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55 By then Captain Lewis was watching me with such care that I was
certain he would make markings that night about what I had done. I had
never seen men spend so much of their time making those markings in
the little bundles of white leaves sewed together, which I later learned
were called journals. Those journals, your good uncle explained to me,

were as important to them as their own lives. Like the drawings on a
winter count robe, the markings would help them and other men
remember what they had seen and learned. It was strange to me, for I
could see the pictures on a winter count robe clearly—the shapes of men

and buffalo, of horses and lances. But all that I could see in the lines the
two captains drew were shapes that made no sense to me. Yes, my wise
son, I know that you are able to write such talking lines and understand
what the talking lines made by others say to you. This is why your good

uncle wishes you to stay with him. He wants you to know such powerful
things as well as any white man.

56 I thanked the little harvester mice and gave them a present from my
pouch. Then I filled the basket, making sure to leave some for the mice

themselves, so that their own little ones would not starve. The captains
and all the men were very pleased when they tasted those roots. Your
father was as proud as if he had garnered those roots himself. He kept
looking over at me and nodding. They ate all I had gathered and urged

me to find more whenever I could. Then everyone sat around the fire,
talking of that day’s travel, and I sat with them. Captain Lewis’s great dog,
the one as large as a buffalo calf, came up and lay down beside me and
then placed its head in my lap. I was happy that evening as I spread out

our buffalo robe inside the tipi.

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