_O-wam_ (shape of eggs) is the Blackfoot name for snowshoes. Those that we made were neither shaped like an egg nor like anything else. The bows were of birch, and no two were alike, and the webbing was woven on them in a way to make a forest Indian laugh. Neither Pitamakan's people nor the other tribes of the plains knew anything about snowshoes except in a general way, and I had never seen a pair. All things considered, however, we did a fairly good job. If the shoes were heavy and clumsy, at least they were serviceable, for they sank only a few inches in the snow when we tested them.
The evening we finished this work another snowstorm came on, which lasted two nights and a day, and forced us to postpone our hunt. We employed the time in improving the interior of the lodge by building a heavier stone platform for the fire, one that would give off considerable heat after we went to sleep.
In order to create a draft for the fire, we were forced to admit some air through the doorway, and this chilled us. Finally, I remembered that I had seen in the Mandan lodges screens several feet high, put between the doorway and the fire, in order to force the cold air upward.
We made one at once of poles, backed with earth, and then, building a small fire, sat down on our bed to see how it worked; no more cold air swept across the floor, and we were absolutely comfortable. But in the night, although the stones gave out some heat, we were obliged to replenish the fire as soon as it died down. What we needed in order to have unbroken sleep was bedding. Pitamakan said that one animal here, the white mountain goat, had a warmer, thicker coat of fur than the buffalo. We determined to get some of the hides and tan them into soft robes.
The morning after the storm broke clear and cold, but my partner refused to go up into the high mountains after goats.
"We must put it off and do something else to-day," he said. "I had a very bad dream last night--a confused dream of a bear and a goat, one biting and clawing me, and the other sticking its sharp horns into my side. Now either that is a warning not to hunt goats to-day, or it is a sign that the bearskin that we are sleeping on is bad medicine. This is not the first bad dream that I have had since lying on it."