Then we climbed to the summit of a ridge and saw before us a great table-land, bounded on the north and west by high hills and distant mountains. It was part in light and part in shadow, with the golden sun rising over a bank of clouds in the east and shining on the snowy peaks of the Rockies in the west—a wide expanse and without any sign of life.
We took an old Indian trail, which was known to Onesta. It led us across a plateau and into a hill country, where the sun shone in a clear sky and the heat was intense. As the day advanced, the sun beat down with ever-increasing heat. My thermometer registered ninety-eight degrees in the shade and a hundred and thirty in the sun.
At mid-day we stopped on the shore of a lake, to let our horses feed on the rich grass. The women made a shelter from the sun by spreading canvas over a tripod of poles, with the sides raised for the wind to blow through.
As we rested under our comfortable shelter, Onesta called my attention to swallows hovering over our horses to get hairs for lining their nests, and to grasshoppers flying high in the air, saying:
“Their wings have no color until they fly into the sunlight; it makes them red, yellow, and black.”
He taught me a song by which he made some sandpipers dance on the shore of the lake. He clapped his hands and sang:
“Ik-sis-a-kuyi! Ik-sis-a-kuyi!” (Meat! Meat!)
He showed me a wild rose bush that was covered with the [[186]]webs of tent caterpillars; and made them dance by beating time with his hands and singing:
“Ko-me-os-cha! Ko-me-os-cha!” (Worms! Worms!)
At first the caterpillars lay perfectly still. But, after he sang a few moments, they began to wake up and move slowly. Then they all stood up and waved their heads to and fro, dancing as long as Onesta continued his song.