“As he lay there he heard some one riding toward him, but thought it was one of his party. It was a Sioux; and right in the midst of the song—poh!—the Sioux fired, wounding Weasel Arm in the hip. Luckily the wound was slight, and Weasel Arm sprang for the near-by woods. The Sioux dared not follow him, for he saw that Weasel Arm had a gun.”
“I do not think Weasel Arm’s case as sad as Old Bear’s,” said one of the women. “Weasel Arm was wounded in his body, but Old Bear is wounded in his heart.”
Elk Woman laughed. “Have no fear for Old Bear,” she said. “He is an old man and has had more than one sweetheart. His heart will soon heal.”
“But I am sorry for the spilled berries,” she continued. “Pink Blossom should not waste good berries, even if Old Bear does look like an old man.”
All laughed at this but Pink Blossom.
“I knew a young woman who once wasted good rose berries, just as Pink Blossom wasted the June berries,” said Old-Owl Woman.
“Tell us the story,” said one of my mothers.
“When I was a girl,” said Old-Owl Woman, “Ear-Eat, a Crow Indian, married Yellow Blossom, a Hidatsa girl. They went to live with the Crows, but after a year they came back to visit our tribe at Five Villages.
“It was in the fall, when the rose berries are ripe. Now the Crow Indians like to eat rose berries, and gather them to dry for winter as we dry squashes. We Hidatsas eat rose berries sometimes, but we never dry them for winter. We think they are food for wild men.