nothing in reply. Turning to my mother, she offered her the pipe. I
glanced at my grandmother. The loose buckskin sleeve fell off at her
elbow and showed a wrist covered with silver bracelets. Holding up the
fingers of her left hand, she named off the desirable young women of our
village.

"Which one, my grandchild, which one?" she questioned.

"Hoh!" I said, pulling at my blanket in confusion. "Not yet!" Here my
mother passed the pipe over the fire to my father. Then she, too, began
speaking of what I should do.

"My son, be always active. Do not dislike a long hunt. Learn to provide
much buffalo meat and many buckskins before you bring home a wife."
Presently my father gave the pipe to my grandmother, and he took his
turn in the exhortations.

"Ho, my son, I have been counting in my heart the bravest warriors of
our people. There is not one of them who won his title in his sixteenth
winter. My son, it is a great thing for some brave of sixteen winters to
do."

Not a word had I to give in answer. I knew well the fame of my warrior
father. He had earned the right of speaking such words, though even he
himself was a brave only at my age. Refusing to smoke my grandmother's
pipe because my heart was too much stirred by their words, and sorely
troubled with a fear lest I should disappoint them, I arose to go.
Drawing my blanket over my shoulders, I said, as I stepped toward the
entranceway: "I go to hobble my pony. It is now late in the night."