “All right, we will go.” Three chiefs of the Comanches went ahead, the Pawnee followed with his wife, and Skin Shirt went behind. They went to the Cheyenne camp. The Cheyennes received them and made a great feast for them, and gave the Pawnee many horses. Then they went back to the Comanche camp. Kut-a´wi-kutz never went up to the hill until the next morning. Then he went, singing the song he had told his friend he would sing. He called to him, but there was no reply. He called again. It was all silent. He looked for his friend, and at last he found him there dead at the foot of the tree.

V.

Kut-a´wi-kutz then stayed with the Comanches. The Cheyennes came north and east, and the Comanches went on west, nearer to the mountains. While the Pawnee was with the Comanches, they had several wars with the Utes, Lipans and Tonkaways. Kut-a´wi-kutz proved himself a brave man, and, as the son-in-law of the chief, he soon gained great influence, and was himself made a chief.

After some years the old man, his wife’s grandfather, told the Pawnee that he thought it was time that he should eat some of those things that he had long wanted to eat that grew up north; that he was getting pretty old now. Kut-a´wi-kutz said, “It is time. We will go.” So he had his horses packed, and with his immediate family and the old man, started north toward the Pawnee country. At this time he was called Kut-a´wi-kutz-u si-ti´-da-rit, which means “See! The Hawk.” When going into battle he would ride straight out to strike his enemy, and the Comanches who were looking at him would say, “See! The Hawk.” So that became his name.

They traveled a long time until they came to the Pawnee ground. As they were traveling along, they came to a field where were growing corn, beans and squashes. The Pawnee said to the old man, “Grandfather, look at that field. There are the things that you have desired to eat.” He got off his horse and went into the field, and pulled some corn, some beans and some squashes, and took them to the old man, and gave them to him. The old man supposed they were to be eaten just as they were, and he tried to bite the squashes. This made the Pawnee laugh. When they came to the village, the Pawnees were very glad to see him who had been lost long ago. He told the people that he had brought these Indians to eat of the corn and other things; that they were his kinsfolk. He told them, too, about the young man who had killed himself. His relations went out into the fields, and gathered corn and beans and squashes, and cooked them for the Comanches.

They stayed there a long time at the Pawnee village. When they were getting ready to return, the Pawnees dried their corn, and gave a great deal of it to the Comanches, packing many horses with it for the Indians at home. Then the Comanches started south again, and some of the Pawnee young men, relations of Kut-a´wi-kutz, joined him, and went back with them. After they had returned to the Comanche camp, the old grandfather died, happy because he had eaten the things he wanted to eat.

Soon after this, Kut-a´wi-kutz started back to the Pawnee village, and some young men of the Comanches joined him. Some time after reaching the village he went south again, accompanied by some young Pawnees, but leaving most of the Comanches behind. He had arranged with the chiefs of the Pawnees that they should journey south, meet the Comanches on the plains and make peace. When he reached the Comanches, the whole village started north to visit the Pawnees, and met them on their way south. When they met, the two tribes made friends, smoked together, ate together, became friends.

After they had camped together for some time, some Comanches stayed in the Pawnee camp, and some Pawnees in the Comanche camp. Kut-a´wi-kutz was called by the Pawnees Comanche Chief. He would have remained with the Comanches, but when he went back with them his wife fell sick. The Comanche doctors could not help her, and he wanted to take her north to see the Pawnee doctors, but the Comanches would not let him. They kept him there, and his wife died. Then he was angry, for he thought if he had taken her north her life might have been saved.

So he left the Comanches, and went and lived with the Pawnees, and was known among them always as Comanche Chief, the Peace-Maker, because he made peace between the Pawnees and Comanches. He was chief of the Ski´-di band, and a progressive man of modern times. He sent his children East to school at Carlisle, Pa.

Comanche Chief died September 9th, 1888.

PAWNEE PIPE.

LONE CHIEF.

Skŭr´-ar-a Le-shar.

I.

LONE CHIEF was the son of the chief of the Kit-ke-hahk´-i band. His father died when the boy was very young, less than a year old. Until he was old enough to go to war, his mother had supported him by farming—raising corn, beans and pumpkins. She taught the boy many things, and advised him how to live and how to act so that he might be successful. She used to say to him, “You must trust always in Ti-ra´-wa. He made us, and through him we live. When you grow up, you must be a man. Be brave, and face whatever danger may meet you. Do not forget, when you look back to your young days, that I have raised you, and always supported you. You had no father to do it. Your father was a chief, but you must not think of that. Because he was a chief, it does not follow that you will be one. It is not the man who stays in the lodge that becomes great; it is the man who works, who sweats, who is always tired from going on the warpath.”

Much good advice his mother gave him. She said, “When you get to be a man, remember that it is his ambition that makes the man. If you go on the warpath, do not turn around when you have gone part way, but go on as far as you were going, and then come back. If I should live to see you become a man, I want you to become a great man. I want you to think about the hard times we have been through. Take pity on people who are poor, because we have been poor, and people have taken pity on us. If I live to see you a man, and to go off on the warpath, I would not cry if I were to hear that you had been killed in battle. That is what makes a man: to fight and to be brave. I should be sorry to see you die from sickness. If you are killed, I would rather have you die in the open air, so that the birds of the air will eat your flesh, and the wind will breathe on you and blow over your bones. It is better to be killed in the open air than to be smothered in the earth. Love your friend and never desert him. If you see him surrounded by the enemy, do not run away. Go to him, and if you cannot save him, be killed together, and let your bones lie side by side. Be killed on a hill; high up. Your grandfather said it is not manly to be killed in a hollow. It is not a man who is talking to you, advising you. Heed my words, even if I am a woman.”

The boy listened to these words, and he did not forget them.

II.

In the year 1867 he enlisted in the Pawnee Scouts under Major Frank North, and served in L. H. North’s company. He was always a good soldier, ready, willing and brave. At a fight near the Cheyenne Pass in 1867, he counted coup on a woman and a man, Arapahoes who had stolen some horses at Fort Laramie.

At this time the boy’s name was Wi-ti-ti le-shar´-uspi, Running Chief. After he came back from this scout, he went on a war party of which Left Hand was the leader, and they went to the Osage country. He was no longer a servant, but a scout, a leading man in the party, one of those who went ahead as spies. He had good judgment and understood his duties. When they came to the Osage country, he was selected as one of the leaders of a small branch party to steal horses. His party took thirty head of horses. In the Osage country the young men were not allowed to take all the horses they could. On account of the few fords where they could cross the streams, they could not take a big herd, but only what they could ride and lead, and at the same time go fast. Across one river there was only one rocky ford, and over another stream with deep banks there was only one rocky ford where they could cross. Because they did not know this, in former times many Pawnees had been caught and killed in the Osage country. So now they took but few horses at a time, because these rivers were very deep and no one could cross them except at these rock fords. Out of the horses taken at this time Running Chief obtained one of the best and fastest ever known among the Pawnees—a cream-colored horse, long famous in the tribe. For his skillful leadership of this party he was given much credit.

After returning home—the same year—he led a party to go off on the warpath to the Cheyennes. He found a camp on the headwaters of the North Canadian, and his party took seven horses, but these horses looked thin and rough, and he was not satisfied with them; he was ashamed to go home with only these. He told his party to take them home, but that he was going off by himself to get some better ones. He had with him a friend, with whom he had grown up, and whom he loved. This young man was like a brother to Running Chief. These two went off together, and went to the Osage camp, and staid about it for three nights, and then took five horses, the best in the camp. They took them back to the village. It was customary for the leading man in a party to make a sacrifice to Ti-ra´-wa. Running Chief did this, giving one horse to the chief priest. This sacrifice promoted him to be a warrior.

III.

The next year he led a party again to the Osage country. He took some horses and brought them home. This same year (1868) a party started south. He was not the leader, but he went with them. They went to the Wichita, Comanche and Kiowa villages—they were all camped together—stole some horses and started back with them. Before they had gone very far Running Chief stopped and said he was going back. His friend was with the party, and when he found that Running Chief had resolved to go back he said, “I will stop here with you.”

The two went back toward the village that they had just left, and climbed a hill that stood near it, and hid themselves there. They waited, watching, for they had not decided what they would do. The next day in the afternoon they began to get hungry, and they began to talk together. Running Chief said to his friend, “My brother, are you poor in your mind?[1] Do you feel like doing some great thing—something that is very dangerous?”

[1] Poor in mind; i. e., despondent, unhappy, miserable.

His friend answered at once, “Yes, I am poor. I am ready. Why do you ask me?”

Running Chief thought a little while before he answered, and as he thought, all the pain and suffering of his life seemed to rise up before him, so that he could see it. He remembered how he had been a poor boy, supported by his mother, and all that they two had suffered together while he was yet a child. He remembered how his sister had been killed when he was a boy only ten years old, and how he had mourned for her, when her husband, who was jealous of her, had shot her through the body with an arrow and killed her. She was the only sister he had, and he had loved her. He felt that he was poor now, and that there was no hope of anything better for him, and he did not want to live any longer. After he had thought of all these things he said to his friend, “My life is not worth anything to me;” and then he told him of his bad feelings. Finally he said, “Now you go off and leave me here alone. I am tired of living, but you go home. You have relations who would mourn for you. I do not want you to lose your life on my account.”

His friend answered him, “I will not go away from you. We have grown up together, and I will stick to you. Wherever you go I will go, and whatever you do I will do.”

Then Running Chief meditated for a long time. He had not made up his mind what to do. He thought to himself, “This, my friend, will stay with me. I do not want to be the cause of his death.” So he considered. Finally he said to his friend, “If I shall make up my mind to go to some place where there is great danger, I shall go.”

His friend said, “I will go with you.”

Running Chief thought again, and at last he said, “On account of my feelings I have decided to go into the camp of my enemies, and be eaten by their dogs.”

The other man said, “Whatever you have determined on I also will do.”

IV.

Then they jumped up out of the hole they were hiding in, and tied up their waists, and prepared to start. They were not very far from a trail which connected two villages, along which persons kept passing, and the Indians of these villages were all about them. When they jumped up to go toward the trail, they saw four or five persons passing at a little distance. When they saw these people, Running Chief called out to them, “High—eigh,” and made motions for them to come to him. He wanted to show his strong will, and that on account of his bad feelings he wished to have his troubles ended right there. He called to them twice, and each time the Indians stopped and looked at the Pawnees, and then went on. They did not know who it was that was calling them; perhaps they thought the Pawnees were two squaws.

The two young men went out to the trail and followed these persons toward the village. They went over a little hill, and as soon as they had come to the top and looked over it, they saw the village. On this side of it, and nearest to them were three lodges. At the foot of the hill was a river, which they must cross to come to these three lodges. When they came to the river, the friend asked; “Shall we take off our moccasins and leggings to cross?” Running Chief replied, “Why should I take off my moccasins and leggings when I know that my life is just going over a precipice? Let us go in as we are.” So they crossed with moccasins and leggings on. The river was only half-leg deep.

Just as they reached the further bank, all on a sudden, it came over Running Chief what they were doing—that they were going to certain death. All his courage seemed to leave him, and he felt as if he had no bones in his body. Then for a moment he faltered; but he could not give up now. He felt that if he was a man he must go forward; he could not turn back. He stopped for an instant; and his friend looked at him, and said, “Come, let us hurry on. We are near the lodges.” He stepped forward then, but his feet seemed to be heavy and to drag on the ground. He walked as if he were asleep.

There was no one about near at hand, and as they went forward Running Chief prayed with all his mind to Ti-ra´-wa that no one might come until they had reached the lodge, and had got inside. When they had got to within about one hundred yards of the lodge, a little boy came out, and began to play around the door, and when they were about fifty yards from him he saw them. As soon as he looked at them, he knew that they did not belong to the camp, and he gave a kind of a scream and darted into the lodge, but no one came out. The people within paid no attention to the boy. As they walked toward the lodges Running Chief seemed not to know where he was, but to be walking in a dream. He thought of nothing except his longing to get to this lodge.

They went to the largest of the three lodges. Running Chief raised the door and put his head in, and as he did so, it seemed as if his breath stopped. He went in and sat down far back in the lodge, opposite the entrance, and though his breath was stopped, his heart was beating like a drum. His friend had followed him in, and sat down beside him. Both had their bows in their hands, strung, and a sheaf of arrows.

When they entered the lodge, the man who was lying down at the back of the lodge uttered a loud exclamation, “Woof,” and then seemed struck dumb. A plate of corn mush had just been handed him, but he did not take it, and it sat there on the ground by him. One woman was just raising a buffalo horn spoon of mush to her mouth, but her hand stopped before reaching it, and she stared at them, holding the mush before her face. Another woman was ladling some mush into a plate, and she held the plate in one hand and the ladle above it, and looked at them without moving. They all seemed turned into stone.

As the two Pawnees sat there, Running Chief’s breath suddenly came back to him. Before it had all been dark about him, as if he had been asleep; but now the clouds had cleared away, and he could see the road ahead of him. Now he felt a man, and brave. As he looked around him, and saw the man lying motionless, and one woman just ready to take a mouthful, and the other woman with the ladle held over the dish, he perceived that they could not move, they were so astonished.

At length the Wichita had come to his senses. He drew a long breath, and sat up, and for a while looked at the two Pawnees. Then he made some sign to them which they did not understand, but they guessed that he was trying to ask who they were. Running Chief struck his breast, and said, “Pi-ta´-da” (Pawnee). As soon as the Wichita heard that he caught his breath, and heaved a long sigh. He did not know what to think of two Pawnees coming into his lodge. He could not think what it meant. He drew a long breath. He did not touch his plate of food, but motioned a woman to take it away. Presently he called to some one in the neighboring lodge. He was answered, and in a moment a man came in. He called again, and another entered, and the three looked for a long time at the two Pawnees. These were sitting motionless, but watching like two wildcats to see what was going to happen. Each had his bow and arrows by his side, and his knife inside his robe. At length the owner of the lodge spoke, and one of the men went out, and after a little they heard the sound of horses’ hoofs coming, and they supposed some one was riding up. Every now and then Running Chief would touch his friend’s knee with his own, as if to say, “Watch.”

The owner of the lodge made a sign and pointed to the east and said “Capitan.”[2] At the same time he was dressing himself up, putting on a pair of officer’s trousers and a uniform coat. Meantime the Pawnees heard the rattle of one saddle, and then of another. The Wichita chief put on his blanket, and his pistol belt around it, and then made signs for them to go out. He led the way, and the Pawnees followed. As they went, Running Chief touched his friend, as if to say, “Watch. They may shoot us as we go out.” But when they looked out of the lodge, the Wichita was walking toward the horses, so there was no danger. He mounted a horse, and signed to Running Chief to get up behind him. Another man mounted the other horse, and the friend got up behind him.

[2] A Spanish word meaning chief.

As they rode toward the main village, it came into the mind of Running Chief to kill the man he was riding behind, and to ride away. There was where he had to fight his hardest battle. He was tempted to kill this man in front of him, but he was not overpowered by this temptation. He overcame it. He thought that perhaps he might be mounted on a poor horse, and even if he did kill this man and his friend the other, they might be on slow horses and be caught at once. Every little while he would look at his friend and roll his eyes, as if to say, “Watch on your side and I will watch on mine.”

As he came near to the village, the Wichita warrior called out, and began to sing a song, and all at once the village was in an uproar. The men, women and children seemed to start up out of the ground, and the lodges poured forth their inmates. Running Chief felt that he was in danger, but he knew that he was not in as much danger as the man before him. He could take the pistol out of the belt that he had hold of and kill him, or he could use his own knife. The Wichita knew that he was in danger. He knew that he was in the power of the enemy.

After the Wichita had called out to the people that they had enemies with them, he kept on talking, saying, “Keep quiet. Do not do anything. Wait. Keep away from me and be still. I am in danger.” They would not have listened to him, if it had not been that he was a leading man, and a brave warrior. The riders came to the largest lodge, which stood in the middle of the village. Here they stopped. When Running Chief got off the horse, he held tightly the belt of the Wichita, who dismounted; and they went together into the lodge of the Head Chief, and the others followed and went in, and all sat down opposite the door. All this time there was a hubbub outside. People were flying from their lodges to that of the Head Chief, and lifting up the edge of the lodge, and peeping under it at the Pawnees. They chattered to each other, and called out to those who were coming; all was noise and confusion.

V.

The under chiefs came in one by one, until all were present. Then one of them made a speech, saying that it would be best to leave everything to the Head Chief, and that he should decide what ought to be done with these enemies. Then it was silent for a time, while the Chief was making up his mind what should be done; and during this silence Running Chief felt a touch on his shoulder, and looked behind him, and there was handed to him under the edge of the lodge a dish of meat. He took it and began to eat, and his companion also ate with him. After he had eaten a few mouthfuls, he took his arrows, which he had held in his hand, and put them in his quiver, and unstrung his bow and laid it aside, and his friend did the same.

Then the Chief stood up and spoke to those sitting there and said, “What can I do? They have eaten of my food. I cannot make war on people who have been eating with me.” While he was saying this, Running Chief was again touched on the shoulder, and some one handed him a cup of water, and he drank; and the Chief, as he saw this, added, “and have also drunk of my water.” He then turned and called to a certain man, who could speak Pawnee, and told him to ask these men if they were on the warpath. He asked them, “Are you on the warpath?” and they replied, “Yes, we are on the warpath.”

Then said he, “What are you here for?”

Running Chief answered, “You have plenty of dogs. I am here that my body may be eaten by them.”

When the Wichitas heard this they all made a sound, Ah-h-h-h! for they were surprised at his bravery. The Chief asked him, “Do you know anything about the horses that were missed last night?”

He said, “Yes.”

“Where are they?” said the Head Chief.

Running Chief replied, “The party have gone off with them—Pawnees.”

“Were you with them?”

“Yes, I was with them, and I stopped behind on purpose to come into your village.”

The Head Chief then turned to the others and talked for a little while. He said, “See what a brave man this is. He had resolved to die. But he shall not die, because he has eaten our food and drunk of our water. Although we are enemies of this man’s tribe, yet we are the same people with them, who have been apart for a long time. I cannot help it; my heart is touched by his talk and by their bravery. By their bravery they are safe.” And all the Wichitas said “Waugh.”

Then the Head Chief through the interpreter talked to Running Chief. He said, “Are you a chief?”

Running Chief replied, “No, I am not a chief; I am like a dog; I am poor.”

The Head Chief said to him, “By your bravery you have saved yourselves. You shall have the road to your home made white before you. Let there not be one blood spot on it.” Then he turned to those who were sitting about the lodge and said, “Now, my young men, do something for them.”

A young man named Crazy Wolf stood up and spoke; and when he had finished, the interpreter said, “That man has given you a black horse, the best that he has.”

Another young man on the other side of the lodge spoke, and the interpreter said, “He has given you a roan horse, the best that he has.” Then all the Wichitas began to speak at once, and before they knew it, the Pawnees had ten head of horses, and robes and blankets, saddles, bridles, shields, spears and moccasins—many beautiful presents. So they were well provided.

The Head Chief again stood up and talked to the assembly, praising these Pawnees; and he stepped over to Running Chief and shook hands with him, and when he did so, Running Chief stood up and put his arms around the Chief and pressed him to his breast, and the Chief did the same to him, and when Running Chief had his arms around the Chief, the Chief trembled, and came near to crying. The Chief embraced the other Pawnee, and looked him in the face and said, “What brave men you are!”

The friend said, “What my friend stepped, that I stepped; I trod in his footprints; I had one mind with him.”

As the Chief stepped back to his place he spoke through the interpreter, “Now you have eaten of my food and drunk of my water. Everything that I have is yours. My women and my children are yours. You are not a chief, but you are a chief.”[3] Then he spoke to the crowd and they all went away, leaving only the principal men in the lodge.

[3] You are not a chief, but you have made yourself a chief by your great qualities.

That afternoon the Pawnees were feasted everywhere, and had to eat till they were almost dead; and as they went about, all of their former sadness seemed to be swept away, and Running Chief felt like crying for joy.

While they were feasting, the man who had given the black horse went out, and caught it up, and painted it handsomely, and rode into the village, and put on it a silver bridle, and eagle feathers in its mane and tail, and when Running Chief was going from one lodge to another he met him, and jumped off the horse and said, “Brother, ride this.” He gave him also a shield and a spear.

These Pawnees staid two months with the Wichitas, and all their troubles seemed at an end. At length Running Chief called a council of the chiefs, and told them that now he wished to make ready to go home to his village. He thanked them for all that they had done for him, and said that now he would go. The chiefs said, “It is well. We are glad that you have been with us and visited us. Take the good news back to your tribe. Tell them that we are one people, though long separated. Let the road between our villages be made white. Let it no more show any spots of blood.”

Running Chief thanked them and said, “I will go and take the good news to my people. I shall show them the presents you have made us, and tell them how well we have been treated. It may be that some of the chiefs of my tribe will wish to come down to visit you, as I have done.” The Head Chief said, “Can I rely on your words, that I shall be visited?” Running Chief replied, “You can rely on them if I have to come alone to visit you again.” The Chief got up and put his arms about him, and said, “I want to be visited. Let there be no more war between us. We are brothers; let us always be brothers.” Then they gave him many more presents, and packed his horses, and six braves offered to go with him through the Cheyenne country. They went through in the night. Running Chief said afterward, “I could have stolen a lot of horses from the Cheyennes, but I thought, I will be coming back through this country and it is better not.”

At the Pawnee village these two young men had been mourned by their relations as lost or dead. It was in the spring (March, 1869) when they reached home, and there was joy in the tribe when they came in with the presents. Running Chief was praised, and so was his friend. Both had been brave and had done great things.

Now Running Chief’s name was changed from Wi-ti-ti le-shar´-uspi to Skŭr´-ar-a le-shar (Lone Chief).

VI.

The following summer in August, at the close of the summer hunt, three hundred Pawnees, old men and young, under the leadership of Lone Chief, visited the Wichitas, who received them well, and gave them many horses. Lone Chief was not satisfied with the peace that he had made with the Wichitas. He also visited the Kiowas, and made peace, and was given by them eight fine horses. He also led his party to the Comanches, and visited them, and got many presents. In the fall the Pawnees returned to their village. Many of them fell sick on the way, and some died.

In the winter of 1869-70 Lone Chief and his friend led a war party against the Cheyennes. They took six hundred head of horses. The Cheyennes now tell us that in the seventy-five lodges of that camp there was not left a hoof. All night and all next day they ran the herd. Then Lone Chief said, “Let us not run the horses any longer, they will not come after us; they are afoot.” When the party got on the north side of the Republican, on the table lands, a terrible storm of snow and wind came upon them, and they were nearly lost. For three days and three nights they lay in the storm. All were frozen, some losing toes and fingers. They survived, however, and brought in all their horses. Again Lone Chief sacrificed to Ti-ra´-wa. A second sacrifice is very unusual and a notable event.

OLD-FASHIONED “T. GRAY” AX.

THE PRISONERS OF COURT HOUSE ROCK.

COURT HOUSE ROCK is a high, square-shaped bluff, or butte, on the North Platte River. It is composed of a hard, yellowish clay, which is but slowly eroded by the weather, though soft enough to be cut readily with a knife. On all sides except one, this rock or butte is nearly or quite vertical, and its sides, smoothed and polished by the wind and the rain, offer no projecting points, to serve as foot or hand holds for one who might wish to climb up or down. On one side there is a way by which an active man may reach the summit, where he finds a flat tableland of moderate extent.

A number of years ago a war party of Skidi, who were camped near Court House Rock, were surprised by a party of Sioux. There were many of them, and they drove the Skidi back, and at length these were obliged to climb the steep side of Court House Rock. The Sioux dared not follow them up on to the rock, but guarded the only place where it was possible to come down, and camped all around the rock below to starve the Skidi out. The Skidi had nothing to eat nor to drink, and suffered terribly from hunger and still more from thirst. The leader of the party suffered most of any, for he thought that he would surely lose all his men. He felt that this was the worst of all. He must not only die, but must also be disgraced, because under his leadership the young men of his party had been lost. He used to go off at night, apart from the others, and pray to Ti-ra´-wa for help; for some way to save his party.

One night while he was praying, something spoke to him, and said, “Look hard for a place where you may get down from this rock, and so save both your men and yourself.” He kept on praying that night, and when day came, he looked all along the edge of the rock for a place where it might be possible to get down. At last he found near the edge of the cliff a point of the soft clay rock sticking up above the level of the rest. The side of the rock below it was straight up and down, and smooth. At night he took his knife, and began to cut about the base of this point of rock, and night after night he kept at this until he had cut away the base of the point, so that it was no larger around than a man’s body. Then he secretly took all the lariats that the party had, and tied them together, and let them down, and found that his rope was long enough to reach the ground. He put the rope around the point, and made a loop in it for his feet, and slowly let himself down to the ground. He got there safely, and then climbed back again. The next night he called his men about him, and told them how it was, and that they might all be saved. Then he ordered the youngest and least important man of the party to let himself down, and after him the next youngest, and so on, up to the more important men, and last of all the leader’s turn came. He let himself down, and they all crept through the Sioux camp and escaped.

They never knew how long the Sioux stayed there watching the rock. Probably until they thought that the Skidi had all starved to death.

WOLVES IN THE NIGHT.

IN the year 1879 Little Warrior, with a Chaui boy and a soldier, was off scouting on the plains east of the mountains. They saw a long way off—perhaps twenty miles—some objects that seemed to be moving. It was one of those hot dry days in summer, when all the air is quivering and all things are distorted by the mirage. They watched these objects through their glasses for a long time. They seemed to move and quiver, and they could not tell what they were, but Little Warrior thought they were mounted men. They seemed to be traveling in the same direction with this scouting party. At length they could see that they were mounted men, and were driving some loose animals.

When night came, the two Pawnees left their horses with the soldier and started on foot to look for the camp of the strangers, and to find out who they were. They formed the plan to make themselves look like coyotes, so that they could go close to the camp. Each took from under his saddle a white sheet, which, when the time came, they would tie around their bodies, having their guns inside, held under their arms, and their pistols in their belts about their waists. It was a bright moonlight night, the moon being so bright that it made it hard to see far on the prairie.

The camp was found in a little hollow, and was occupied by seven Ute Indians. They had a dog with them. The Pawnees could hear them talking and laughing, as they sat about the big fire they had built. They could see the horses too.

The men put on their white sheets, and getting down on all fours, prowled about like wolves, gradually drawing nearer and nearer to the camp. Two or three times the dog smelt them and barked, but they paid no attention to it, but trotted hither and thither, smelling the ground and sometimes sitting up on their haunches like wolves, and then going on again. After a little while they came so close to the camp that they could see that the horses were staked out, and that there were some mules feeding about, hobbled. One of the Utes, who noticed the wolves prowling near the camp, got his gun and shot at the Chaui boy, but he did not hit him. The boy loped off and joined Little Warrior behind a hill, and there the two waited.

Little Warrior said to his companion, “These men have come far to-day. They are pretty tired. Wait and they will lie down and go to sleep.” Presently the camp quieted down and the Utes slept.

The Pawnees then made themselves wolves again, and went close to the Ute camp. The horses were staked close to where the men were sleeping, but the mules had wandered off a little to one side. Six mules were together, and one was by itself on the other side of the camp. Little Warrior went around the camp to this one, and cut its hobbles, and then drove it slowly toward the others. Then they drove the whole seven quietly away from the camp. If it had not been for the dog, they could very likely have stolen the horses too, and left the Utes afoot, and perhaps they might have been able to kill the Utes.

They drove the mules about two miles, and then went on to where they had left their horses. They found the soldier nearly frightened to death. He said he did not like to be left by himself in such a lonely place; he wanted to go to camp. They told him they were going to return and get those mules. They did so, and secured them, and drove them in to their own camp, which they reached about six o’clock the next morning.

It was learned afterward that fourteen mules had been stolen from a Government train, and a reward of $200 had been offered for their recovery. These taken by the two Pawnees were seven of the stolen animals, and each of the men received $50 as his proportion of the reward.

WHIP.

A LEADER OF SOLDIERS.

IN 1876, when the attack was made by General Mackenzie on the village of the Cheyenne chief, Dull Knife, the Pawnee Scouts charged down on the village on the south side of the creek, while on the north side of the stream, a company of United States cavalry, under Lieut. McKinney, were making a charge. Before the village was reached, Ralph J. Weeks, an educated Pawnee, and some others of the scouts crossed the stream and were riding near the soldiers. As they were crossing the cañon at the mouth of which the village stood, the enemy began to fire at them from the ravine. Lieut. McKinney was killed at the first volley, and immediately afterward his first sergeant fell, leaving the troop without a commander. The soldiers hesitated, stopped, and then turned round, and began to retreat.

Ralph rode up behind them, and got off his horse, and called out, “Hold on boys, don’t run. There are only seven Indians there. Come on, and we will kill them all. Get off your horses and come ahead on foot. There are only seven of them. We will kill them all.”

The men stopped in their retreat, dismounted, and under Ralph’s direction and leadership, went forward, and did kill all the Indians in the ravine.

KNIFE SCABBARD.

A CHEYENNE BLANKET.

THE Cheyennes, like other Indians, do not speak to each other when they are away from the camp. If a man goes away from the village, and sits or stands by himself on the top of a hill, it is a sign that he wants to be alone; perhaps to meditate; perhaps to pray. No one speaks to him or goes near him.

Now, there was once a Pawnee boy, who went off on the warpath to the Cheyenne camp. In some way he had obtained a Cheyenne blanket. This Pawnee came close to the Cheyenne camp, and hid himself there to wait. About the middle of the afternoon, he left his hiding place, and walked to the top of the hill overlooking the village. He had his Cheyenne blanket wrapped about him and over his head, with only a little hole for his eyes. He stood there for an hour or two, looking over the Cheyenne camp.

They were coming in from buffalo hunting, and some were leading in the pack horses loaded down with meat. A man came along, riding a horse packed with meat, and leading another pack horse, and a black spotted horse that was his running horse. These running horses are ridden only on the chase or on war parties, and are well cared for. After being used they are taken down to the river and are washed and cleaned with care. When the boy saw this spotted horse, he thought to himself that this was the horse that he would take. When the man who was leading it reached his lodge, he dismounted and handed the ropes to his women, and went inside.

Then the Pawnee made up his mind what he would do. He started down the hill into the village, and walked straight to this lodge where the women were unloading the meat. He walked up to them, reached out his hand, and took the ropes of the spotted horse and one of the others. As he did so the women fell back. Probably they thought that this was some one of the relations of the owner, who was going to take the running horse down to the river to wash it. The Pawnee could not talk Cheyenne, but as he turned away he mumbled something—m-m-m-m—as if speaking in a low voice, and then walked down toward the river. As soon as he had gone down over the bank and was out of sight, he jumped on the spotted horse and rode into the brush, and pretty soon was away with two horses, stolen out of the Cheyenne camp in broad daylight.

A WAR SHIELD.

LITTLE WARRIOR’S COUNSEL.

MOST of the Pawnee heroes are so regarded because of victories, daring deeds, the coups they have counted and the horses they have stolen. The glory of Comanche Chief and of Lone Chief depends mainly on their bravery, rather than on the fact that they were peace-makers. Yet there should be room among these stories for the account of an educated Pawnee—a brave—who by his wise counsel to an Indian of a hostile tribe saved many lives, both of Indians and of white men. Little Warrior was educated at a Western college, but has shown his bravery on the field of battle, and has sacrificed a scalp to Ti-ra´-wa.

In the year 1879, at the time of the Ute outbreak, after Major Thornburgh’s command had been annihilated, Little Warrior was employed as a scout for the troops. On the headwaters of the Arkansas River he was one day scouting in advance of the command, in company with four white soldiers and four Indian scouts. One day, the party saw far off on the prairie an Indian, who showed a white flag, and came toward them. When he had come near to them, the soldiers proposed to kill him, and report that he was a Ute, one of the Indians that they were looking for. But Little Warrior said, “No. He has a white flag up, and it may be that he is carrying a dispatch, or, perhaps, he is a white man disguised as an Indian.”

When the man had come close to them, they saw that he was dressed like a Comanche; he did not have the bristling fringe of hair over the forehead that the Utes wear, and his side locks were unbraided. Little Warrior asked him, by signs, if he was alone, to which he replied in the same language that he was alone. Then Little Warrior inquired who he was. The stranger made the sign for Comanche—a friendly tribe.

They took him into the camp, and after a while Little Warrior began to talk to him in Comanche. He could not understand a word of it.

Then the Pawnee said to him, “My friend, you are a Ute.” The stranger acknowledged that he was.

Then Little Warrior talked to him, and gave him much good advice. He said, “My friend, you and I have the same skin, and what I tell you now is for your good. I speak to you as a friend, and what I say to you now is so that you may save your women and your children. It is of no use for you to try to fight the white people. I have been among them, and I know how many they are. They are like the grass. Even if you were to kill a hundred it would be nothing. It would be like burning up a few handfuls of prairie grass. There would be just as many left. If you try to fight them they will hunt you like a ghost. Wherever you go they will follow after you, and you will get no rest. The soldiers will be continually on your tracks. Even if you were to go up on top of a high mountain, where there was nothing but rocks, and where no one else could come, the soldiers would follow you, and get around you, and wait, and wait, even for fifty years. They would have plenty to eat, and they could wait until after you were dead. There is one white man who is the chief of all this country, and what he says must be done. It is no use to fight him.

“Now if you are wise you will go out and get all your people, and bring them in, on to the reservation, and give yourself up. It will be better for you in the end. I speak to you as a friend, because we are both the same color, and I hope that you will listen to my words.”

The Ute said, “My friend, your words are good, and I thank you for the friendly advice you have given me. I will follow it and will agree to go away and bring in my people.”

Little Warrior said, “How do you make a promise?”

The Ute said, “By raising the right hand to one above.”

Little Warrior said, “That is the custom also among my people.”

The Ute raised his hand and made the promise.

After he had been detained two or three weeks, he was allowed to go, and about a month afterward, he brought in the band of which he was chief, and surrendered. Through his influence afterward, the whole tribe came in and gave themselves up. He was grateful to Little Warrior for what he had done for him, and told him that if he ever came back into his country he would give him many ponies.

A COMANCHE BUNDLE.

A PAWNEE boy went to the Comanche village after horses. At night he went into the camp, crept to the door of a lodge, and took a horse that was tied there. It was bright moonlight, and as he was cutting the rope he saw, hanging before the lodge, a handsome shield and a spear, which he took. There was also a bundle hanging there. He took this down, opened it, and found in it a war bonnet, beaded moccasins and leggings, and a breast-plate of long beads. He dressed himself in all these fine things, mounted the horse and rode away.

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Folk-Tales.

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THE DUN HORSE.

I.

MANY years ago, there lived in the Pawnee tribe an old woman and her grandson, a boy about sixteen years old. These people had no relations and were very poor. They were so poor that they were despised by the rest of the tribe. They had nothing of their own; and always, after the village started to move the camp from one place to another, these two would stay behind the rest, to look over the old camp, and pick up anything that the other Indians had thrown away, as worn out or useless. In this way they would sometimes get pieces of robes, worn out moccasins with holes in them, and bits of meat.

Now, it happened one day, after the tribe had moved away from the camp, that this old woman and her boy were following along the trail behind the rest, when they came to a miserable old worn out dun horse, which they supposed had been abandoned by some Indians. He was thin and exhausted, was blind of one eye, had a bad sore back, and one of his forelegs was very much swollen. In fact, he was so worthless that none of the Pawnees had been willing to take the trouble to try to drive him along with them. But when the old woman and her boy came along, the boy said, “Come now, we will take this old horse, for we can make him carry our pack.” So the old woman put her pack on the horse, and drove him along, but he limped and could only go very slowly.

II.

The tribe moved up on the North Platte, until they came to Court House Rock. The two poor Indians followed them, and camped with the others. One day while they were here, the young men who had been sent out to look for buffalo, came hurrying into camp and told the chiefs that a large herd of buffalo were near, and that among them was a spotted calf.

The Head Chief of the Pawnees had a very beautiful daughter, and when he heard about the spotted calf, he ordered his old crier to go about through the village, and call out that the man who killed the spotted calf should have his daughter for his wife. For a spotted robe is ti-war´-uks-ti—big medicine.

The buffalo were feeding about four miles from the village, and the chiefs decided that the charge should be made from there. In this way, the man who had the fastest horse would be the most likely to kill the calf. Then all the warriors and the young men picked out their best and fastest horses, and made ready to start. Among those who prepared for the charge was the poor boy on the old dun horse. But when they saw him, all the rich young braves on their fast horses pointed at him, and said, “Oh, see; there is the horse that is going to catch the spotted calf;” and they laughed at him, so that the poor boy was ashamed, and rode off to one side of the crowd, where he could not hear their jokes and laughter.

When he had ridden off some little way, the horse stopped, and turned his head round, and spoke to the boy. He said, “Take me down to the creek, and plaster me all over with mud. Cover my head and neck and body and legs.” When the boy heard the horse speak, he was afraid; but he did as he was told. Then the horse said, “Now mount, but do not ride back to the warriors, who laugh at you because you have such a poor horse. Stay right here, until the word is given to charge.” So the boy stayed there.

And presently all the fine horses were drawn up in line and pranced about, and were so eager to go that their riders could hardly hold them in; and at last the old crier gave the word, “Loo-ah”—Go! Then the Pawnees all leaned forward on their horses and yelled, and away they went. Suddenly, away off to the right, was seen the old dun horse. He did not seem to run. He seemed to sail along like a bird. He passed all the fastest horses, and in a moment he was among the buffalo. First he picked out the spotted calf, and charging up alongside of it, U-ra-rish! straight flew the arrow. The calf fell. The boy drew another arrow, and killed a fat cow that was running by. Then he dismounted and began to skin the calf, before any of the other warriors had come up. But when the rider got off the old dun horse, how changed he was! He pranced about and would hardly stand still near the dead buffalo. His back was all right again; his legs were well and fine; and both his eyes were clear and bright.

The boy skinned the calf and the cow that he had killed, and then he packed all the meat on the horse, and put the spotted robe on top of the load, and started back to the camp on foot, leading the dun horse. But even with this heavy load the horse pranced all the time, and was scared at everything he saw. On the way to camp, one of the rich young chiefs of the tribe rode up by the boy, and offered him twelve good horses for the spotted robe, so that he could marry the Head Chief’s beautiful daughter; but the boy laughed at him and would not sell the robe.

Now, while the boy walked to the camp leading the dun horse, most of the warriors rode back, and one of those that came first to the village, went to the old woman, and said to her, “Your grandson has killed the spotted calf.” And the old woman said, “Why do you come to tell me this? You ought to be ashamed to make fun of my boy, because he is poor.” The warrior said, “What I have told you is true,” and then he rode away. After a little while another brave rode up to the old woman, and said to her, “Your grandson has killed the spotted calf.” Then the old woman began to cry, she felt so badly because every one made fun of her boy, because he was poor.

Pretty soon the boy came along, leading the horse up to the lodge where he and his grandmother lived. It was a little lodge, just big enough for two, and was made of old pieces of skin that the old woman had picked up, and was tied together with strings of rawhide and sinew. It was the meanest and worst lodge in the village. When the old woman saw her boy leading the dun horse with the load of meat and the robes on it, she was very much surprised. The boy said to her, “Here, I have brought you plenty of meat to eat, and here is a robe, that you may have for yourself. Take the meat off the horse.” Then the old woman laughed, for her heart was glad. But when she went to take the meat from the horse’s back, he snorted and jumped about, and acted like a wild horse. The old woman looked at him in wonder, and could hardly believe that it was the same horse. So the boy had to take off the meat, for the horse would not let the old woman come near him.

III.

That night the horse spoke again to the boy and said, “Wa-ti-hes Chah´-ra-rat wa-ta. To-morrow the Sioux are coming—a large war party. They will attack the village, and you will have a great battle. Now, when the Sioux are drawn up in line of battle, and are all ready to fight, you jump on to me, and ride as hard as you can, right into the middle of the Sioux, and up to their Head Chief, their greatest warrior, and count coup on him, and kill him, and then ride back. Do this four times, and count coup on four of the bravest Sioux, and kill them, but don’t go again. If you go the fifth time, may be you will be killed, or else you will lose me. La-ku´-ta-chix—remember.” So the boy promised.

The next day it happened as the horse had said, and the Sioux came down and formed a line of battle. Then the boy took his bow and arrows, and jumped on the dun horse, and charged into the midst of them. And when the Sioux saw that he was going to strike their Head Chief, they all shot their arrows at him, and the arrows flew so thickly across each other that the sky became dark, but none of them hit the boy. And he counted coup on the Chief, and killed him, and then rode back. After that he charged again among the Sioux, where they were gathered thickest, and counted coup on their bravest warrior, and killed him. And then twice more, until he had gone four times as the horse had told him.

But the Sioux and the Pawnees kept on fighting, and the boy stood around and watched the battle. And at last he said to himself, “I have been four times and have killed four Sioux, and I am all right, I am not hurt anywhere; why may I not go again?” So he jumped on the dun horse, and charged again. But when he got among the Sioux, one Sioux warrior drew an arrow and shot. The arrow struck the dun horse behind the forelegs and pierced him through. And the horse fell down dead. But the boy jumped off, and fought his way through the Sioux, and ran away as fast as he could to the Pawnees. Now, as soon as the horse was killed, the Sioux said to each other, “This horse was like a man. He was brave. He was not like a horse.” And they took their knives and hatchets, and hacked the dun horse and gashed his flesh, and cut him into small pieces.

The Pawnees and Sioux fought all day long, but toward night the Sioux broke and fled.

IV.

The boy felt very badly that he had lost his horse; and, after the fight was over, he went out from the village to where it had taken place, to mourn for his horse. He went to the spot where the horse lay, and gathered up all the pieces of flesh, which the Sioux had cut off, and the legs and the hoofs, and put them all together in a pile. Then he went off to the top of a hill near by, and sat down and drew his robe over his head, and began to mourn for his horse.

As he sat there, he heard a great wind storm coming up, and it passed over him with a loud rushing sound, and after the wind came a rain. The boy looked down from where he sat to the pile of flesh and bones, which was all that was left of his horse, and he could just see it through the rain. And the rain passed by, and his heart was very heavy, and he kept on mourning.

And pretty soon, came another rushing wind, and after it a rain; and as he looked through the driving rain toward the spot where the pieces lay, he thought that they seemed to come together and take shape, and that the pile looked like a horse lying down, but he could not see well for the thick rain.

After this, came a third storm like the others; and now when he looked toward the horse he thought he saw its tail move from side to side two or three times, and that it lifted its head from the ground. The boy was afraid, and wanted to run away, but he stayed.

And as he waited, there came another storm. And while the rain fell, looking through the rain, the boy saw the horse raise himself up on his forelegs and look about. Then the dun horse stood up.

V.

The boy left the place where he had been sitting on the hilltop, and went down to him. When the boy had come near to him, the horse spoke and said, “You have seen how it has been this day; and from this you may know how it will be after this. But Ti-ra´-wa has been good, and has let me come back to you. After this, do what I tell you; not any more, not any less.” Then the horse said, “Now lead me off, far away from the camp, behind that big hill, and leave me there to-night, and in the morning come for me;” and the boy did as he was told.

And when he went for the horse in the morning, he found with him a beautiful white gelding, much more handsome than any horse in the tribe. That night the dun horse told the boy to take him again to the place behind the big hill, and to come for him the next morning; and when the boy went for him again, he found with him a beautiful black gelding. And so for ten nights, he left the horse among the hills, and each morning he found a different colored horse, a bay, a roan, a gray, a blue, a spotted horse, and all of them finer than any horses that the Pawnees had ever had in their tribe before.

Now the boy was rich, and he married the beautiful daughter of the Head Chief, and when he became older, he was made Head Chief himself. He had many children by his beautiful wife, and one day when his oldest boy died, he wrapped him in the spotted calf robe and buried him in it. He always took good care of his old grandmother, and kept her in his own lodge until she died. The dun horse was never ridden except at feasts, and when they were going to have a doctors’ dance, but he was always led about with the Chief, wherever he went. The horse lived in the village for many years, until he became very old. And at last he died.

A STORY OF FAITH.

LONG ago, before they ever had any of these doctors’ dances, there was, in the Kit-ke-hahk´-i tribe, a young boy, small, growing up. He seemed not to go with the other boys nor to play with them, but would keep away from them. He would go off by himself, and lie down, and sometimes they would find him crying, or half crying. He seemed to have peculiar ways. His father and mother did not try to interfere with him, but let him alone. Sometimes they would find him with mud or clay smeared over his face and head. That is the sign of a doctor. When you see a person putting mud on his face or head, it shows that he has faith in the earth. From the earth are taken the roots that they use in medicine.

When the parents saw this, they did not understand it. How should he know anything about mud being the sign of a doctor? They did not understand, but they just let him do it.

The boy grew up till he came to have the ways of a young man, but he never went with any of the other boys. After he had grown up, they saw that he had something in his mind. Sometimes he would fast for two days, and sit by himself, smoking and praying to Ti-ra´-wa, and not saying anything to any one. His father was a brave but not a chief, and had plenty of horses. The son was well dressed and comfortably off.

When any one in the camp was sick, this young man would take pity on him, and of his own accord would go and doctor him, and pretty soon the person would be well again. Through his doing this, the people began to hear about him, and his name became great. He was humble, and did not want to be thought well of. He was not proud, but he was always doing good. At that time, there were many doctors in the tribe, and they wondered how it was that he could cure so many people, when he had never been taught by any of them. They could not understand it, and they began to be jealous of him. He never wanted to be with the doctors, but liked to stay by himself. He wanted to be alone rather than with any one.

In that time there were bad doctors, and they began to hear about this humble man and to be jealous of him. These bad doctors could curse a man, and he would be cursed, and could poison one. They had great power and influence, for everybody feared them.

The bands of the Pawnees were not then together, as they are now. As the people talked about this young man, one of the other bands heard about him. In this band was a great doctor, and this doctor thought to himself, “This young man’s influence is growing. If I do not do something, he will soon be ahead of me.”

This great doctor went to the village to visit this young man, to see how he looked, and to find out how he got his knowledge and his power, for he knew he had never been taught. He wanted to eat with him, and talk with him, and find out whence his learning came. He reached the Kit-ke-hahk´-i village. He was welcomed, and the young man treated him with respect, and asked him to come into the lodge, and sit down with him. At night they talked together. The great doctor said, “I am glad to see you. You can come to me for advice sometimes.” The young man thanked him. They smoked together. It is the custom always when an Indian is visiting another, for the one that is being visited to present all the smokes; but at this time the great doctor said, “We will smoke my tobacco.” So all night they smoked his tobacco. The next morning he went away. He did not again eat with the young man. He said, “I am glad, and I am going.” And he went away to his village. This happened in the winter.

This young man was not married. His father had asked him to marry, but he would not. He said he had reasons.

About summer time, he felt different from what he had. He was drowsy and felt badly. He felt heavy. He seemed to be swelling up with some strange new disease. The great doctor had poisoned him with this result. How it was no one can tell, but it was so. This was a disgrace, and he did not know how to get out of it. There was no way. He would go off and cry, and pray to Ti-ra´-wa, and sometimes would stay for three or four days without anything to eat. He was so miserable that one time he was going to kill himself. He did not tell his father or any one about this, but kept it to himself. The tribe went off on a hunt and left the old village. Before they started, the man went off on a hill somewhere to meditate and pray, and his father told him that when he was ready to start he should ride such a horse, and he left it in the village for him when he should come in.

When he came into the empty village he found the horse tied there, and he saddled it and started; but instead of going in the direction the tribe had taken, he went east. His horse was a fine one. He went away off by himself for some days, and at last he stopped, and got off his horse, and tied it to a tree. Then he called aloud and said, “A-ti-us ta´-kaw-a (My Father, in all places), it is through you that I am living. Perhaps it was through you that this man put me in this condition. You are the ruler. Nothing is impossible to you. If you see fit, take this away from me.” Then he turned round and said, “Now, you, all fish of the rivers, and you, all birds of the air, and all animals that move upon the earth, and you, oh Sun! I present to you this animal.” He said again, “You birds in the air, and you animals upon the earth, we are related, we are alike in this respect, that one ruler made us all. You see me, how unhappy I am. If you have any power, intercede for me.”

When he had finished his prayer, he went up to the horse, and stabbed it with his knife and killed it, and it fell down dead. He turned it so that its head was toward the east, and raised it on its belly, doubling its knees under it, and cut the hide down the back, and skinned it down on both sides, so that the birds of the air and the animals of the earth might feed on it.

The tribe at this time was camped on the head of the Republican River. He went on toward the east until he came to the place on the Platte River called Pa-huk´ (hill island). He saw that there were many wild animals on this point, and he liked it, and thought he would stay there, and perhaps dream. He stopped there a while, feeling very badly, and mourning all the time on this point. He was there several days, and one night it happened that he went to sleep [fainted], for he was exhausted with much weeping and praying. Something spoke to him, and said, “What are you doing here?” He woke up, and looked around, but saw no one. It was only a voice. Another night when he was asleep a voice asked him, “What are you doing here?” He awoke and looked about, but saw no one. A third night the same thing happened, and he was wondering what it meant. Then he answered and said, “Who ever you are who speaks to me, look at me and you will see that I am poor in mind.[4] I am a man, and yet I am in a condition that no man was ever in before. I am here only to suffer and to die. Whoever you are who speaks to me, take pity on me and help me.” He received no answer.

[4] Poor in mind, i. e., despondent, miserable, unhappy.

The fourth night something touched him. He was half awake when he felt it. Something said, “What are you doing here?” He was lying on his side, his head toward the east and his feet toward the west. Something tapped him on the shoulder, and he looked up and saw a great big animal, big black eyes and a whitish body, Pah´, big elk. When he looked at it, the animal said, “Get up and sit down;” and the elk too sat down. The elk said, “I have heard of you and of your condition, and I am here to tell you that we all know your trouble. Right here where you are, under you, is the home of the Nahu´rac (animals). I know that it is impossible to help you, but I shall let them know—they already know—that you are here. I can only help you so far as to take you to the places where these animals are. If this animal home cannot help you, I will take you to another place; if that fails, I will take you to another place; if that fails, to another. Then you will see that I have done my part. If it is impossible for the animals to do it, we have still one above that we look to.” As soon as he had said this, he vanished like a wind; disappeared all at once.

While the boy sat there, thinking about what the animal had said to him, he fell asleep with his mind full of these things. In his sleep something talked to him. It said, “I know that you feel badly, and that your mind is poor. I have passed you many times, and I have heard you crying. I belong here, but I am one of the servants. I have informed my leaders, those who command me, about you, and that you are so poor in your mind, and they have said to me, ‘If you take pity on him, do as you please, because you are our servant.’”

At this time he woke up, and saw sitting by him a little bird.[5] He talked to it. He said, “Oh, my brother, I feel pleased that you understand my poor mind. Now take pity on me and help me.” The bird said to him, “You must not talk in this way to me. I am only a servant. To-morrow night I will come this way, and will show you what to do. To-morrow night I will come this way, and whatever you see me do, you do the same thing.” Then he disappeared. The man then felt a little easier in his mind, and more as if there were some hope for him.

[5] This is a small bird, blue above, white below, with red legs. It is swift-flying, and sometimes dives down into the water. It is the messenger bird of the Nahu´rac. See also story of the [Boy who was Sacrificed].

The next night the bird came, and was flying about near him after dark, waiting for the time. When the time came, the bird flew close to him, and said, “Come. Let us go to the edge of the cut bank.” When they had come to the edge of the bank above the water in the river, the bird said, “Now, my friend, you are poor. What I do, you do. When I dive down off this bank, you follow me.” The man replied to him, “Yes, I am poor. Whatever you tell me to do, I will do.” So when the bird dived down off the cut bank, the man threw off everything, and cared nothing for what he did except to follow the bird. He leaped down after it, and as he sprang, it seemed to him that he felt like a bird, and could sail this way and that. He did not feel as if he were falling, and were going to be hurt, but as if he were flying, and could control his movements. Just as he reached the water in his fall, it seemed to him that he was standing in the entrance way of a lodge, and could look through into it and see the fire burning in the middle.

While he was standing there, the bird flew in ahead of him, and he heard it say, “Here he is.” He stepped toward the entrance, and just as he came to it the Nahu´rac all made their different noises, for they are not used to the smell of human beings. The bears growled, and the panthers and wild cats and wolves and rattlesnakes and other animals all made their sounds. As he went in, there was a bear standing on one side, and a great snake on the other, and it was very difficult for the man to go in. He hesitated a little to enter that narrow passage, but something behind him seemed to push him ahead, although the bear stood ready to seize him, and the snake was rattling and standing up as if about to strike. If he had not had the courage to pass them he would have been lost, but he looked neither to the right nor to the left, but walked straight ahead past them. As soon as he had passed them, they both sank back and were quiet. Then all the Nahu´rac made another kind of a noise, as if welcoming him. The bear began to lie down; and the snake stretched itself out again. As he went in he just stood there and looked around. He saw there all kinds of animals. The head doctor was a white beaver, very large, there was another a garfish, another an otter, and the fourth was a sandhill crane.

The man sat down, and he looked very pitiful. Then for a while everything was silent. Then the servant said to the four head doctors, “I have brought this man here. I have taken pity on him, and I want you to take pity on him.” Then it was more silent than ever. The man looked about him, and saw all the animals, and saw them roll their eyes around at him.

Presently the servant got up, and stood right in the midst. The head doctors sat at the back of the lodge opposite the door on the other side of the fire. The bird said, “My rulers, you know me. I am your servant, and I am always obedient to your commands. No matter what you tell me to do, I do it. No matter how long the journeys you send me on, I go. Many nights I have lost sleep because of carrying out your commands. I have seen this man many times, and I am weary of his crying as I fly back and forth. Now, I want you to take pity on this man, because I pity him. Look on this poor-minded man and pity him.”

Then the bird went to the young man, and took from him his pipe, which was filled, and carried it round and stood before the beaver, the head doctor, and held out the pipe to him to take. The white beaver did not stretch out his hand for it, and the bird stood there for a long time. At last the bird began to cry, and the tears began to run down its face, and it cried hard; and at last the white beaver stretched out his hand, and then drew it back again, and hesitated; and the bird kept on crying, and at length the head doctor reached out his hand and took the pipe. Just as soon as he took the pipe, all the animals made a kind of a hissing sound, as much as to say, Loo´ah—Good. They were pleased. Then the white beaver, holding the pipe, said, “I cannot help but reach out for this pipe, for I take pity on my servant. But it is impossible for me to promise that I will do this thing, but I will do what I can. I will leave it to this other Nahu´rac to say what shall be done;” and he passed the pipe to the other Nahu´rac who sat next to him. This animal reached for the pipe, and took it. He made a speech, and said, “My friends, I am poor, I am poor. I have not such power as that;” and he passed the pipe to another; and he said, “I have not the power;” and he passed it to another; and so it went around the circle. The pipe had passed around, and none of the Nahu´rac had the power. None of them seemed to understand how to help the man. Then the white beaver said, “My friend, you see that no one of us have the power to help you. There is another lodge of Nahu´rac at Pa´howa. You must go there and ask them.” Then the Nahu´rac made medicine, and the young man went to sleep, and when he awoke at daylight, he found himself on the point where he had lain down to sleep the night before.

He was discouraged and wept all day long. At night the elk came to him and said, “Go to sleep; I will take you over to Pa´howa.” The man slept and the elk took him on its back and carried him while asleep, and the next morning he found himself on that point of Pa´howa.

That night the messenger bird came to him and said, “Now, my friend, follow me, and what you see me do, that do yourself. When I dive down into Pa´howa, you follow me.” The bird dived down into the spring, and the young man jumped after him, and again found himself standing at the door of a lodge, and the same things took place as before. Here the same animals were the head doctors. The chief head doctor talked to the boy and said, “My friend, I am sorry you have come to me in the condition you are in. My friend, this is something impossible. If it were anything else it might be possible for us to cure your trouble. Nothing like it was ever known before.”

When he had said this he turned to the Nahu´rac and said, “Now you shall be the leaders. If there are any of you who understand things like this; if any of you can take the lead in things like this, why do it. It is beyond my power. Say what shall be done, any of you. My mind would be big if any of you could take pity on this poor man.”

Another one of the Nahu´rac stood up and spoke, “My brother [to the white beaver], and my brother [to the young man], do not feel hard at me. This is beyond my power. I cannot do anything to help him.” So it went around the circle, every one saying that it was impossible. After it had gone round, the head doctor again stood up and said, “Now, my friend, you can see that it is impossible to cure you of this trouble, but there is another lodge of the Nahu´rac on the west side of the Loup River. You go there.” Then they put him to sleep, and when he awoke next morning, he was on top of the ground near Pa´howa.

That night the elk took him while he was asleep to the place on the Loup. The next night he was sitting on the ground there, and the bird came to him, and he followed the bird down over the bank and into the Nahu´rac lodge. Here the head doctors were the same animals, and they made speeches as had been done at the other places, and, as before, it was left to the assembly, and all agreed that it was beyond their power. Then the white beaver directed him to go to an island in the Platte, near the Lone Tree, where there was another lodge of the Nahu´rac. The elk took him to this island. Under the center of this island was the lodge. The messenger bird was with him and went into the lodge and asked the Nahu´rac to help him. The white beaver made a speech, and said, “My friend, I have heard the condition that you are in. Of all these lodges that you have visited, that lodge at Pa-huk´ is the head. I want you to go back there, and tell the leaders there that they are the rulers, and that whatever they shall do will be right, and will be agreed to by the other lodges. They must help you if they can. If they cannot do it, no one can.”

When the elk took him back to Pa-huk´, the bird again conducted him into the lodge. He had left his pipe here. When he entered the lodge all the animals made a hissing sound—No´a—they were glad to see him again. The man stood in the middle of the lodge and spoke. He said, “Now you animals all, you are the leaders. You see how poor my mind is. I am tired of the long journeys you have sent me on. I want you to take pity on me.”

The white beaver stood up and took the pipe and said, “Oh, my brother, I have done this to try these other lodges of Nahu´rac, to see if any of them were equal to me. That was the reason that I sent you around to all these other lodges, to see if any of them would be willing to undertake to rid you of your burden. But I see that they all still acknowledge that I am the leader. Now I have here an animal that I think will undertake to help you and to rid you of your trouble.” Saying this he stepped out to the right, and walked past some of the Nahu´rac until he came to a certain animal—a ground dog—and held out the pipe to it. There were twelve of these animals, all alike—small, with round faces and black whiskers—sitting on their haunches. He held out the pipe to the head one of these twelve. When the white beaver reached out the pipe to this animal he did not take it. He hesitated a long time, and held his head down. He did not want to take the pipe. He looked around the lodge, and at the man, and drew in his breath. At last he reached out his paws and took the pipe, and as he did so, all the Nahu´rac made a noise, the biggest kind of a noise. They were glad.

Then the head ground dog got up and said, “Now, doctors, I have accepted this pipe on account of our servant, who is so faithful, and who many a night has lost sleep on account of our commands. I have accepted it for his sake. It is impossible to do this thing. If it had been earlier, I could perhaps have done it. Even now I will try, and if I fail now, we can do nothing for him.”

After they had smoked, they told the man to go and sit down opposite the entrance to the lodge, between the head doctors and the fire. These twelve animals stood up and walked back and forth on the opposite side of the fire from him, facing him. After a while they told him to stand up. The head ground dog now asked the other Nahu´rac to help him, by singing, and they all sang; and the ground dogs danced, keeping time to the singing, and moved their hands up and down, and made their jaws go as if eating, but did not open their mouths.

After a while they told him to lie down with his head toward the doctors and his feet toward the entrance. After he had lain down, they began to move and went round the lodge toward him, and the head ground dog jumped over the man’s belly, and as he jumped over him he was seen to have a big piece of flesh in his mouth, and was eating it. Another ground dog followed him, and another, and each one ran until he came to the man, and as each one jumped over him, it had a piece of flesh in its mouth, eating it. So they kept going until they had eaten all the swelling. The young man was unconscious all this time, for he afterward said he knew nothing of what had happened.

The head ground dog spoke to the animals, and said, “Now, Nahu´rac, you have seen what I can do. This is the power that I have. That is the reason I am afraid to be out on the prairie, because when I get hungry I would kill men and would eat them. My appetite would overpower me, and I do not want to do these things, I want to be friendly. This is the reason that I do not travel around on top of the ground. I stay hid all the time.”

The man was still unconscious, and the head ground dog said, “Now, Nahu´rac, I do not understand how to restore this man. I leave that to you.” Then the ground dogs went back to their places and sat down. Then the head doctor, the beaver, spoke to the bears. He said, “Now this man belongs to you. Let me see what you can do.” The head bear got up and said, “Very well, I will come. I will let you see what I can do.” Then the bears stood up and began to sing. The head bear would jump on top of the man, and act as if he were going to tear him to pieces, and the others would take hold of him, and shake him around, and at last his blood began to flow and the man began to breathe, but he was still unconscious. After a while he moved and came to life, and felt himself just as he had been many months before. He found that his trouble was gone and that he was cured.

The head bear still stood by him and spoke to the Nahu´rac. He said, “Now, Nahu´rac, this is what I can do. I do not care how dangerously wounded I may be, I know how to cure myself. If they leave any breath at all in me, I know how to cure myself.” Then the bears went to their place and sat down.

The man got up and spoke to the Nahu´rac, thanking them for what they had done for him. He stayed there several nights, watching the doings of the Nahu´rac. They taught him all their ways, all the animal secrets. The head doctor said to him, “Now, I am going to send you back to your home, but I will ask a favor of you, in return for what I have done for you.”

The man answered him, “It will be so, whatever you say.”

The doctor said, “Through you let my animals that move in the river be fed. Now you can see who we are. I move in the water. I have no breath, but I exist. We every one of us shall die except Ti-ra´-wa. He made us, just as he made you. He made you to live in the air. We live where there is no air. You see the difference. I know where is that great water that surrounds us [the ocean]. I know that the heaven [sky] is the house of Ti-ra´-wa, and we live inside of it. You must imitate us. Do as we do. You must place your dependence on us, but still, if anything comes up that is very difficult, you must put your dependence on Ti-ra´-wa. Ask help from the ruler. He made us. He made every thing. There are different ways to different creatures. What you do I do not do, and what I do you do not do. We are different. When you imitate us you must always blow a smoke to each one of these four chief doctors, once to each; but to Ti-ra´-wa you must blow four smokes. And always blow four to the night, to the east, because something may tell you in your sleep a thing which will happen. This smoke represents the air filled with the smoke of hazy days. That smoke is pleasant to Ti-ra´-wa. He made it himself. Now go home, and after you have been there for a time, go and pay a visit to the doctor who put you in this condition.”

The young man went home to his village, and got there in the night. He had long been mourned as dead, and his father was now poor in mind on account of him. He went into his father’s lodge, and touched him, and said, “Wake up, I am here.”

His father could not believe it. He had thought him dead a long time. He said, “Is it you, or is it a ghost?”

The young man answered, “It is I, just the same as ever. Get up, and go and tell my uncles and all my relations that I am here. I want you to give me something; a blue bead, and some Indian tobacco, and some buffalo meat, and a pipe.”

The father went about and told his relations that his son had come back, and they were very glad, and came into the lodge, bringing the presents, and gave them to the boy. He took them, and went down to the river, and threw them in, and they were carried down to the Nahu´rac lodge at Pa-huk´.

A few days after this the boy got on his horse, and rode away to visit the doctor who had brought his trouble on him. When he reached the village, the people said to the doctor, “A man is coming to visit you,” and the doctor was troubled, for he knew what he had done to the boy. But he thought that he knew so much that no one could get the better of him. When the boy came to the lodge, he got off his horse, went in and was welcomed. After they had eaten, the boy said to him, “When you visited me we smoked your tobacco; to-day we will smoke mine.”

They did so, for the doctor thought that no one could overcome him. They smoked until daylight, and while they were smoking, the boy kept moving his jaws as if eating, but did not open his mouth. At daylight the boy said he must be going. He went, and when he got down to the river, he blew strongly upon the ice, and immediately the water in the river was full of blood. It was the blood of the doctor. It seems that the ground dogs had taught the young man how to do their things.

When the people found the doctor he was dead in his lodge, and he was all hollow. All his blood and the inside of him had gone into the river, and had gone down to feed the animals. So the boy kept his promise to the Nahu´rac and had revenge on the doctor.

The boy was the greatest doctor in the Kit-ke-hahk´-i band, and was the first who taught them all the doctors’ ceremonies that they have. He taught them all the wonderful things that the doctors can do, and many other things.

OLD-FASHIONED KNIFE.

THE BEAR MAN.