dow.

An old chief, who had been in many battles, once told me his great
dream, withholding the name of the animal or bird that appeared therein
and became his "medicine."

He said that when he was a boy of twelve years, his father, who was
chief of his tribe, told him that it was time that he tried to dream.
After his sweat-bath, the boy followed his father without speaking,
because the postulant must not converse or associate with other humans
between the taking of the bath and the finished attempt to dream. On
and on into the dark forest the father led, followed by the naked boy,
till at last the father stopped on a high hill, at the foot of a giant
pine-tree.

By signs the father told the boy to climb the tree and to get into an
eagle's nest that was on the topmost boughs. Then the old man went
away, in order that the boy might reach the nest without coming too
close to his human conductor.

Obediently the boy climbed the tree and sat upon the eagle's nest on
the top. "I could see very far from that nest," he told me. "The day
was warm and I hoped to dream that night, but the wind rocked the tree
top, and the darkness made me so much afraid that I did not sleep.

"On the fourth night there came a terrible thunder-storm, with
lightning and much wind. The great pine groaned and shook until I was
sure it must fall. All about it, equally strong trees went down with
loud crashings, and in the dark there were many awful sounds--sounds
that I sometimes hear yet. Rain came, and I grew cold and more afraid.
I had eaten nothing, of course, and I was weak--so weak and tired, that
at last I slept, in the nest. I dreamed; yes, it was a wonderful dream
that came to me, and it has most all come to pass. Part is yet to
come. But come it surely will.

"First I saw my own people in three wars. Then I saw the Buffalo
disappear in a hole in the ground, followed by many of my people. Then
I saw the whole world at war, and many flags of white men were in this
land of ours. It was a terrible war, and the fighting and the blood
made me sick in my dream. Then, last of all, I saw a 'person'
coming--coming across what seemed the plains. There were deep shadows
all about him as he approached. This 'person' kept beckoning me to
come to him, and at last I did go to him.

"'Do you know who I am,' he asked me.

"'No, "person," I do not know you. Who are you, and where is your
country?'

"'If you will listen to me, boy,