them were those of his wife.

"Why have you come?" said the Thunder in a fearful voice.

"I seek my wife," the man replied, "whom you have stolen. There hang her
eyes."

"No man can enter my lodge and live," said the Thunder; and he rose to
strike him. Then the man pointed the raven wing at the Thunder, and he fell
back on his couch and shivered. But he soon recovered, and rose again. Then
the man fitted the elk-horn arrow to his bow, and shot it through the lodge
of rock; right through that lodge of rock it pierced a jagged hole, and let
the sunlight in.

"Hold," said the Thunder. "Stop; you are the stronger. Yours the great
medicine. You shall have your wife. Take down her eyes." Then the man cut
the string that held them, and immediately his wife stood beside him.

"Now," said the Thunder, "you know me. I am of great power. I live here in
summer, but when winter comes, I go far south. I go south with the
birds. Here is my pipe. It is medicine. Take it, and keep it. Now, when I
first come in the spring, you shall fill and light this pipe, and you shall
pray to me, you and the people. For I bring the rain which makes the
berries large and ripe. I bring the rain which makes all things grow, and
for this you shall pray to me, you and all the people."

Thus the people got the first medicine pipe. It was long ago.

THE BEAVER MEDICINE

This story goes back many years, to a time before the Indians went to war
against each other. Then there was peace among all the tribes. They met,
and did not kill each other. They had no guns and they had no horses. When
two tribes met, the head chiefs would take each a stick and touch each
other. Each had counted a _coup_ on the other, and they then went back to
their camps. It was more a friendly than a hostile ceremony.

Oftentimes, when a party of young men had gone to a strange camp, and had
done this to those whom they had visited, they would come back to their
homes and would tell the girls whom they loved that they had counted a
_coup_ on this certain tribe of people. After the return of such a party,
the young women would have a dance. Each one would wear clothing like that
of the man she loved, and as she danced, she would count a _coup_, saying
that she herself had done the deed which her young lover had really done.
Such was the custom of the people.

There was a chief in a camp who had three wives, all very pretty women. He
used to say to these women, whenever a d