AS Oshda grew older, he learned to throw the lasso. By the time he was grown he could lasso almost any of the cattle, no matter how fast his horse or the cattle were going.
He took the skin off every animal he killed and cut holes around the edge. Then he put stakes through the holes, drove the stakes into the ground as far apart as the skin would stretch, and left the skin to dry. Sometimes there were large places in the hills near the Mission, where the skins were laid so close together you could not see the ground.
Every time Oshda killed one of the cattle, he built a fire, hung some big iron kettles over it, and threw the fat parts of the cattle into these. Soon the kettles were full of boiling grease.
Docas had two more children besides Oshda,—a boy named Pantu and a little girl named Colla. Pantu and Colla liked to go with Oshda when he melted the fat. Oshda always said, though, that if they went with him they must work. There were many things they could do to help. They could bring wood and build the fire, and they could keep it going after it was built.
Oshda
When the fire was built, and the fat meat was sizzling in the kettles, Oshda went off a little way and dug a hole in the black adobe. Then he said to Pantu, “Run and get me some clay from the clay bank.” The clay was wet and sticky. When Pantu brought it, it stuck to his fingers until his hands looked as if he had been making bricks.
Oshda took the clay and plastered the sides and bottom of the hole he had dug, smoothing them off until they were shiny. Docas came up just then with some long sticks.
Docas stuck one of the sticks in the middle of the hole.
Oshda then said to the children, “Make some more holes just like this one and stick the rest of the sticks up in them.”