The women of the Quahada village were very busy for weeks after the return of the buffalo hunters and the Festival of the Green Corn. Not only did they have their usual duties to perform, but in addition they had to preserve the meat and tan the hides of the buffaloes and antelopes that had been brought back by the men.

The children helped cut the meat into long, thin pieces so that it could be hung in the hot sun until the outer part was dry and hard. It was then tied together with bits of buckskin or dried sinews and stored away for future use. Thus prepared it could be eaten without further cooking, or carried by the Comanches from place to place. Often, as they rode along, they ate the meat without stopping for other food. With this and a little pounded maize, or a bit of dry vegetable root, they were able to travel many days.

The big skins had to be cured at once, lest they spoil. So while the children were cutting the meat, the women staked all the hides on the ground, fur side down. Then two women took charge of each hide.

Songbird did not help the other children cut the meat, but she watched the squaws who bent over a very large hide which Quannah had brought home. The women were busy scraping off all the tiny bits of flesh that still clung to the inner surface, using flat, sharp-edged bones, while a thong of buckskin around their wrists gave extra strength to their efforts. She was greatly interested in that robe, for when it had been thoroughly cured Moko was going to paint on it the picture of the big fight.

"Let me help," she begged the women.

But they shook their heads and answered, "It is Quannah's robe. We must be very careful of it."

Then Songbird ran to where her father was standing not far away from his tepee and looked wistfully into his face.

"Let me help the women cure the big robe you brought," she pleaded. "I will be very careful not to hurt it. I cannot fight, nor hunt, nor paint stories, but I want to help with the robe because you brought it back, and Moko is going to paint the picture of your big fight with the white men."

She caught the slight nod and waited no longer, but raced back in almost breathless delight to tell the squaws. They made room for her between them, slipping thongs over her small wrists so that her stroke might be strong and steady.

Very gravely she imitated their motions and listened to their instructions. Then, the first part of their work completed, they gave her a tool made like a hoe with a long handle attached, the bottom part formed of a sharp stone. Several women joined them in the work, and all of them warned Songbird to be most cautious not to tear or roughen the hide with the sharply edged tool.

So as the days went by she did her part in curing the robe. When it was staked out, hair side up, she too, rubbed the long fur with a cooked mixture made of meat, roots and herbs. Then she watched the women arrange masses of dried grass in the centre, gather up the ends and sides, and twist the robe into a tight ball which they put to soak over night.

She felt very proud and important the next morning as she hurried to the women, who already held the ends, and were standing far apart twisting the hide into a long, hard rope, from which liquid was dripping. When they began to stretch three sides of the robe on a large, slanting frame, Songbird helped industriously, and she also did her part in staking the lower end of the skin to the ground.

After that she sat quietly watching work that she was not tall enough nor strong enough to do. One of the two women who had first worked on the hide now took a broad blade of thin stone, almost six feet long. A piece of bone made a handle in the centre of the thin stone slab. The blade was pressed strongly against the upper end of the hide, and then drawn quickly and firmly toward the bottom, so that all moisture oozed down.

The second woman, with the same kind of tool, at once did the same thing, so that no water could be again soaked up by the hide. This work went on until no moisture rose to the surface, then the skin was left to dry and bleach on the frame.

A number of days passed before the robe was dry enough for the next work, which had to be done while the skin was still on the frame. Each of the women had a round buffalo joint, like a large knuckle, and with this they rubbed the entire surface of the hide, to make it the same thickness all over.

When that had been properly finished, every tear was mended carefully with threads of strong sinews thrust through tiny holes made by awls which were fashioned of sharply pointed tough wood, or of thin flint stones.

Then nothing remained to do except for the squaws to hold the cross-corners of the robe around a large rough tree and draw it back and forth, fur-side out. This removed the last bit of stiffness, and the women of the village gathered about the robe, examining and praising its softness.

Songbird ran to her father. "It is done!" she cried in delight. "Come see it! All the women say that it is the largest and finest robe the Quahadas have ever seen!"

Her hand was tugging, while her eager feet danced ahead of Quannah's more sedate pace. But at last they came to the place where the women formed an admiring group about the largest buffalo robe that had ever been brought into their camps. They made way for the chief, who passed between them in quiet dignity, and Songbird, beside him, held her little head high with pride—not pride for herself, but pride of her father, the chief, who was so brave, so great, and so good.

"It is good," he spoke at last, after he had studied the robe closely. "Moko shall paint on it the story of the Big Fight when our little boys frightened the white horses. So, the children of our children shall learn the story."

Songbird trotted beside the chief, followed by the two women, until they all reached Moko's tepee. Then the squaws went their way, and Songbird listened to her father telling Moko about the fight and how the little boys had captured the white horses while the fire-sticks had shrieked and spit, but did not hurt them.

"They were little boys," said Quannah with a smile of pride on his lips. "Just children! but some day they will make great warriors."

"I shall paint the story as you have told it," Moko answered, while her fingers stroked the long hair on the robe. "The children of our children shall be proud of their forefathers, and the story shall be told in tepees and by the camp fires long after the Great Eagle shall bring the message of the Great Spirit to call Quannah, Chief of the Quahada Comanches, to the Happy Hunting Grounds, where Peta Nocona is waiting for his son!"