Page:Lost with Lieutenant Pike (1919).djvu/31

 experience. He was called Scar Head by reason of the patch of white hair that grew over a queer, hot spot on his head. He felt like an Indian and acted like an Indian; but all he knew was that he had been traded by the mountain Utahs to the plains Pawnees, several years ago, and that Chief Charakterik had adopted him.

The four had set out from the main Pawnee Republic village of round mud huts on the Republican River in present northern Kansas two weeks back. The Pawnees always started from home on foot, except when hunting game. They thought that they could take care of themselves better that way. A man on foot could hide in country where a man on horse might be seen. But they were expected to return on horseback, with other horses stolen or captured, for to win horses was the test of a Pawnee brave.

Scar Head hoped to learn a great deal about horse-stealing, although this was not really a horse-stealing scout. Nevertheless

"If we are not given horses by the Spaniards, we will get them elsewhere," had said Rich Man.

"Yes; we will get them from the Spaniards, anyway," had replied Skidi. "They will have many horses, easy to steal. But in order to keep friendly