“A few days after the party came into camp the medicine lodge was put up, and on the day that the warriors counted their coups, and new names were given them, an old warrior and medicine man called Weasel Woman before the people, and had her count her coup—of going twice into the enemy’s camp and taking six horses. All shouted approval of that, and then the medicine man gave her the name, Pi′-ta-mak-an, a very great one, that of a chief whose shadow had some time before gone on to the Sand Hills.
“After that Pi′tamakan, as we now may call her, did not have to sneak after a party in order to go to war with them: she was asked to go. And after two or three more successful raids against different enemies, the Crows, the Sioux, and the Flatheads, she herself became a war chief, and warriors begged to be allowed to join her parties, because they believed that where she led nothing but good luck would come to them. She now wore men’s clothing when on a raid. At home she wore her woman clothing. But even in that dress she, like any man, gave feasts and dances, and the greatest chiefs and warriors came to them, and were glad to be there.
“On her sixth raid, Pi′tamakan led a large war party against the Flatheads, and somewhere on the other side of the mountains fell in with a war party of Bloods, one of our brother tribes of the North. For several days the two parties traveled along together, and then one evening the Blood chief, Falling Bear, said to Pi′tamakan’s servant: ‘Go tell your chief woman that I would like to marry her.’
“‘Chief, you do not understand,’ the boy told him. ‘She is not that kind. Men are her brothers, and nothing more. She will never marry. I cannot give her your message, for I am afraid that she would be angry with me for carrying it to her.’
“On the next day, as they were traveling along, the Blood chief said to Pi′tamakan: ‘I have never loved, but I love now. I love you; my heart is all yours; let us marry.’
“‘I will not say “yes” to that, nor will I say “no,”’ the woman chief answered him. ‘I will consider what you ask, and give you an answer after we make this raid.’
“And with that the Blood chief said no more, but felt encouraged: he thought that in time she would agree to become his woman.
“That very evening the scouts ahead discovered a large camp of Flathead and Kootenai Indians, more than a hundred lodges of them, and when night came both parties drew close in to it. Pi′tamakan then ordered her followers to remain where they were and told the Blood chief to say the same thing to his men. She then told the Blood chief to go into the camp and take horses, and he went in and returned with one horse.
“‘It is now my turn,’ said Pi′tamakan, and she went in and brought out two horses.
“The Blood chief went in and brought out two horses.