the horses' feet, or the other small birds that lived among the bushes and
trees in the bottom. If I killed a little bird, as sometimes I did, my
mother cooked it and we ate it.

[Illustration: HUNTING IN THE BRUSH ALONG THE RIVER]

This was a happy time for me. We little boys played together all the time.
Sometimes the older boys allowed us to go with them, when they went far
from the village, to hunt rabbits, and when they did this, sometimes they
told us to carry back the rabbits that they had killed; and I remember that
once I came back with the heads of three rabbits tucked under my belt,
killed by my cousin, who was older than I. Then we used to go out and watch
the men and older boys playing at sticks; and we had little sticks of our
own, and our older brothers and cousins made us wheels; and we, too, played
the stick game among ourselves, rolling the wheel and chasing it as hard as
we could; but, for the most part, we threw our sticks at marks, trying to
learn how to throw them well, and how to slide them far over the ground.

[Illustration: WATCH THE MEN AND OLDER BOYS PLAYING AT STICKS]

I remember another thing--a sad thing--that happened when I was a very
little boy.

It was winter; the snow lay deep on the ground; a few lodges of people were
camped in some timber among the foothills; buffalo were close, and game was
plenty; the camp was living well. With the others I played about the camp,
spinning tops on the ice, sliding down hill on a bit of parfleche, or on a
sled made of buffalo ribs, and sometimes hunting little birds in the brush.
All this I know about from having heard my mother tell of it; it is not in
my memory. This is what I remember: One day, with one of my friends, I had