An awl to make holes in the bark for each; the rough parts behind are concealed afterward with a lining of bark stitched over them; and before the winter was over, Rolf had made a birch-bark box, decorated lid and all, with porcupine quill work, in which he kept the sable skin that was meant to buy Annette's new dress, the costume she had dreamed of, the ideal and splendid, almost unbelievable vision of her young life, ninety-five cents' worth of cotton print.
There was one other point of dangerous friction.

Whenever it fell to Quonab to wash the dishes, he simply set them on the ground and let Skookum lick them off.

This economical arrangement was satisfactory to Quonab, delightful to Skookum, and apparently justified by the finished product, but Rolf objected.

The Indian said: "Don't he eat the same food as we do?
You cannot tell if you do not see." Whenever he could do so, Rolf washed the doubtful dishes over again, yet there were many times when this was impossible, and the situation became very irritating.

But he knew that the man who loses his temper has lost the first round of the fight, so, finding the general idea of uncleanness without avail, he sought for some purely Indian argument.
As they sat by the evening fire, one day, he led up to talk of his mother--of her power as a medicine woman, of the many evil medicines that harmed her.