“_Washtay!_” he said, as he rebuttoned his shirt. “It was good. Wakon Tonka sent the people good days when I was young. The hoop was not yet broken, and the people had not forgotten all that is true.” Eagle Voice seemed to have forgotten me suddenly. Gazing at the ground, he began blowing softly on his whistle. “Grandfather,” I said at length; “you still have your eagle-bone whistle; but where is the sacred quirt that Chagla gave you?” The old man regarded me for a while with that crinkled look of amusement about his eyes. “Grandson, you are in a hurry again,” he said. “Can you not wait for a story?” XVI _Thanking the Food_ “I have been thinking about roads,” the old man remarked musingly, with an air of reluctant return from somewhere far off. It was the next morning, and I had waited longer than usual for the story. “About roads?” I said; “what roads, Grandfather?” “Good roads, bad roads, Grandson,” he replied. “I have been thinking maybe the good road is the one a man does not walk because he does not see it until he is tired and looks back. Also I have been thinking the bad road is bad because he walks it, and maybe does not see it either, until he is very tired and stops to look back. There was a road I did not walk that time, because I did not find it until I had walked across the world.” “And what road was that, Grandfather?” I asked. “A girl’s road,” he answered slowly, fixing his long-focused gaze upon something beyond me. “Tashina went away on it.” He was silent awhile, until the focus of his gaze shortened to include me, and then-- “My mother and step-father were proud of me because I had given the people a good day, and they were all praising me. I think I was very proud of myself too. Maybe afterwhile when I was older and had counted many coups and all the old people praised me because I always had a big pot and tender meat for them--maybe then the _wichasha yatapika_ would make me one of them. And maybe when I was still older, I would be a great chief. That is what I was thinking all the time, after the sun dance, and maybe my step-father and my mother were thinking that too. So they said we must make a feast and invite very old men and women to come and eat. Also, we would ask some wise old man to come and thank the food.” “Could not anyone give thanks for food, Grandfather?” I interrupted. “Anyone could give thanks for food,” the old man replied. “A woman could do that. Maybe she has been cooking meat, and before she puts it out, she takes a tender piece and holds it up and says, ‘Wahnagi, eat this for me.’ She is making a thank offering to the spirits by sharing her meat with them before she eats any herself. War parties would do this too when they sat down to eat. But thanking the food was different. Not everyone could do that.