My father had two pack horses loaded with our stuff and our dogs dragged well-laden travois. While my mothers were unpacking, my father made a fire. He drew his flint and steel, and with a bit of soft, rotten wood for tinder struck a spark. In olden times the Hidatsas made fire with two sticks. “I saw very old men make fire thus, when I was a lad,” my grandfather once told me. I never saw it done myself.
Small Ankle wrapped the spark, caught in the tinder, in a little bunch of dry grass, and waved it in the air until the grass was ablaze. He had raked together some bits of charcoal in the fireplace and on them laid a few dry-wood splinters. To these he held the burning grass and soon had a fire.
There was a little firewood in the lodge, left from the previous autumn, but not enough to keep the fire going long. As my mothers were still unpacking, my father offered to go out and get wood for the night. Getting wood, we thought, was woman’s work; but my father was a kind man, willing to help his wives.
From the saddle of one of his horses Small Ankle took a rawhide lariat, and to one end fastened a short stick. There were some cottonwoods under the river bank, not far from the village. Into one of the largest trees Small Ankle threw his lariat until the stick caught in some dead branches overhead. A sharp pull broke off the branches. My father gathered them up and bore them to the lodge.
There were logs and dead wood lying along the river, but they were wet with the snows. My father knew the dead branches in the trees would be dried by the winds. He wanted dry wood to kindle a quick fire.
The next morning after we had eaten, Red Blossom took her ax, and, dragging a travois from its place against the fire screen, led the way out of the lodge. Strikes-Many Woman followed her. Our biggest dog, lying outside, saw them coming. He got up, shaking himself, wagging his tail, and barking wu-wu-wu! Our dogs were always ready to be harnessed. They liked to go to the woods, knowing they would be fed well afterwards.
This, our best dog, was named Akeekahee,[17] or Took-from-Him. He belonged to Red Blossom. A woman owning a dog would ask some brave man of her family to name him for her; and Red Blossom had asked my grandfather, Big Cloud, to name her dog. Once an enemy had stolen his horse, but Big Cloud gave chase and retook his horse from that bad enemy. For this, he named the dog Took-from-Him.
[17] Ȧ kēē´ kä hēē
My mothers harnessed their dogs, four in number and started off. They returned a little after midday; first, Red Blossom, with a great pack of wood on her back; after her, Strikes-Many Woman; then the four dogs, marching one behind the other, Took-from-Him in the lead. Each dog dragged a travois loaded with wood.