But no one wanted to be winter chief. Camping in the Yellowstone country in skin tents, was not like our wintering in earth lodges in the woods near our village. The people expected their chief’s prayers to keep enemies away and bring them good hunting. If ill luck came to any in the camp, they blamed the winter chief.
The Black Mouths offered gifts to one or another of our chief men, whose prayers we knew were strong; but none would take them. At last, they gave half the gifts to Eydeeahkata,[28] and half to Short Horn. “You shall take turns at being chief,” they said. “Eydeeahkata shall lead one day and Short Horn the next.”
[28] E̱y dēē äh´ kä tä
The two leaders chose Red Kettle to be their crier. The evening before we started he went through the village crying, “We move to-morrow at sunrise. Get ready.”
Our way led up the Missouri, above the bluffs; and most of the time we were within sight of the river. Now and then, if the current made a wide bend, we took a shorter course over the prairie. Eydeeahkata and Short Horn went ahead, each with a sacred medicine bundle bound to his saddle bow. The camp followed in a long line. Some rode ponies, but most went afoot. We camped at night in our tepees.
We made our eleventh camp on the north side of the Missouri, a few miles below the mouth of the Yellowstone. Here the Missouri is not very wide, and its sloping banks make a good place for crossing. A low bank of clean, hard sand lay along the water’s edge. We pitched our tents about noon on this sand. There were about a hundred tepees. They stood in rows, like houses, for there was not room on the sand to make a camping circle.
Small Ankle pitched his tent near the place chosen for the crossing. The day was windy and chill. With flint-and-steel my father struck a fire, and we soon had meat boiling. After our dinner he drove his horses to pasture.
Strikes-Many Woman fetched dry grass for our beds, spreading it thickly on the floor against the tent wall. On the edges of the beds next the fireplace she laid small logs, to keep in the grass bedding and to catch any flying sparks from the fire.
The wind died at evening. Twilight fell, and the coals in the fireplace cast a soft, red glow on the tent walls. I sat near the tent door. With robe drawn over my shoulders to keep off the chill, I raised the skin door and looked out. The new moon, narrow and bent like an Indian bow, shone white over the river, and the waves of the swift mid-current sparkled silvery in the moonlight. I could hear the swish of eddies, the lap-lapping of the waves rolling shoreward. Over all rose the roar, roar, roar of the great river, sweeping onward we Indians knew not where.