After many days the scout came back alone to his ranch, and we rode together on the open plains to look for missing cattle. We found cows and calves dying without food or drink, and a young steer that had fallen through the ice, frozen in the river. We hauled it ashore with our lariats and, after dragging the carcass back to the cabin, skinned and butchered it; the way Indians used to cut up buffalo. We took out the tongue, short-ribs, boss-ribs, shoulders and hams, briskets and belly-pieces. There was no waste; we used the entrails for eating, saving the hide for tanning, also the brains and liver; the tissue was used for sinew.
Then another blizzard came with more snow, intense cold, and a gale from the north. That night as we sat by the stove, the side of our bodies towards the fire was warm, the other numb with cold. Whenever we opened the door, the cold air formed a cloud of steam, which shot along the floor and made a fall of snow on the threshold. Then the roof began to crack, and loud reports came from ice in the river. I heard the booming of a bursting tree, and then of a water-filled hollow. The scout said:
“Those are signs of more bad weather. My friend Bear Paw, who lives near the mountains, says it is over forty years since we had a moon with such bad storms. Before they came, he saw a mysterious ball of fire hang over the forest. Bear Paw keeps tribal records on buffalo skins: deaths of chiefs, cold winters, summers of drought and of plenty.”
It was a dreary time when our oil gave out; I could neither read nor write. There were only six hours of daylight, with darkness for the remaining eighteen. [[150]]
Big gray wolves and packs of coyotes driven by hunger came close to the ranch. One night I heard them feasting on the carcass of a cow not far from our cabin. Finally they became so bold we made baits of poisoned meat and placed them on the hills, dragging the bloody head of the steer behind our horses to lead them to the baits.
I saw sun dogs in the sky, shining dimly, like great crosses of light near the sun. Then shadows appeared over the Rocky Mountains, strange “snow banners,” or cloud-shaped drifts in the sky, stretching out from the summits of the high peaks, waving and shimmering in the rays of the sun—a sign that a powerful norther was raging over the mountains. The light dry snowdust, being driven by the wind up the flanks of the high peaks, was carried over them and into the sky, each peak having its own snow banner, all pointing the same way, all gleaming and waving against the blue sky.
That night a nor’wester came roaring over the plains, with a whirling wind that sought to lift the roof and terrible gusts, which struck the walls like a battering-ram, until the cabin swayed and trembled.
The scout sat dejected by the fire. He was filled with gloom; and when I wakened towards midnight he was still there, with his head bowed. I heard him pray earnestly and in a low voice to the Sun:
“Father, have pity and help us.
I am praying for my people.