Soon, every one knew that famine impended, and that so few houses would grow even enough harvest for another seeding, that the year after would also be hard to survive. They gathered every wisp of wild seed plants in the uncultivated bottoms; but these wild seeds, too, had come up thin, and the crop of mesquite pods was pitiful. The women labored faithfully, and the children watched over the scattered maize; yet though the grain ripened, the scattered stalks were too few to keep any house through the winter. Some families did not pick even an ear. A moon after harvest time, the crop was consumed; by winter, the last of the other stores. The men fished daily, but the sloughs and ponds had never filled and were soon seined out, and the river’s yield was uncertain and far insufficient. Every one was gaunt; the children lay listlessly about; sickness grew.