Large camp—Meet Mr. Steinhauer—Witness process of making provisions—Strange life.
Ascending a ridge, the large camp was before us—rings within rings of white tents, varying in size but all of one shape, and all made from the buffalo's hide; many of them covered with hieroglyphics and paintings indicative either of supernatural power or of martial achievement; their projecting ventilators tasselled with buffalo hair and gently flapping in the breeze.
In and out among their tents, and beyond them for a mile all around, hundreds of horses were feeding, while on almost every knoll groups of guards could be seen, whose duty it was to watch over these herds of horses, and, in so doing, the camp also.
MASKEPETOON'S CAMP
Everywhere among the tents were stagings made of peeled poles, on which was spread the meat of recent hunts in various stages of curing; for here meat was cured without either sugar or salt, with only the sun and wind and the chemicals which may be in the atmosphere; and this meat, either as dried meat, or pemmican, or pounded meat and grease, will keep for many years in a perfect state of preservation.
Women were dressing skins, scraping hides, rendering tallow, pounding meat, making pemmican, slicing up the fresh meat and hanging it on the stages; some were cooking; some were sewing, with awl for needle and sinew for thread. Scores of naked children were playing and eating and crying in every direction.
Hundreds of dogs, half wolf, were fighting and stealing and barking as we rode through the circle of lodges on into the centre, where a small cluster of large tents stood.
Here we alighted, and again the chief welcomed the strangers to his country and camp, and once more invoked Heaven's blessings upon the meeting, and then invited us to enter a large tent, which was to be our home while in the camp.