The sage hen or sage grouse, a beautiful Western bird that should be saved.
After we had been here a few days, some of the Indians wanted to go on to the place where we were to meet Washakie; but mother said she would not move until I got better, so five tepees stayed with us and the rest went on. Washakie and his party were at the rendezvous waiting for them. When they told him how I was, he started out, and in two days he reached our camp.
The chief was very angry when he saw my leg and was told how I had been treated. It was bad enough, he said, to be bitten by a dog without having the squaw threaten to kill me. He said that she would have to leave the tribe. When I told him how the old medicine man had acted, he was angrier still.
The chief had left his things in bad shape; he wanted to go back as soon as I could be moved. I told him I thought I could travel, so the next morning we packed up for the start; but as I went to get on my horse it hurt my leg so much that I began to cry.
“Hold on,” said Washakie, “I will fix things so you can ride better.” Then he and some more Indians tied some tepee poles on each side of two horses and wove some rope between the poles, making a kind of litter. Several buffalo robes were thrown on the rope net and this made a fine bed. Mother led the front horse and away we went in first-class style. After we got going, Washakie came up and asked me whether they were traveling too fast.
“No,” I said, “you can run if you want to.”
He laughed and said that I was all right.
That day mother got some boys to shoot some sage hens for her. They killed three and when we camped she put the entrails on my sore leg. I slept well that night. It was the first good sleep I had had for more than a week. As we traveled along, mother took good care of my leg in this way and by the time we got to the main camp I could walk again on my crutches.
The next morning after we arrived here, Washakie told the War Chief to send down the river for the best medicine man in the tribe. I told Washakie that I would not let any more of his medicine men fool with my leg. He said that he only wanted him to see it. That day the good medicine man came, and when he saw my leg, he shook his head and said that it was a wonder I was alive, for the old medicine man had been putting poison weeds on it, and if he had kept it up two days longer I would have been dead.
Washakie sent for the old medicine man. When he came the chief asked him, “What have you been doing with this boy?”