boys drove the herd of ponies to water, he drove his colt with the
rest. Presently the pony became used to him and allowed himself to
be handled. The boy began to ride him bareback; he was thrown many
times, but persisted until he could ride without even a lariat,
sitting with arms folded and guiding the animal by the movements of
his body. From that time on he told me that he broke all his own
ponies, and before long his father's as well.

The old men, his contemporaries, have often related to me how
Red Cloud was always successful in the hunt because his horses were
so well broken. At the age of nine, he began to ride his father's
pack pony upon the buffalo hunt. He was twelve years old, he told
me, when he was first permitted to take part in the chase, and
found to his great mortification that none of his arrows penetrated
more than a few inches. Excited to recklessness, he whipped his
horse nearer the fleeing buffalo, and before his father knew what
he was about, he had seized one of the protruding arrows and tried
to push it deeper. The furious animal tossed his massive head
sidewise, and boy and horse were whirled into the air.
Fortunately, the boy was thrown on the farther side of his pony,
which received the full force of the second attack. The thundering
hoofs of the stampeded herd soon passed them by, but the wounded
and maddened buffalo refused to move, and some critical moments
passed before Red Cloud's father succeeded in attracting its
attention so that the boy might spring to his feet and run for his
life.

I once asked Red Cloud if he could recall having ever been
afraid, and in reply he told me this story. He was about sixteen
years old and had already been once or twice upon the warpath, when