The change of membership from one society to another was made in the spring, after the grass had started.  Two, three, or more lodge coverings were stretched over poles, making one very large lodge, and in this the ceremonies accompanying the changes took place.

In later times, the Braves were the most important and best known of any of the All Comrades societies.  The members of this band were soldiers or police.  They were the constables of the camp, and it was their duty to preserve order, and to punish offenders.  Sometimes young men would skylark in camp at night, making a great noise when people wanted to sleep, and would play rough practical jokes, that were not at all relished by those who suffered from them.  One of the forms which their high spirits took was to lead and push a young colt up to the door of a lodge, after people were asleep, and then, lifting the door, to shove the animal inside and close the door again.  Of course the colt, in its efforts to get out to its mother, would run round and round the lodge, trampling over the sleepers and roughly awakening them, knocking things down and creating the utmost confusion, while the mare would be whinnying outside the lodge, and the people within, bewildered and confused, did not know what the disturbance was all about.

The Braves would punish the young men who did such things,—­if they could catch them,—­tearing up their blankets, taking away their property, and sometimes whipping them severely.  They were the peace officers of the camp, like the lari p[=u]k’[=u]s among the Pawnees.

Among the property of the Brave society were two stone-pointed arrows, one “shield you don’t sit down with,” and one rattle.  The man who carried this rattle was known as Brave Dog, and if it passed from one member of the society to another, the new owner became known as Brave Dog.  The man who received the shield could not sit down for the next four days and four nights, but for all that time was obliged to run about the camp, or over the prairie, whistling like a rabbit.

The societies known as Soldiers and Bulls had passed out of existence before the time of men now of middle age.  The pipe of the Soldier society is still in existence, in the hands of Double Runner.  The bull’s head war bonnet, which was the insignia of the Bulls society, was formerly in the possession of Young Bear Chief, at present chief of the Don’t Laugh band of the Piegans.  He gave it to White Calf, who presented it to a recent agent.

In the old days, and, indeed, down to the time of the disappearance of the buffalo, the camp was always arranged in the form of a circle, the lodges standing at intervals around the circumference, and in the wide inner space there was another circle of lodges occupied by the chief of certain bands of the I-kun-uh’-kah-tsi.  When all the gentes of the tribe were present, each had its special position in the circle, and always