The scalps were 'lifted' from two Crows and a Ponkaw.
The Crows, it appeared, were the Sioux' natural enemies
'anyhow,' for they occasionally hunted on each other's
ranges. But the Ponkaw, whom he would not otherwise have
injured, was casually met by him on a horse which the Sioux
recognised for a white man's. Upon being questioned how he
came by it, the Ponkaw simply replied that it was his own.
Whereupon the Sioux called him a liar; and proved it by
sending an arrow through his body.
I didn't quite see it. But then, strictly speaking, I am no
collector of scalps. To preserve my own, I kept the hair on
it as short as a tooth-brush.
Before we left, our hosts fed us on raw buffalo meat. This,
cut in slices, and dried crisp in the sun, is excellent.
Their lodges were very comfortable, most of them large enough
to hold a dozen people. The ground inside was covered with
buffalo robes; and the sewn skins, spread tight upon the
converging poles, formed a tent stout enough to defy all
weathers. In winter the lodge can be entirely closed; and
when a fire is kindled in the centre, the smoke escaping at a
small hole where the poles join, the snugness is complete.
At the entrance of one of these lodges I watched a squaw and
her child prepare a meal. When the fuel was collected, a fat
puppy, playing with the child, was seized by the squaw, and
knocked on the throat - not head - with a stick.
