Like-a-Fishhook village was yet about fifteen miles away. While the rest of our party waited, one of the men went afoot, to notify our relatives. They came about noon, the next day, with ponies and saddles to help us bring home our goods. The saddles were pack saddles, made with horn frames.
It took four ponies to pack the dried meat and skins my husband and I had brought. I loaded my boats on the travois of two of my dogs.
We reached Like-a-Fishhook village at sunset. Lies-on-Red-Hill came with us, to the great joy of her father.
SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER
AN INDIAN PAPOOSE
My father was overjoyed to see me and my husband again, and he was glad for the store of meat that we brought. We had a real feast the next day. I boiled green corn, shelled from the cob and dried the summer before, and packed away in skin bags. We were fond of this corn, and had little of it left. Strikes-Many Woman parched ripe sweet corn, pounded it in a mortar with roast buffalo fats, and kneaded the meal into little balls.
With these corn messes and boiled dried buffalo meat we made a big feast and called in all our relatives. To each woman guest, as she went away again, I gave a bundle of dried buffalo meat; and I thus gave away one of the four pony-loads of meat I had brought home. It was an Indian custom that, when a hunter brought in meat of a deer or buffalo, it belonged to his wife; and we should have thought her a bad woman, if she did not feast her relatives and give to them.