Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/337

 were to be parked and left behind in a defensible position on the Tongue or Goose, and under the protection of the men unable for any reason to join in the forward movement; all the infantrymen who could ride and who so desired were to be mounted on mules from the pack-trains with saddles from the wagons or from the cavalry companies which could spare them. If successful in attacking a village, the supplies of dried meat and other food were to be saved, and we should then, in place of returning immediately to our train, push on to make a combination with either Terry or Gibbon, as the case might be.

Scarcely had this brief conference been ended when a long line of glittering lances and brightly polished weapons of fire announced the anxiously expected advent of our other allies, the Shoshones or Snakes, who, to the number of eighty-six, galloped rapidly up to headquarters and came left front into line in splendid style. No trained warriors of civilized armies ever executed the movement more prettily. Exclamations of wonder and praise greeted the barbaric array of these fierce warriors, warmly welcomed by their former enemies but at present strong friends—the Crows. General Crook moved out to review their line of battle, resplendent in all the fantastic adornment of feathers, beads, brass buttons, bells, scarlet cloth, and flashing lances. The Shoshones were not slow to perceive the favorable impression made, and when the order came for them to file off by the right moved with the precision of clock-work and the pride of veterans.

A grand council was the next feature of the evening's entertainment. Around a huge fire of crackling boughs the officers of the command arranged themselves in two rows, the interest and curiosity depicted upon their countenances acting as a foil to the stolidity and imperturbable calmness of the Indians squatted upon the ground on the other side. The breezes blowing the smoke aside would occasionally enable the flames to bring out in bold and sudden relief the intense blackness of the night, the sepulchral whiteness of the tents and wagon-sheets, the blue coats of officers and soldiers (who thronged among the wagons behind their superiors), the red, white, yellow, and black beaded blankets of the savages, whose aquiline features and glittering eyes had become still more aquiline and still more glittering, and the small group in the centre of the circle composed of