I said to them one morning, "Now, my good fellows, don't despair--you have not tried what you can do yourselves yet; in your own country, if you wish it to rain, you have _Rain-makers_ who can make it rain; if you wish it to stop raining, you have _Rain-stoppers_, who cook up a grand medicine feast and cause it to stop raining. If buffalos are scarce, your medicine-men can make them come: why not 'put on the Big Kettle,' and see what you can do in the present dilemma?--You have your _Medicine-man_ with you, and your _Medicine-drum_ and your _Shi-she-quoi_ (mystery rattle); you are all prepared; go to work--you will certainly do no harm, and I fully believe you will bring it about." As I was leaving the room their interpreter overtook me, and said that the medicine man wanted the money to buy five fat ducks--that they had resolved on having a _medicine feast_ that afternoon, and that they would expect me to be of the party to partake of it. I came in at the hour appointed, and found them all with their faces painted black on one side and red on the other (their mode of ornamenting when they supplicate the Great or other Spirit for any gift or favour), and prepared to take their seats at the feast, which was then smoking, on the floor in the adjoining room. Buffalo robes were spread upon the floor, on which we were seated, when the following dialogue took place between their kind (and now no longer terrified) landlady and the interpreter Cadotte:--"Why," said she (as she was completing the last arrangement for our feast upon the floor), "you have left no room for the women, poor things." "Women!" said Cadotte, "why, do you suppose that women can eat at a _medicine feast_?" "Why not?" said the landlady, "are they not as good as the men? They are a nice set of women, and that little girl is a dear little creature. I cooked the ducks as much for them as I did for you, and I think it would be cruel not to invite them to eat with you; you are no better now than you were this morning; they ate with you then. If I had known this, I would have kept one of the ducks for them." "Devil a bit!" said Cadotte, "do you know what _medicine_ is?" "No, I don't suppose I do; but there are the three women all crying now in the other room, poor creatures." "And there they are _obliged_ to cry while we are in a _medicine feast_, or we have no luck." "Oh, dear me, what a strange set of beings!" said the old lady, as she returned to the kitchen, "I won't interfere with them; they must take their own way."