My husband helped me load my boat, and we pushed off, our three dogs swimming after us. We had bound our travois to the tail of the boat, one upon the other. The long runners dragged in the water, but the travois baskets, raised to the boat’s edge, were hardly wetted.
We landed, and I lent my boat to Scar to bring over his wife and her camp stuff. Our whole party crossed and brought over their goods in two trips.
We packed our goods up the bank and made camp. While we women were cutting poles for our tent, we heard the men disputing. They were seated in a circle near our pile of goods. High Backbone had lighted a pipe.
“I say we should go across the river and get the meat we staged yesterday,” said Crow-Flies-High. Others said, “No, there is better hunting on this side. Let us go at once and find the herd.” And all took their guns and hastened off but High Backbone, who stayed to guard the camp. We were afraid enemies might also be following the herd.
But the hunters returned at evening without having seen buffalo sign, and hungry—so hungry that they ate up half our store of meat. After supper, Crow-Flies-High called them to another council. “I told you we should get the meat we staged,” he said. “The gods gave us that meat. We should not waste it.”
We recrossed the river the next morning and fetched back most of the staged meat and skins, reaching camp again in the early part of the afternoon. Too busy to stop and eat, we spent the rest of the day building stages and staking out the green hides to dry.
The next day we found to our joy that the wind had shifted to the west. Our stages were now hung with slices of drying meat, and we had built slow fires beneath. An east wind would have carried the smoke toward the herd and stampeded it.
It was evening and getting dusk when Son-of-a-Star came into the tent, saying, “Buffaloes are on a bluff a quarter of a mile up the river. I can see them moving against the sky line.” We listened and heard the bulls roaring; so we knew a herd was coming in.