On the summit of a high ridge stood a pile of stones, sharp and clear against the sky of evening, like the solitary figure of a sentinel, marking the grave of a chief named Red Blanket.
That night Onesta told me to picket my saddle horse close to camp because of a ghost. He warned me, saying:
“Old Red Blanket, who is buried on yonder hill, was a good man and kind; but his ghost is mean. It does not like people to camp here and drives away their horses in the night. That hill was his favorite haunt when he was alive. For many years he went there to meditate and dream. When he was dying he asked his family to place his body there.”
We did not heed Onesta’s warning and turned our horses loose to feed in the night. Strangely enough they were all gone in the morning—driven by the ghost, Onesta said. We had to walk a long distance to find them.
Our next camp was on the open prairie east of Divide [[167]]Mountain, a triangular peak of the Rockies, where two great watersheds meet—the Hudson Bay Divide, a smooth ridge running east and west, and the Rocky Mountain chain extending north and south.
That evening our women had time to prepare the meat for our journey, boiling the boss-ribs in a kettle; the rest was cut into strips and stretched on poles to dry over a fire.
In the meantime with Little Creek I went to the camp of a widow named Katoya. The bodies of her husband and children were on a hill near her home. The lonely old woman welcomed us to her lodge and was glad to tell about the past. In our talk with her she said:
“How happy we used to be at this time of year, the beginning of summer, when our hunters came home with plenty of meat. Then I said to my husband: ‘Invite now our friends; this night we shall have a feast.’
“Then he would ask some of the old people in for a smoke. Near the time of the first big snow in the autumn, we hastened to move away from the mountains and camp on the prairie. We went down a river, stopping to camp at our favorite camp-grounds and waiting for buffalo to come near. We were careful to choose the best place for our long winter camp. In those days we were happy. There were no white men and we wandered where we pleased. The buffalo were plentiful; the antelope of the prairies were fat and made good eating.
“After my husband killed some buffalo, we brought in the hides. I tanned the skins, stretching them on the ground to dry in the sun; I oiled them with the brains and liver and made them soft by working them. Some of the skins I used for making clothes, and others for parfleches and berry-bags. After I had finished tanning our robes for winter, I had nothing to worry about. My husband and children had plenty to eat; they all slept warm on the coldest nights.” [[168]]