With fallen deadwood dug up out of the snow a rousing fire was made—and the kettle put on. When the Indian dish corresponding to the whiteman’s mulligan was ready, all hands squatted down around the fire and devoured the food ravenishly, including my mother’s nice brown loaves of bread and the store bologna. My father had told me that I would be expected to eat of the Indian’s food and that I should pass our bread and meat around, as a token of friendship. I cannot say now what kind of meat it was those Indians cooked in that kettle, but it was something which they had brought along. They had not killed anything on the hunt that day. However, I do not believe it was dogmeat. Surely Eagle Eye would not have done that to us. But maybe it was just as well that I didn’t then know anything about the accredited habits of Indians in general as with respect to their dogs. I can however truthfully say this much for the Indian’s stew. That dish—dog or no dog—didn’t gag me nearly so much as the bowl of Chinese noodles my father and my brother Frank cajoled me into eating with them and other members of their party — Harry Maxwell, a former Wetmore boy, and Dan Conner — while seeing Fresno’s Chinatown. After traveling all day through the woods, following cow-paths and never deviating once from the single-file formation which characterized the start on that white morning away back in the 70’s we got back home at dusk. From sun-up until sun-down we had traveled, and not one deer did we see. Some tracks in the fresh snow were followed for miles. Only once did the Indians dismount and hunt a clump of woods hurriedly on foot, spreading out fanwise. They had glimpsed something moving among the trees—something which they did not locate. It was then I learned why they had brought the incommunicative Nish-a-shin along. Quickly he began gathering up the reins of the deserted ponies. I learned something else too. Pronto paleface papoose became a second edition of Nish-a-shin. Starting up near Goff, the Spring creek deer-run came down to within a half mile of Wetmore, then went southeast across the prairie to Mosquito creek, thence up Mosquito creek nearly to Bancroft and across the prairie again to the head of Spring creek. Three deer were the most ever seen at one time on this run. They came into a flock of 4,000 sheep I was herding for old Morgan on the Dan Williams place a mile south of town, where Clyde Ely now lives. The sheep were frightened and divided themselves into two bunches as the deer loped gaily through the flock. If you don’t know, a deer-run is the feeding grounds of those ruminants. As long as the deer remain in the country they travel the same route closely. In the winter—in the old days here—they fed largely on hazel-brush and Other tender twigs.