managed to catch my horse, and crawling on it I reached the camp. After a
little my knee got better, and then again worse, and then better again.
Still I could not walk, and for two years I stayed in the camp, crippled,
and unable to go from place to place, except when I was helped on my horse.
I grew thin and weak, and thought that I should die.

Many of the young men of my age, my friends, were sorry for me. They used
to come to my lodge and eat and talk, telling me the news. Sometimes, when
I was sitting out in the shade of the lodge, looking over the camp, and
feeling the pleasant breeze blow on my face, or the warm sun shine on my
body, I saw the young men and boys walking about, and running, and
wrestling, and kicking, and jumping on their horses and galloping off, and
it made me feel badly to think that I could no longer do the things that I
used to do; could no longer hunt, and help to support my relations; could
no longer go off on the warpath with my fellows, to fight the enemy, or to
take plunder from them. I was useless.

Often during this time, older men--my uncle's friends--used to come to the
lodge, and stop there and talk with me for a little time, to cheer me up,
for I think they too felt sorry for me. The doctors tried hard to cure my
leg, but though they did many things, and I and my uncle paid them many
horses, and saddles and blankets, they could not help me. Once in a while,
in the morning, after all the men had gone out to chase buffalo, or to hunt
for smaller animals, deer or elk or antelope, Standing Alone would come to
my mother's lodge, perhaps bringing some little present for her, and would
sit and talk with her, and sometimes look at me, and I could see that her
eyes were full of tears, and that she too felt sorry. Sometimes she spoke
to me, but not often; but it always made me glad to see her, and made me
feel more than ever that she had a good heart.