Before daylight the camp was astir, and huge fires were burning in the centre of the lodge, but the keen cold was very apparent a few feet from these. As soon as I sat up in my couch one of the women brought me water in a wooden bowl for my morning ablutions, and I had my pocket-handkerchief to serve as a towel. Then they gave me for my breakfast boiled meat cut into small pieces. I longed for salt, but there was none.
All day strangers kept coming and going in our tent. It seemed to me I was on exhibition. Once during the day my host signed to me to follow him, and we went out to the summit of a hill, where his band of horses were driven up by some young men who had them in charge, and I admired the number and quality of his stock. There must have been a hundred or more in the bunch, most of them, no doubt, the result of his stealings. Then we went back to the tent, and the day passed quietly away. In the evening a crowd of men occupied the space in our lodge, and much smoking and speech-making went on; but as I could catch a word only here and there, I did not understand what they said. As they talked and smoked I studied their faces and costumes, many of which were peculiar, inspiring me alternately with the feeling of dread and of curiosity. Everyone carried his weapons--bow and arrows, flint-lock gun, or war-club.
I could readily see that the idea of placing confidence in anyone had not as yet entered the minds of these men. Sometimes they became greatly excited, and as they frequently nodded or pointed to me, I could not but imagine all manner of trouble. Finally the crowd dispersed, and I was still alive and quite ready for the second supper mine hostesses served me with. I found that I was by heredity and practice a confirmed salt eater, and to be without it for a few meals was a hardship. There had been no communication since last night with any of our party. So far as I was concerned they might as well have been back at the Cree camp or our mission. However, when all was quiet I settled down into a sound sleep, undisturbed by even the dream of being scalped by dusky Blackfoot braves.
Long before daylight the big fires were blazing and crackling, faintly forcing back the fearful cold which had taken possession of the thin-walled and unfloored lodge during the few hours which the camp slept. I was up with the dawn trying to thaw myself out, but did not fully succeed until I had breakfasted. Another long day passed, much in the same way as the last, without any word from my party.