"Of course there isn't," I replied, after a moment's reflection. "Don't joke about the bad fix we are in; that may make it all the worse for us."
He looked at me pityingly. "Ah, you are no different from the rest of the whites. True, they are far wiser than we Lone People. But take away from them the things their powerful medicine has taught them how to make, guns and powder and ball, fire steels and sticks, knives and clothes and blankets of hair, take from them these things and they perish. Yes, they die where we should live, and live comfortably."
I felt that there was much truth in what he said. I doubted if any of the company's men, even the most experienced of them, would have been able to make a fire had they been stripped of everything that they possessed. But his other statement, that if necessary he could get food for us at once.
"Where could you find something for us to eat now?" I asked.
"Out there anywhere," he replied, with a wave of the hand. "Haven't you noticed the trails of the rabbits, hard-packed little paths in the snow, where they travel round through the brush? Yes, of course you have. Well, after the middle of the night, when the moon rises and gives some light, I could go out there and set some snares in those paths, using our moccasin strings for loops, and in a short time we would have a rabbit; maybe two or three of them."
How easy a thing seems, once you know how to do it! I realized instantly that the plan was perfectly feasible, and wondered at my own dullness in not having thought of it. I had been sitting up stiffly enough before the fire, anxiety over our situation keeping my nerves all a-quiver. Now a pleasant sense of security came to me. I felt only tired and sleepy, and dropped back on the boughs.
"Pitamakan, you are very wise," I said, and in a moment was sound asleep. If he answered I never heard him.
Every time the fire died down the cold awoke one or both of us to put on fresh fuel; and then we slept again, and under the circumstances, passed a very restful night.
Soon after daylight snow began to fall again, not so heavily as in the previous storm, but with a steadiness that promised a long period of bad weather. We did not mind going out into it, now that we could come back to a fire at any time and dry ourselves.
Before setting forth, however, we spent some time in making two rude willow arrows. We mashed off the proper lengths with our "anvil" and cutting-stone, smoothed the ends by burning them, and then scraped the shafts and notched them with our obsidian knives. I proposed that we sharpen the points, but Pitamakan said no; that blunt ones were better for bird shooting, because they smashed the wing bones. Pitamakan had worked somewhat on the bow during the evening, scraping it thinner and drying it before the fire, so that now it had more spring; enough to get us meat, he thought. The great difficulty would be to shoot the unfeathered, clumsy arrows true to the mark.