Meantime, Songbird wandered sadly among the tepees where the other children played happily while their fathers rode with Quannah to fight the white men. The squaws tried to interest her in the work they were doing, and took the best bits of venison and thrust green willow twigs through the meat, so that she might hold it in the campfire and cook it.
Songbird smiled gravely when they did this and shook her head. She was not hungry, but the other children crowded up noisily and ate the crisp tender meat, laughing when one child held his stick too long, so that it burnt and let the meat fall into the hot wood ashes from which he at once fished it with his twig.
New clothes, fashioned from soft buckskin, new moccasins made from buckskin with soles of tough buffalo hide, were laid in her father's tepee for Songbird. Though she put them on, she did not run to show them to the other children. Always she had hurried to her father first, that he might praise her new things. As she remembered it, she slipped away alone to the edge of the creek near camp. Sitting beneath the tree where she had woven the wild flowers in Star's mane, she wondered when her father would come back.
"If he had left Star with me," she said at last, as though the fishes in the creek could hear her and understand, "I could follow him when it grew dark, and if I found him he would not send me back."
But the fishes did not pause to listen, and at last she rose and went back to the camp. The buffalo calf, tied by a plaited rope made of strips of cured hides, rubbed its thickly haired head against her shoulder, and pretended to fight her, but she did not laugh at it as she had always done while her father stood beside her. She changed the calf to another place, and fastened the rope carefully; then, having brought fresh water to it in a bucket made of dry hide, she went into the big tepee.
Her pet horn-toads were kept in one of the deep pottery bowls made from dirt and clay, then set in the sun to dry and harden. She carried the little creatures outside and let them run about on the ground and eat small insects. The bright orange, black, and red colouring of their backs made a beautiful design and looked as though an artist had painted them. Each head had a circlet of small sharp horns, while two larger ones stood up very fiercely, and all over their backs were other tiny horns, reaching to the tapering tail. Songbird knew the horn-toads could not hurt her with their many horns, nor could they bite, for they had no teeth.
After eating, the toads became sleepy, so she placed them back in the bowl and carried them to their accustomed place in the tepee.
"Caw! Caw!" a crow croaked outside, and Songbird hastened to the black, shining bird that walked jerkily at the entrance of her home. Its beady eyes blinked up at her, and its head twisted sidewise in a very knowing manner; then it straightened up and gave its hoarse call, as though it had a sore throat.
"Caw! Caw!"
She did not clap her hands to-day and imitate its cry, but moved quietly into the tepee and soon came back, holding a deep earthen bowl which she placed on the ground. The crow sidled up, cocking its head to see if anything were coming upon it from the sky or from the back. Satisfied that no robbers were near, it began eating.