“But I can’t play the banjo,” objected Slim.
“Play anyway,” commanded the Captain. “Here, I’ll teach you a couple of tunes that you can play with one finger that we can do most of the dances to.” So Slim learned to play the banjo under pressure and picked banefully away while the rest whirled about on the floor. Sometimes he got his tunes or his time so badly mixed that it was impossible to dance and then the Captain would make him sing and beat time with a hatchet on the floor. Finally Nyoda took pity on him and took over the banjo, producing such lively strains and keeping the dancers going at such a mad pace that they sank down breathless one by one, and a series of loud thumps from Sandhelo’s stall told them that he was also capering to the music and nearly battering his stall down in the process.
The boys went home reluctantly at eleven o’clock and the girls climbed the ladder to the joys of the “select sleeping party.” This was the first time any of them had stayed all night in the House of the Open Door. “Covers were laid for nine,” as Katherine wrote in the Count Book. Nyoda had her camp bed, Sahwah had her pile of bearskins, Gladys her Indian Bed and Nakwisi her willow bed. Migwan was invited to share them all and chose the bearskins. Katherine had brought a couch hammock, which she declared surpassed them all in comfort. The rest of the girls played John Kempo for the privilege of sleeping with Nyoda, and Veronica got it, and the other two spread their blankets on mattresses on the floor. The fireplace was filled with glowing hard coals, which would keep all night, and the Lodge was as warm as toast, so the snowflakes which drifted in through the hole in the roof were never noticed. Of course they talked half the night, for there was so much to tell Migwan and so much she had to tell them it seemed they never would get it all told. But finally the conversation was punctuated by steadily lengthening yawns, and then trailed off into silence.
Nyoda was awakened by the touch of a cold hand on her face. “What is it?” she asked, sitting up.
“It’s I—Migwan,” said the figure standing beside her. “Do you know where Sahwah is?”
“Isn’t she in bed with you?” asked Nyoda, still in a low tone of voice, so as not to disturb the other girls.