“That was when I made a mistake. I said to myself: ‘It will be all right to take grandfather’s pipe, because I am doing this for _very_ old people who have hardly any teeth at all; and anyway he has two pipes now.’ I did not ask for the pipe, because I knew he would not let me have it. So I just took it when nobody was looking, and rode far out to where there was a tall, pointed hill, standing all alone above the little hills that sat around it. “When I tied Whirlwind to some brush and climbed to the top, I saw that some black clouds were coming up over towards where the sun goes down, and it was that way I had to look when I made my offering. I did not know just how to do it, but maybe it would be all right anyway. So I held the pipe up and cried out in a loud voice: ‘_Tonka schla_, Wakon Tonka! You see me here and you know I must get a calf for the old people, because they can hardly chew. I give you this pipe, and if you send me a calf, I will dance the sun dance, just as soon as I get big enough.’ “When I said this, all at once there was a big thunder off there--_boom-m-m how-ow-ow oom-m-m ow-ow!_ “I dropped the pipe and ran as fast as I could down the hill. Some of me almost got there before I did, because I stumbled and rolled part of the way. Then I rode home as fast as Whirlwind could go, because the big voice sounded angry, and I was frightened. “When I got home I did not say anything to anybody. And afterwhile grandmother said: ‘I wonder what is wrong with our boy. He looks queer.’ And my mother said: ‘He does look queer. Maybe he ate too much.’ Then my grandfather looked hard at me and said: ‘Maybe he has been smoking my pipe, for I see it is not here.’ And when he kept on looking hard at me for a while, I had to tell him; but I did not tell everything. I just said I took it because I had to make a vow so that we would get plenty of meat in the hunt. “I thought he was getting ready to be angry, he looked so hard at me. Then he said, ‘_hm-m-m_,’ high up in his nose, and his eyes looked as though he might be going to laugh; but he didn’t. My mother and grandmother didn’t say anything. They just tried to look sad down their noses.” After chuckling awhile over the memory, the old man continued: “If I had been a Wasichu boy, I think they would have whipped me; but Lakotas never hurt a child. They were good in those days before the sacred hoop was broken. It was the sacred way they lived in the hoop that made them good and taught the children; and I will tell you how that was.