A Lie That Came True.

Soon after this something strange happened.

I had a friend named Sun’s Road.  He was a little younger than I, perhaps eighteen or twenty years old, big enough to have a sweetheart, and there was a girl in the camp that he wished to please.  He had been more than once to war and had done well, but he wanted to do still better.  He was eager to do great things, to make the people talk about him and say that he was brave and always lucky.  Like most other young men, he wished to become a great man.

Our camp was on the South Platte River, a big village of near two hundred lodges.  All these had been made during the summer, and were new, white and clean.  The camp looked nice, but now the buffalo had all gone away.  None were to be found and the people were hungry.  They had eaten all the food they had saved and now they were eating their dogs, and most of these were already gone.

One day two boys, each the son of a chief, were out on the prairie hunting, and each killed an antelope and took it to his father’s lodge.  After these had been cooked the chiefs were called together to feast.  There was not enough food to allow them to call any others except the chiefs.

I heard of all this at the time, but it was a good deal later that Sun’s Road told me what he had done and what happened to him about this time.  He did not wish me to tell anyone about it, but it is a long time ago and those who were important people at that time are now dead, so I think no harm can be done by telling of it.

After these chiefs had eaten, they talked of the suffering of the people and tried to think what could be done to help them.  After a time one of the chiefs came out of the lodge and walked through the camp crying aloud to the people, saying, “Listen, listen, you people; we will all stay in this camp.”  This he called out again and again as he walked around the circle, so that all might hear him.

After a time Sun’s Road heard his name called, and the old man shouted:  “Sun’s Road, Sun’s Road; the chief wishes you to go to his lodge.  He wishes you to go out to look for buffalo.”

Sun’s Road went to the chief’s lodge and when he had entered they told him where he should sit, by the door, and gave him a little piece of antelope meat to eat.  After he had finished eating, the chief said to him:  “We want you to-night to go across the river to the other side, and you shall go to where the pile of bones is, where we had the fight with the Pawnees.  On the other side of that hill for a long distance the country is level.  Look over that country and see if you can see any buffalo and come back and let us know what you have seen.  If you see no buffalo do not go farther; come back from there.”

The pile of bones was a breastwork of buffalo bones built on the top of a very high hill by some Pawnees who many years before had been surrounded there by men of our tribe.