“When the snow was deep and it was very cold, it was good to lie back against the tepee wall with the wind outside sending forth a voice like a bull, and listen to the men telling stories about war and hunting and brave deeds. They would come over to eat and smoke, and sometimes they would stay so long I did not know when they went. If they got to arguing about something, I would just roll up--and go to sleep; then it would be morning and they would not be there. I was hungry for the stories, but they made me want to go out and do something that would make a story with me in it. “We had been camping on the Greasy Grass. The tender grasses had appeared and were a handbreadth high in the valley; and the tops of the hills were greening a little. Then my grandfather came over and talked about me with my new father; and they said it was time for me to seek a vision. So my new father caught a couple of his best horses--both of them young--and took them as a gift to an old _wichasha wakon_ [holy man], whose name was Blue Spotted Horse. When the old man had accepted the gift for what he was going to do, my father and grandfather took me over to his tepee. He could not see very well, and he was so old that he had something like new moons in his eyes. He looked at me a long while, and it made me feel queer, because I thought it might be a ghost behind me that he was seeing. Afterwhile he said: ‘Let a sweat-lodge be prepared for this young man, and when he has been cleansed, bring him here, and I will teach him.’ “So there were two friends who made a sweat-lodge for me with willow boughs bent over like a cup upside down, and over this they fastened rawhide. At the opening of the lodge they set a stick with a piece of red cloth at the top for a sacred offering to the Spirit. Then they heated rocks in a fire, and when they had put these in the center of the little lodge, they poured water on them, and I had to go into the steam and close the flap tight. I felt like crying when I was in there again, because the other time was when my father went away and I saw him in my dream under the scaffold. Afterwhile they told me to come out. Then they rubbed me with sacred sage until I was dry and felt good all over. After that they gave me a buffalo robe to put around me and took me back to Blue Spotted Horse, and went away. “I felt queer again and a little scared while I sat there all alone with the old man in his tepee, and maybe a ghost behind me that he was seeing. When he had looked at me that way for a long time and I wanted to get up and run away, he said: ‘This is a sacred thing you are doing, and if the heart is not good something very bad will happen. But do not be afraid, for I have seen into your heart. Already you have fed old people, and you want to be a man they all praise. While you were in the sweat-lodge your father came to me, and he will help you on the hill. So do not be afraid, and I will teach you.’