t day all our people were invited to attend the
half-breeds' dance. I never knew before that a new year begins in
mid-winter. We had always counted that the year ends when the winter
ends, and a new year begins with the new life in the springtime.

I was now taken for the first time to a white man's dance in a log
house. I thought it was the dizziest thing I ever saw. One man sat in
a corner, sawing away at a stringed board, and all the while he was
stamping the floor with his foot and giving an occasional shout. When he
called out, the dancers seemed to move faster.

The men danced with women--something that we Indians never do--and when
the man in the corner shouted they would swing the women around. It
looked very rude to me, as I stood outside with the other boys and
peeped through the chinks in the logs. At one time a young man and woman
facing each other danced in the middle of the floor. I thought they
would surely wear their moccasins out against the rough boards; but
after a few minutes they were relieved by another couple.

Then an old man with long curly hair and a fox-skin cap danced alone in
the middle of the room, slapping the floor with his moccasined foot in
a lightning fashion that I have never seen equalled. He seemed to be
a leader among them. When he had finished, the old man invited our
principal chief into the middle of the floor, and after the Indian had
given a great whoop, the two drank in company. After this, there was so
much drinking and loud talking among the men, that it was thought best
to send us children back to the camp.

It was at this place that we found many sand boulders like a big "white
man's house." There were holes in them like rooms, and we played in
these cave-like holes. One day, in the midst of our game, we found the
skeleton of a great bear. Evidently he had been wounded and came there
to die, for there were several arrows on the floor of the cave.

The most exciting event of this year was the attack that the Gros
Ventres made upon us just as we moved our camp upon the table land back
of the river in the spring. We had plenty of meat then and everybody was
happy. The grass was beginning to appear and the ponies to grow fat.

One night there was a war dance. A few of our young men had planned to
invade the Gros Ventres country, but it seemed that they too had been
thinking of us. Everybody was interested in the proposed war party.

"Uncle, are you going too?" I eagerly