West from the Mandans there lived the Blackfeet nation. They roved through the Missouri country of northern Montana, and north into Canada. The land of the Crows and of the Blackfeet overlapped. The two peoples were at war, on the plains and in the mountains. By reason of their wars, the Crow nation had shrunk until they were down to seven thousand people, with many more women than men. But their warriors were tall and stately, their women industrious, their garb elegant. Their buffalo-hide lodges and their buffalo-robe clothing were the whitest, finest in the West. They had countless horses. And the long hair of their men set them high in dignity. Oiled every morning with bear's grease, the hair of a proud Crow warrior swept the ground behind him. The hair of Chief Long-hair measured ten feet, seven inches, and rolled into a bunch it weighed several pounds. When it had turned white, he worshipped it as his medicine. The Crows' name for themselves was Ab-sa-ro-ke--Sparrow Hawk People. They were of the Siouan family and cousins of the Minnetarees, the Bird-woman's captors. They had no villages, except where they camped. They were dark, as high and mighty in their bearing as the Mohawks or Senecas, were wonderful riders and looked upon the white men not as worthy enemies but as persons who should be plundered of horses and goods. In the white men's camps they were polite--and took away with them whatever they could. However, many white traders spoke well of the Crows. The name of the Blackfeet was Sik-sik-a, which means the same. It referred to their black moccasins. They were Algonquins, and in power ranked with the Iroquois of the East. The Blackfeet, the Bloods and the Piegans formed the league of the Siksika nation. They warred right and left, with the Crees, the Assiniboins, the Sioux, the Crows, the Pierced Noses, and with practically all tribes; they were hostile to the white Americans who hunted in their country; but their wars had not cut them down, for they numbered close to forty thousand people. Like the Crows their enemy-neighbors they were rovers, never staying long in one spot. They were unlike the Crows in appearance, being shorter, broad-shouldered and deep-chested. No warriors were more feared. In November of 1834, amidst the Wind River Mountains of western Wyoming five hundred Crows were ahorse, at early morning, to chase the buffalo. And a gallant sight they made as they rode gaily out; in their white robes, their long plaited hair flying, their best horses prancing under them and decorated with red streamers. Chief Grizzly Bear led. Chief Long-hair, now almost eighty years of age, was with another band. In this Chief Grizzly Bear band there rode a party of white beaver-hunters who were to spend the winter with the Crows. They now were to be shown how the Crows killed buffalo.