"There I was turned over to the women, who treated me very decently, and I immediately began to study the language, for I knew that that would help me in getting into their good graces. I willingly took hold of the work which falls to the lot of the squaws in every camp, and taught them how to cook after the white style. You may imagine I had plenty to do, for the warriors liked the biscuit I used to make, and they sometimes had a good deal of flour for which they had traded with the white men who bought their furs. "I made friends of the dogs in the village, and there were hundreds of them, some of them miserable curs, but they could make more noise than a pack of wolves; and I thought if I could teach them to know me, they would not bother me when I attempted to run away; for you know that they are the most watchful animals imaginable. At night, not the slightest sound escapes their well-trained ears, and at the approach of a human being, they set up the most terrific barking and howling you ever heard. Well, I soon made friends with every one of them, and I could go around the village after dark, and they would not utter a growl. "I watched very closely the large herd of ponies,--there were more than two hundred belonging to the village,--to find out which one of them was the fleetest, and had the most endurance. I picked out the little roan I rode here, and, Joe, I will make him a present to you; for if you had not taught me so much about plants, and the methods of the Indians, and before all things else, taken such pains with me when I wanted to ride a pony, I never should have been able to run away and come home safely." "Thank you, Kate," said Joe. "We have kept Ginger just as finely as ever for you, and he is the best pony in the whole country, I don't care how many the Indians may have." Kate went on with her wonderful experience. "Near the tepee where I slept I found an old elm tree that had a great hollow in it near the roots, and I determined to make it my storehouse for the food I should need when I ran away. I did not, of course, begin to hide anything in it until I had been in the village for over four months. Then I used to save little by little of my portion of the dried buffalo meat, as I knew that it would keep for a long time without spoiling. "We ate all sorts of things that at first rather disgusted me; puppy-stew, for instance. Now, mother and Gertrude, don't laugh; I really soon learned to like it, though I never expect to be compelled to eat it again. It is the cleanest thing the Indians have, if you will only get over the natural prejudice against eating dog. Why, just think, the puppies are only sucklings when they are eaten; they have tasted nothing but their mother's milk, and the mothers are fed on buffalo meat only.