Head down, leading her pony by the nose rope, she was in no hurry to return home. The two travois poles dragging behind the pony left a double track in the prairie dust, but not a deep one, for the travois was empty. No rations had been distributed at the ration point. Yet it had been, yesterday, the second Saturday, and every second Saturday was ration day. Like several of the other women, Winona had even stayed the night at the ration point, but it had been to no avail. This morning they had been told to go away. There had been rations, but the soldiers and the Indian police had not permitted them to be distributed. Winona recalled the abundance of sides of beef, lying in the dirt, spotted, stinking, but meat; and the piles of bulging flour sacks, and the bolts of cloth; some blankets; but nothing had been given to them, though they were the children of the Great White Father, and he had promised them these things made holy by being written on paper and signed by men in white collars and black coats, who were subchiefs of the Great White Father himself.
