Page:Barbour--Metipoms Hostage.djvu/129

Rh games, younger ones romped boisterously, dodging in and out from the lodges with  mocking cries. Sometimes a papoose whimpered hungrily, but for the most part the little creamy-skinned, big-eyed babies were  as silent as though Nature had denied them  tongues. Smoke began to appear above the tops of the wigwams, ascending straight in  air like blue pencils of vapor. More often, though, the evening fires were built in front  of the wigwam doors. Women, young and old, busied themselves with the stone or  metal pots in which nearly everything was  cooked. At the nearer wigwam an older squaw was cutting a piece of blood-dripping  flesh into thin strips, chanting a song softly  as she worked. Her fire was no more than a few small fagots enclosed between two flat  stones that supported the iron kettle. The strips of meat were dropped into the kettle  as cut and to David they looked far from  appetizing. He presumed that there was water in the pot, and after a while, as he watched idly, a faint steam arose from it  and proved him right. The squaw went into the wigwam and presently returned holding  something that looked like gray meal in her  cupped hands. This she dropped slowly into