Said my Indian sister: “We should start right away; the weather is warm and clear; this is the best time of year to travel.” “But we cannot get a permit from our Agent,” replied Onesta. “And besides the North-West Mounted Police would stop us at the Line. I know Indians who tried to cross into Canada and were stopped. The police turned them back and they had to come home.” For a moment there was silence; and then I said: “Your Agent is my friend. From him I have a pass to go whither I please. You can all come with me and we will make the north trip together.” Then Onesta was glad and said: “We will take you to our friends and relatives among the Blood Indians, to the tribe of the North Piegans and camp of Brings-Down-the-Sun. He is my uncle and I shall ask him to help you. He lives with his children and grandchildren in a camp on Old Man’s River. He is the wisest of all our medicine men; and knows more than any one about our legends and worship of the Sun.” “Let us go at once,” I replied. “I want to visit that uncle of yours.” Then were all happy and like children they showed it. They wanted to start next morning at the rising of the sun. CHAPTER XXIII OUR NORTH EXPEDITION We brought in our horses at daybreak and were on our way to Canada soon after sunrise, following an old Indian trail northward over the prairie; winding along the benches of round-topped ridges and down their long slopes, through wide grassy valleys and across streams and blue-gray rivers, clear and icy cold, always following the best grade like an old buffalo trail. The first day we traveled far; we did not stop until evening shadows were touching the rounded summits of the grass-covered hills, camping for the night at an old Indian ground thickly strewn with buffalo bones from former feasts. Broken tepee poles were scattered about, bare frames of old sweat-lodges and blackened stones of camp-fires. On the summit of a high ridge stood a pile of stones, sharp and clear against the sky of evening, like the solitary figure of a sentinel, marking the grave of a chief named Red Blanket. That night Onesta told me to picket my saddle horse close to camp because of a ghost. He warned me, saying: “Old Red Blanket, who is buried on yonder hill, was a good man and kind; but his ghost is mean. It does not like people to camp here and drives away their horses in the night. That hill was his favorite haunt when he was alive. For many years he went there to meditate and dream. When he was dying he asked his family to place his body there.” We did not heed Onesta’s warning and turned our horses loose to feed in the night. Strangely enough they were all gone in the morning—driven by the ghost, Onesta said. We had to walk a long distance to find them.