is horse and travels to the place. When he comes to the
edge of the patch and looks out on it, he sees many small children at work
there, killing worms. He has not believed in this before, but now he goes
back convinced. Such a young man does not live very long.

At length the season comes for gathering the crop, and, at a time
appointed, all the camps begin to move back toward the tobacco patch,
timing their marches so that all may reach it on the same day. When they
get there, they camp near it, but no one visits it except the head man of
the medicine men who took charge of the planting. This man goes to the bed,
gathers a little of the plant, and returns to the camp.

A small boy, six or eight years old, is selected to carry this plant to the
centre of the circle. The man who gathered the tobacco ties it to a little
stick, and, under the tobacco, to the stick he ties a baby's moccasin. The
little boy carries this stick to the centre of the camp, and stands it in
the ground in the middle of the circle, the old man accompanying him and
showing him where to put it. It is left there all night. The next day there
is a great feast, and the kettles of food are all brought to the centre of
the camp. The people all gather there, and a prayer is made. Then they sing
the four songs which belong especially to this festival. The first and
fourth are merely airs without words; the second has words, the purport of
which is, "The sun goes with us." The third song says, "Hear your
children's prayer." After the ceremony is over, every one is at liberty to
go and gather the tobacco. It is dried and put in sacks for use during the
year. The seed is collected for the next planting. When they reach the
patch, if the crop is good, every one is glad. After the gathering, they
all move away again after the buffalo.

Sometimes a man who was lazy, and had planted no tobacco, would go secretly
to the patch, and pull a number of plants belonging to some one else, and
hide them for his own use. Now, in these prayers that they offer, they do
not ask for mercy for thieves. A man who had thus taken what did not belong
to him would have a lizard appear to him in a dream, and then he would fall
sick and die. The medicine men would know of all this, but they would not
do anything. They would just let him die.

This tobacco was given us by the one who made us.

The Blackfoot cosmology is imperfect and vague, and I have been able to
obtain nothing lik