“Now there was a young Shyela [Cheyenne] and his name was Thunder Sounds. His father was a chief and people looked up to him. Also the family had many ponies and a fine tepee. Thunder Sounds was a very good-looking young man and his clothes were fine because his mother and his sisters thought so much of him. He wore a shield of otter skin across his breast. His quiver was full of arrows and covered with porcupine quills; and even his blanket was beautifully quilled. Also he had two fine spotted ponies that looked just alike. But I think he was prouder of his two older sisters than he was of the ponies, because they were very good to see and already they could do any woman’s work a little better than any of the other girls could. “This happened in the spring when the people were moving camp, and Thunder Sounds, not being a man yet, did something just for fun that would bother his sisters at their work. They were so bothered that they forgot all about the right way to do, and scolded him. And that was how it began. “When the camp moved, Thunder Sounds did not go along. He stayed right there, sitting on the ground in his fine clothes with his head hanging and his two spotted ponies looking at him with their heads hanging too; for it made them sad to feel how sad he was. It was morning when the camp moved, and when the sun was getting low, he still sat there thinking and thinking about his sisters and about death. Not only had they spoken to him and thus shown they did not respect him; they had even scolded him the way you scold a dog for stealing your meat. He knew that he just could not live any more; but how could he find death? “About that time a young man came back from the camp and stood beside Thunder Sounds and said: ‘Your sisters have sent me. They are sorry and they are crying for you to come back. Also they are cooking some tender meat just for you.’ But Thunder Sounds did not lift his head and the ponies did not lift their heads either, and the young man heard nothing but his own words. So afterwhile he got tired standing there, and went away. And the sun went down and there were stars and it was still. “Then Thunder Sounds stood up and began singing a death-song there in the big empty night, and the ponies neighed shrill. When he had sung, he mounted and the other pony followed and the three went away in the still starlight, looking for death. “As he rode, Thunder Sounds thought: Surely tomorrow or the next day or the next I shall meet an enemy who will kill me, and then all the shame will be gone. All night long he rode, and when the morning star looked out across the world where it was no longer night nor yet quite day, and he could hardly keep the saddle any more, and the ponies stumbled with weariness, he lay down on the prairie, thinking: Maybe an enemy will find me while I sleep and the sun will never see my shame again.