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50 In the meantime, they brought in elk and buffalo, deer and beaver.
It seemed a plentiful hunt, even though some of the animals were still
skinny and tough from the long winter. I knew, though, that the time
would come when hunting would not be enough. High in the
mountains, where our people live, animals would not be as numerous as

they were in the lands we passed through at first. One day we would
leave behind the great herds of buffalo. There would come a time when
any animal would be hard to find. That was why, every fall, our people
would leave the safety of the mountains and go out on the plains to hunt

the buffalo. Even though our enemies, the Blackfeet, might attack us
there with their guns, we needed to hunt the buffalo and bring its meat
back to our winter lodges. Without the buffalo hunt, we would not have
had enough meat to survive until the spring run of salmon up the

streams. Also, we women had learned long ago how to find food other
than the animals the men hunt.

51 I kept my eyes open. There is always the chance of attack by enemies
when you travel out of your own land. Though the captains never

seemed fearful of such dangers, I was. I had your safety to think about
as well as my own. Yet good fortune stayed by our sides. Day after day
passed without even a single sign of an enemy.

52 I was watchful also for other things. On the second evening after we
left the Mandan villages, I saw one of those things I had been looking
for along the shore. There was a great pile of driftwood in a place where
the earth seemed to be piled up on the bank of the river. I chose a
strong driftwood stick of just the right size and began thrusting it into

the soft earth.
53 Where were you then? Do you not remember? You were right there
with me in your cradleboard.

54 Soon I broke through the roof of one of the granaries made by the
harvester mice. It was stuffed with a great mound of the round white
roots that are the size of a man’s finger. Those roots have a sweet taste
and the mice gather them in great numbers.

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