This is a true and sacred story that belongs to the Kit-ke-hahk´-i band. It happened once long ago, and has been handed down from father to son in this band. The Skidi had a man who once called the buffalo, causing them to return when stampeded, as was done in this story.
Note.--Big Knife, a Skidi, who died only recently, said that the man was alive in his time. _Kuru´ks-u le-shar_ (Bear Chief), a Skidi, says that he knew the man. His name was Carrying Mother.
About the end of the winter, before the grass began to grow in the spring, a company of three brothers and two other men went out from the village to trap beaver. When they had been gone about ten days, and had got up above the Forks of the Loup River, they camped on the South Fork, and in the morning sent one man ahead to see if he could find any beaver sign, and could look out a good trapping ground.
When he had gone a little distance from the camp, he saw some Sioux, and at the same moment they saw him. He did not run back to the camp; he was too anxious to save himself; but ran across to a little creek, and hid in the brush, not trying to let his brothers know that the enemy were near. The Sioux followed him and found him, and chased him about, and shot at him all day, until near sundown, when they killed him.
The four other men had stopped in camp, but were not so far off but that they could hear the shouts and yells, and they ran off from the camp, and hid themselves and waited. When the other man did not come back, they knew that he had been killed.
The next morning, the four men talked together. One said, "We had better go up and see if he is killed." Another said, "Yes, let us go there. It may be that we can bury him." So they went up where he had been, going very carefully, and looking over all the hills as they went, so as to see any enemies if they were about. They found him. He was dead, shot full of arrows, scalped, his whole head skinned, his arms and legs unjointed, his head cut off; he was all cut to pieces. So they thought that there was not enough of him left to bury, and besides, those killed in battle are often left unburied. When they found how it was, they started back to the village, and when they came close to it, one of the men called out, "_Pa-hu-ka´-tawa_ is killed!" He called that out so that the people might know, and might begin to mourn.