“But Weasel Woman was not satisfied. Many young men and many old and rich men wanted to marry her, and to all she said ‘No!’ so loudly, and so quickly, that after a time all knew that she would not marry. Wherever a party of warriors gathered for a dance or a feast, there she was looking on, listening to their talk, and giving what help she could. And when a party returned from war, she was loudest in praising them. All she talked of, all she thought about, was war.
“On an evening in her twentieth summer a large party of warriors started out to cross the mountains and raid the Flatheads. They traveled all night, and when daylight came found that Weasel Woman was with them.
“‘Go back! Go home!’ the war chief told her. But she would not listen.
“‘If you will not let me go with you, I shall follow you,’ she said.
“And then spoke up the medicine man of the party: ‘Chief,’ said he, ‘I advise you to allow her to go with us; something tells me that she will bring us good luck.’
“‘Ah! As you advise me, so shall it be,’ said the war chief; and the woman went on with them. No man of that party teased her, nor bothered her in any way: every one of them treated her as they would a sister. It was the strangest war party that ever set forth from any tribe of the plains!
“It was at the edge of Flathead Lake that they discovered the enemy, a large camp of the Flatheads and their friends, the Pend d’Oreilles. When night came they went close up to it, and the woman said to the war chief: ‘Let me go in first. Let me see what I can do. I feel that I shall be successful in there.’
“‘Go!’ the chief told her, ‘and we will wait for you here, and be ready to help you if you get into trouble.’
“The woman went into the camp, where all the best horses of the people—their fast buffalo runners, their racers, and their stallions—were picketed close to the lodges of the different owners of them. If she was afraid of being discovered and killed, she never admitted it. The dying moon gave light enough for her to see the size and color of the horses. She took her time and went around among them, and, making her choice, cut the ropes of three fine pinto horses, and led them out to where the party awaited her. There she tied them, and went back into camp with the chief and his men and again came out with three horses. Said she then: ‘I have taken enough for this time. I will await you here and take care of what we have.’
“The men went back several times, and then, having all the horses that they could drive rapidly, the party struck for the mountains, and in several days’ time arrived home without the loss of a man or a horse.