with a
powder-horn, and furnished with shot, and allowed to go out after birds.
One of the young Indians went with me, to observe my manner of shooting.
I killed three more pigeons in the course of the afternoon, and did not
discharge my gun once without killing. Henceforth I began to be treated
with more consideration, and was allowed to hunt often, that I might
become expert.

Game began to be scarce, and we all suffered from hunger. The chief man
of our band was called As-sin-ne-boi-nainse (the Little Assinneboin),
and he now proposed to us all to move, as the country where we were was
exhausted. The day on which we were to commence our removal was fixed
upon, but before it arrived our necessities became extreme. The evening
before the day on which we intended to move my mother talked much of all
our misfortunes and losses, as well as of the urgent distress under
which we were then labouring. At the usual hour I went to sleep, as did
all the younger part of the family; but I was wakened again by the loud
praying and singing of the old woman, who continued her devotions
through great part of the night. Very early on the following morning she
called us all to get up, and put on our moccasins, and be ready to
move. She then called Wa-me-gon-a-biew to her, and said to him, in
rather a low voice, 'My son, last night I sung and prayed to the Great
Spirit, and when I slept, there came to me one like a man, and said to
me, "Net-no-kwa, to-morrow you shall eat a bear. There is, at a distance
from the path you are to travel to-morrow, and in such a direction"
(which she described to him), "a small round meadow, with something like
a path leading from it; in that path there is a bear." Now, my son, I
wish you to go to that place, without mentioning to anyone what I have
said, and you will certainly find the bear, as I have described to you.'
But the young man, who was not particularly dutiful, or apt to regard
what his mother said, going out of the lodge, spoke sneeringly to the
other Indians of the dream. 'The old woman,' said he, 'tells me we are
to eat a bear to-day; but I do not know who is to kill it.' The old
woman, hearing him, called him in, and reproved him; but she could not
prevail upon him to go to hunt.

I had my gun with me, and I continued to think of the conversation I had
heard between my mother and Wa-me-gon-a-biew respecting her dream. At
length I resolved to go in search of the place she had spoken of, and