On stormy nights I liked to sit by my cosy inside fire, listening to the wind as it rose and fell, whistling through the lodge-poles and humming against the ropes, the hissing of whirling snow and beating of rain and sleet. Sometimes I felt uplifted by a good and controlling spirit. I wanted to do something to make people happy that they might have time to think and dream, and be able to enjoy the world of nature. And, as I lay on my couch of robes and blankets, looking into the flames of my small lodge-fire, I dreamed of Indian chiefs and medicine men before the white race came. There was something very lofty and noble about these aboriginal Americans; deep in their natures, they had qualities hidden, which white men in their literature have ever failed to reach. After being storm-bound many days, I wakened one morning to the musical song of a lark sparrow seated overhead, on top of one of my lodge-poles. The clouds had rolled away and the sun shone in a sky of deepest blue. It was the beginning of spring. Then we took down our lodges and traveled southward along the Rockies, until we came to the valley of Two Medicine River. How good it was to enter that warm and sunny valley after the bleak and wintry plains; we were protected from cold winds by high cutbanks, groves of big cottonwood trees and thickest of poplars and willows. It was one of those rare days in spring, when all nature awakes and becomes radiant with beauty. Everything was new—grass, leaves, and the scent of wild flowers. Some of the thickets had small green leaves. Buds were bursting on the cottonwood trees; balsam poplars had young leaves in a lovely shade of yellow-green; through every opening in the trees I saw the deep blue sky. Blue violets grew along the river bank. In the meadows were daisies, yellow violets, and blue forget-me-nots. The sun was hot, bringing forth the fragrance of wild flowers, leaves and buds. Butterflies and bees were abroad. Birds sang in thickets of alder and willows, in sloughs and water-meadows. All nature was busy and alive to the joy of living. We made camp in a meadow; and then I went with Little Creek to explore the valley. On a rocky cliff, surrounded by sharp pinnacles, the place where an eagle would build its nest, we found the graves of two women, one a young wife who died in childbirth, the other killed by a jealous lover. Their graves were placed on the other side of the valley from their former home, in the belief that ghosts would not cross a river to bother the living. We saw the grave of an aged medicine woman in a big cottonwood tree. The body rested on a rude scaffold of poles among the branches, surrounded with utensils and articles of clothing for use in the spirit world. In another tree were the bodies of two Blood women from Canada, who had died while on a visit to relatives. From the branches hung ornaments of beadwork—sacrifices by women who mourned.