by women, on the
travois or pack horses, who will do most of the butchering, and transport
the meat and hides to camp. If there is no band of buffalo near by, they go
off, singly or by twos and threes, to still-hunt scattering buffalo, or
deer, or elk, or such other game as may be found. The women remaining in
camp are not idle. All day long they tan robes, dry meat, sew moccasins,
and perform a thousand and one other tasks. The young men who have stayed
at home carefully comb and braid their hair, paint their faces, and, if the
weather is pleasant, ride or walk around the camp so that the young women
may look at them and see how pretty they are.

Feasting began early in the morning, and will be carried on far into the
night. A man who gives a feast has his wives cook the choicest food they
have, and when all is ready, he goes outside the lodge and shouts the
invitation, calling out each guest's name three times, saying that he is
invited to eat, and concludes by announcing that a certain number of
pipes--generally three--will be smoked. The guests having assembled, each
one is served with a dish of food. Be the quantity large or small, it is
all that he will get. If he does not eat it all, he may carry home what
remains. The host does not eat with his guests. He cuts up some tobacco,
and carefully mixes it with _l'herbe_, and when all have finished eating,
he fills and lights a pipe, which is smoked and passed from one to another,
beginning with the first man on his left. When the last person on the left
of the host has smoked, the pipe is passed back around the circle to the
one on the right of the door, and smoked to the left again. The guests do
not all talk at once. When a person begins to speak, he expects every one
to listen, and is never interrupted. During the day the topics for
conversation are about the hunting, war, stories of strange adventures,
besides a good deal of good-natured joking and chaffing. When the third and
last pipeful of tobacco has been smoked, the host ostentatiously knocks out
the ashes and says "_Kyi"_ whereupon all the guests rise and file out.
Seldom a day passed but each lodge-owner in camp gave from one to three
feasts. In fact almost all a man did, when in camp, was to go from one of
these gatherings to another.

A favorite pastime in the day was gambling with a small wheel called
_it-se'-wah._ This wheel was about four inches in diameter, and had five
spokes, on which were strung di