So as the days went by she did her part in curing the robe. When it was staked out, hair side up, she too, rubbed the long fur with a cooked mixture made of meat, roots and herbs. Then she watched the women arrange masses of dried grass in the centre, gather up the ends and sides, and twist the robe into a tight ball which they put to soak over night.
She felt very proud and important the next morning as she hurried to the women, who already held the ends, and were standing far apart twisting the hide into a long, hard rope, from which liquid was dripping. When they began to stretch three sides of the robe on a large, slanting frame, Songbird helped industriously, and she also did her part in staking the lower end of the skin to the ground.
After that she sat quietly watching work that she was not tall enough nor strong enough to do. One of the two women who had first worked on the hide now took a broad blade of thin stone, almost six feet long. A piece of bone made a handle in the centre of the thin stone slab. The blade was pressed strongly against the upper end of the hide, and then drawn quickly and firmly toward the bottom, so that all moisture oozed down.
The second woman, with the same kind of tool, at once did the same thing, so that no water could be again soaked up by the hide. This work went on until no moisture rose to the surface, then the skin was left to dry and bleach on the frame.
A number of days passed before the robe was dry enough for the next work, which had to be done while the skin was still on the frame. Each of the women had a round buffalo joint, like a large knuckle, and with this they rubbed the entire surface of the hide, to make it the same thickness all over.
When that had been properly finished, every tear was mended carefully with threads of strong sinews thrust through tiny holes made by awls which were fashioned of sharply pointed tough wood, or of thin flint stones.
Then nothing remained to do except for the squaws to hold the cross-corners of the robe around a large rough tree and draw it back and forth, fur-side out. This removed the last bit of stiffness, and the women of the village gathered about the robe, examining and praising its softness.
Songbird ran to her father. "It is done!" she cried in delight. "Come see it! All the women say that it is the largest and finest robe the Quahadas have ever seen!"
Her hand was tugging, while her eager feet danced ahead of Quannah's more sedate pace. But at last they came to the place where the women formed an admiring group about the largest buffalo robe that had ever been brought into their camps. They made way for the chief, who passed between them in quiet dignity, and Songbird, beside him, held her little head high with pride—not pride for herself, but pride of her father, the chief, who was so brave, so great, and so good.
"It is good," he spoke at last, after he had studied the robe closely. "Moko shall paint on it the story of the Big Fight when our little boys frightened the white horses. So, the children of our children shall learn the story."