Cold weather was coming. Some snow had already fallen in the mountains. Hanabi and her friends went to work to make me some better clothes. Very soon they had a fine suit ready.
The trousers part was made somewhat like the chaps worn by cowboys, being open in front, with no seat; but on the sides they had wedge-shaped strips that ran up and fastened to the belt. These leggings fitted pretty tight, but there was a seam about as wide as my hand that could be let out if necessary. They gave me a pair of new moccasins that came up to my knees. They also made me another overshirt, or “mother-hubbard,” out of fine smoked buckskin; it fitted me better than did my first one. The sleeves came down a little below my elbows and had a long fringe from the shoulders down; it was also fringed around the neck and the bottom; and to touch it up more, they had stitched beads in heart and diamond shapes over the breast. The clothes were all very fine; but when I got them on, I looked a good deal like a squaw papoose. I didn’t care much, though, for the clothes fitted me pretty well and they were warm and comfortable. Mother also made me a hat out of muskrat skin. It ran to a peak and had two rabbit tails sewed to the top for tassels. With my new clothes on, I was better dressed than any other kid in camp.
Lee Moorhouse
Indian camp by a river.
We now started for the elk country. When we got there, the Indians killed about one hundred elk and a few bear; but by that time it was getting so cold that we set out for our winter quarters. After traveling a few days we reached a large river, called by the Indians Piatapa, by the whites the Jefferson River; it is now in Montana. Here we pitched camp to stay during the “snowy moons.”
Most of the buffaloes by this time had left for their winter range; but once in a while we saw a few as they passed our camp. The Indians did not bother them, however, because we had plenty of dried meat, and for fresh meat there were many white-tail deer that we could snare by hanging loops of rawhide over their trails through the willows. There were also a great many grouse and sage hens about in the brush. I have killed as many as six or seven of these a day with my bow and arrows.
Winter passed away very slowly. Nothing exciting happened until along towards spring; then one day we had a terrible fracas. Washakie had gone up the river a few miles to visit another large Indian village for a day or two. While he was away, pretty nearly all the camp got into a fight.
We had a fishing hole close to camp where the squaws and papooses would fish. Mother and I had been down there with the others fishing through this hole in the ice, and when we had caught a good string of fish mother took what we had to the tepee. She told me not to stay long.
As soon as she had gone, a girl, a little larger than I, wanted to take my tackle and fish in my hole. I let her have it, and she caught several fish. Then I heard mother call me and I asked the girl to give me back my pole so I could go home, but she would not do it. I tried to take it from her, but she jerked it away and hit me over the head with it, knocking me to my knees. I jumped up and gave her a whack that knocked her down; when she got up she let out some of the awfulest yelps I ever heard. Then she put for home as fast as she could go, yelling and screaming. I knew something else would happen pretty quick; so I gathered up what fish the other papooses hadn’t run away with and hiked for home too. Just as I got inside the tepee, the girl’s mother came rushing up with a big knife in her hand. “Give me that little white devil!” she screamed. “I’ll cut his heart out!” She started for me, but mother stopped her, and shoved her back out of the tepee.