he had finished the medicine song. "First of all, we must find shelter from t

above the tops of the pines, but by the time we arrived there night had fairly come. At this point a huge pile of boulders formed the upper edge of the slope, and for a moment we stood undecided which way to turn. "Toward home, of course!" Pit

sniffing; soon he asked,

other than that of the dank

place. But the rain was falling now in a heavy downpour; the rising wind lashed it in our faces and made the fore

lie down for their winter sleep until the snow has covered up their fo

came to the place. There we knelt down, hand in han

had been here last winter," Pitamakan added. "T

ld and wet that my teeth rattled, I managed

f the air and listen, we made our cautious way inside, and presently came to a

ere and made himself a bed for the winter; they always do that in the month of falling le

eet at the back. Having finished the examination, we burrowed down into the grass and leaves, snuggled close together, and cove

ing to recover not only our horses, but, if possible, our rifles also. I made the objection that even if we got a whole night's start of the Kootenays, they, knowing the trails better than we did,

uth of the cave. The snow was more than a foot deep in front of us, and falling so fast that only the nearest of the big pines below could be seen. The weather

would be useless to try to take an

low our tracks and easily ov

n, I, too, became silent. But not for long; so many fears and doubts were oppressing

ross the summit until summer comes again. This is winter. See, the s

die right here

prayers to the sun, and to Old Man-the World-Maker-to give us help. There in the low little cave his song sounded muffled

ly smiled; and finally he turned to me and said, "Do not worr

were, and he replied by

" I said. "I am w

ig meal; at midday, another; at sunset, another. If even one of these is missed, they say they are starving. No, brot

n belief in those times that a person co

continued. "Were we to go out in that snow and get wet and the

for the snow to melt away," I said, "for w

the plains. There the snow comes and goes many times during the winter; here it o

ere no chinook winds on the west side of the range. So I proposed what had been on my mi

ive us away. No, we cannot go to them," said Pitamakan

n it made in the old way because my people got the new way before I was born. But I have often heard the older ones tell how it used to be made, and I believe that I can do it myself. It is easy. You take a small, dry, hard stick li

tamakan could make the fire. He added that he would not try it until the weather clear

sappeared, the weather turned much colder, and it was well for us that the heat of our bodies had pret

ut that. If it was a black bear, we were safe enough, because they are the most cowardly of all animals, and even when wounded, will not attack a ma

gain, and again, until we were hoarse. Then we listened. All was still. Whatever ha

rawl out of the cave and run and jump, we lay still until the sun had warmed the air a bit. The night before I had be

all winter without

hunting and kill game. Then we will make us a comfortable lodge. O

ted. "They will come again a

untains as fast as they can go, and wil

oot of the cliff, until right in front of the cave, and then, startled, no doubt, by our yells, had gone leaping straight down into the timber. The short imp

eech-clout, and, fortunately, a shirt like mine that his aunt had given him. Neither of us had coat or waistcoat, but in place of them, capotes, hooded coats reachin

trips from the skirt of it, and then did the same with mine. With these we wrapped

fall had lodged in the thick branches of the pines. We came upon the tracks of deer and elk, and presently saw a fine white-tail buck staring cu

away, waving its broad flag as if in derision. "Never mind. We wi

n the hill. Before reaching the river we saw several more deer, a lone bull moose and a

al drift and river wash. I was to look for flint and "looks-like-ice rock," as the Blackfeet call obsidian. As I had never seen any obsidian, except in the form of very small, shiny arrow-points, it was not strange that Pitamakan found a nodule of it on a ba

ed to profit by the information. With a small stone for a hammer, he gently tapped one of the fragments, and succeeded in splintering it into several thin, sharp-edged fl

We had hunted for an hour or more, when a half-dozen ruffed grouse flushed from under the top of a fallen tree and flew up into the branches of a big fir, where

hed the course of each whizzing stone with intense eagerness, groaning, "Ai-ya!" when it went wide of the mark. Unlike white boys, Indian youths are very inexpert at throwing stones, for the reason that the

flutter a wing when a missile actually grazed it or struck the limb close to its feet. With the last stone of the lot I hit a grouse, and as it started

It was hurt. We could see that it had difficulty in holding up its head, and that its mouth was open. We felt certain of our meat. But no! Up it got when we were about to make our pounce, and half fluttered and half sailed another fifty yards or so. Again and again it rose, we hot after it, and finally it crossed

nd agai

ever were, we stood there in the cold snow and looked sadly at each other. "Oh, well, come on," said

seem to be good luck, and our spirits rose. We went out to the shore of the river, where I was set to rounding off the base of the spike and sharpening the point, first by rubbing it on a coarse-grained r

drill to work in. Hard wood, he had heard the old people say, was

or only half dry. It was by the merest chance that we found the very thing: a beaver-cutting of birch, cast by the spring freshet under a projecting ledge of rock, where it was protected from the rains. It was almost a foot in diameter and several feet long. We rubbed a coarse stone against the centre of it until t

ted to be stoical; to keep up a brave appearance to the last; but this pathetic prayer to heathen gods, coming as it did when I was weak from hunger and exposure, was too much. To this day I remember the exact words of it,

he point of it in the small, rough hole in the birch. We had already gathered some dry birch

an to twirl the drill between his hands, at th

ime. We tried it, and oh, how anxiously we watched for success, drilling and drilling for our very lives, drilling turn about until our muscles were so strained that we could not give the stick another tw

d nothing; his eyes had a strange, vacant expression. "We

even look at me, and I said

of C