"rustled" a good pile of fuel. As night came on, we sat down before the blaze in a cheerful mood, and straightway began to make plans for the future, which now seemed less dark than at the beginning of the day.
"With a better bow and better arrows, it is certain that we can kill enough grouse to keep us alive," I said.
"Not unless we have snowshoes to travel on," Pitamakan objected. "In a few days the snow will be so deep that we can no longer wade in it."
"We can make them of wood," I suggested, remembering the tale of a company man.
"But we couldn't travel about barefooted. Our moccasins will last only a day or two longer. One of mine, you see, is already ripping along the sole. Brother, if we are ever to see green grass and our people again, these things must we have besides food—thread and needles, skins for moccasins, clothing and bedding, and a warm lodge. The weather is going to be terribly cold before long."
At that my heart went away down. I had thought only of food, forgetting that other things were just as necessary. The list of them staggered me—thread and needles, moccasins, and all the rest! "Well, then, we must die," I exclaimed, "for we can never get all those things!"
"We can and we will," said Pitamakan, cheerfully, "and the beginning of it all will be a better bow and some real arrows, arrows with ice-rock or flint points. We will try to make some to-morrow. Hah! Listen!"
I barely heard the plaintive squall, but he recognized it. "Come on, it's a rabbit in one of the snares!" he cried, and out we ran into the brush.
He was right. A rabbit, still kicking and struggling for breath, was hanging in the farther snare. Resetting the trap, we ran, happy and laughing, back to the fire with the prize.
After all, we ate two grouse, instead of one, that evening, burying them under the fire, and this time letting them roast long enough so that the meat parted easily from the bones.
Chapter V
"My grandfather told me that this is one way that it was done," said Pitamakan, as taking a flake of obsidian in the palm of his left hand, he tapped it with an angular stone held in his right hand. "The other way was to heat the ice-rock in the fire, and then with a grass stem place a very small drop of water on the part to be chipped off."
We had been out after flints, and finding none, had brought back the pieces of obsidian that we had placed at the foot of the tree. Earlier in the morning, on visiting the snares, we had found a rabbit in each. They hung now in a tree near by, and it was good to see them there; the rabbit remaining from our first catch had been broiled for our breakfast.
Following my partner's example, I, too, tried to work a piece of the obsidian into an arrow-point. The result was that we spoiled much of the none too plentiful material. It would not chip where we wanted it to, and if we hit it too hard a blow it splintered.
Deciding now to try the fire-and-water method, we made for the purpose a pair of pincers of a green willow fork, and melted a handful of snow in a saucer-shaped fragment of rock. I was to do the heating of the obsidian and Pitamakan was to do the flaking. He chose a piece about an inch and a half long, a quarter of an inch thick, and nearly triangular in shape. One edge was as sharp as a razor; the other two were almost square-faced.
According to his directions, I took the fragment in the pincers by the sharp edge, so as to leave the rest free to be worked upon. Gradually exposing it to the heat, I held it for a moment over some coals freshly raked from the fire, and then held it before him, while with the end of a pine needle he laid a tiny drop of water near the lower corner, about a quarter of an inch back from the squared edge. There was a faint hiss of steam, but no apparent change in the surface of the rock. We tried it again, dropping the water in the same place. Pip! A small scale half the size of the little finger nail snapped off and left a little trough in the square edge. We both gave cries of delight; it seemed that we had hit on the right way to do the work.
A little more experimenting showed that the piece should be held slanting downward in the direction in which the flaking was to be done, for the cold water caused the rock to scale in the direction in which the drop ran. In the course of two hours the rough piece of obsidian was chipped down to a small arrow-point—one that Pitamakan's grandfather would have scorned, no doubt, but a real treasure to us.
We worked all that day making the points; when evening came we had five that were really serviceable. At sundown, the weather having cleared, we went to look at the rabbit-snares. As neither had been sprung, we moved them to a fresh place. This last storm had added a good deal to the depth of the snow; it was so much now above our knees that walking in it was hard work.
We had now before us a task almost as difficult as making the points; that is, to find suitable material for our bows and arrows. We found none that evening, but the next morning, after visiting the snares and taking one rabbit, we stumbled on a clump of service-berry treelets, next to ash the favorite bow-wood of the Blackfeet.
Back to the camp we went, got our "anvil" and hacking-stones, and cut two straight, limbless stems, between two and three inches in diameter. Next we had a long hunt through the willows for straight arrow-shafts, found them, and got some coarse pieces of sandstone from the river to use as files.
Two days more were needed for making the bows and the arrow-shafts. The bows were worked down to the right size and shape only by the hardest kind of sandstone-rubbing, and by scraping and cutting with obsidian knives. But we did not dare to dry them quickly in the fire for fear of making the wood brittle, and they had not the strength of a really good weapon.
We made a good job of the arrows, slitting the tips, inserting the points, and fastening them in place with rabbit-sinew wrappings. For the shafts, the grouse wings provided feathering, which was also fastened in place with the sinew. Fortunately for us, the rabbit-snares kept us well supplied with meat, although we were growing tired of the diet.
Only one thing caused us anxiety now—the cords for our bows. We had to use for the purpose our moccasin strings, which were not only large and uneven, but weak. Pitamakan spoke of cutting off a braid of his hair for a cord, but on the morning after the weapons were finished, he said that in the night his dream had warned him not to do this. That settled it.
On this morning we went early to the snares and found a rabbit hanging in each. Taking the nooses along with the game to camp, we slowly dried them before the fire, for they must now serve as bowstrings. After they were dry we tested one of them, and it broke. We knotted it together and twisted it with the other to make a cord for Pitamakan's bow. That left me without one, and unable to string my bow until some large animal was killed that would furnish sinew for the purpose. I was by no means sure that the twisted and doubled cord was strong enough.
"You'd better try it before we start out," I suggested.
"No, we mustn't strain it any more than we can help," Pitamakan replied; and with that he led off down the valley.
Although the sun shone brightly, this was the coldest day that we had yet had. Had we not worn rabbit-skins, with fur side in, for socks, we could not have gone far from the fire. The trees were popping with frost, a sign that the temperature was close to zero.
Soon after leaving camp we struck a perfect network of game tracks, some of which afforded good walking—when they went our way. For there was no main trail parallel to the river, such as the buffalo and other game
