About midnight, the barking would start up again, especially if there was a moon, and again a little before daylight; but I was usually asleep at these hours.
In daytime lookouts were always on the roofs of some of the lodges watching if enemies or buffaloes were about. If they saw our hunters, with meat, coming home over the prairie, these lookouts would cry out, “Hey-da-ey!”[12] And the dogs, knowing what the cry meant, would join in with “wu-u-u-u.”[13] They liked fresh buffalo meat no less than the Indians.
[12] He̱y dä e̱y´
[13] Wṳ-ṳ-ṳ
But the greatest excitement was when enemies were seen. The lookouts then cried, “Ahahuts[14]—they come against us!” Warriors, on hearing the cry, seized weapons and ran out of their lodges, yelling shrilly. The chiefs sprang for their ponies, twisting lariats into the ponies’ mouths for bridles. Medicine men chanted holy songs, and women ran about calling to their children. But above all rose the barking of the dogs, every beast joining in the hubbub.
[14] A hä hṳts´
One day, after the midday meal—I think I was then eight years old—old Turtle went down to the river and fetched an armful of dry willows. They were about four feet long and as thick as a child’s wrist; some were forked at the top. She set them in a circle, with tops together like a tepee, at one side of the lodge entrance near the place where the dogs slept.
“What are you doing, grandmother?” I asked.
Turtle did not answer my question. “I want to get some dry grass,” she said. “Come and help me.”
We went out to a place in the hills where was some long, dead grass. Turtle pulled a big armful, piling it on her robe which she spread on the ground. She drew the corners of the robe together, slung the bundle over her shoulder and we came back to the village.