"Yes," answered Sholoc, "you shall have them. Payuchi, hand me my
elk-horn ax so that I can split open the head, and you can take the
brains to the jacal." Soon not a piece of meat, a bit of skin, tendon,
or bone, was left. All was put to use by these people of the forest. And
now the feast was ready. The women had roasted many pieces of elk's meat
over the coals. The fish had been taken from under the hot ashes, the
half burned grass removed from around them, and the fish broken into
pieces and put in flat baskets shaped like platters. There were also
pieces of elk meat and cakes of acorn meal baked on hot stones.

As was the custom with the Indians, the men were served first. Payuchi
watched anxiously as his father and the other men took large helpings
from the baskets.

"Do you think there will be enough for us to have any?" he asked Gesnip.
"I am so hungry and they are eating so much. If I were a man, I should
remember about the women and children."

"No; you wouldn't if you were a man; men never do," answered Gesnip.
"But you need not worry, there is plenty. Mother said there would be
some left for breakfast."

"Wait for that till I get through," said Payuchi, laughing. After all
had eaten a hearty meal, more than for many weeks they had been able to
have at any one time, the tired women each gathered her children
together and took them to her own jacal, leaving the men sitting around
the camp fire. Payuchi, who tumbled to sleep as soon as his head touched
his sleeping mat, was wakened by some one pulling his rabbit-skin coat,
which he wore nights as well as days.