Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/338

 General Crook and his staff, the interpreters—Frank Gruard and "Big Bat" and Louis—and the Indian chiefs. One quadrant was reserved for the Shoshones, another for the Crows. Each tribe selected one spokesman, who repeated to his people the words of the General as they were made known by the interpreters. Ejaculations of "Ugh! ugh!" were the only signs of approval, but it was easy enough to see that nothing was lost that was addressed to them. Pipes of the same kind as those the Sioux have were kept in industrious circulation. The remarks made by General Crook were almost identical with those addressed to the Crows alone earlier in the evening; the Indians asked the privilege of scouting in their own way, which was conceded.

An adjournment was ordered at between ten and eleven o'clock to allow such of our allies as so desired to seek much-needed rest. The Shoshones had ridden sixty miles, and night was far advanced. The erroneousness of this assumption was disclosed very speedily. A long series of monotonous howls, shrieks, groans, and nasal yells, emphasized by a perfectly ear-*piercing succession of thumps upon drums improvised from "parfleche" (tanned buffalo skin), attracted nearly all the soldiers and many of the officers not on duty to the allied camp. Peeping into the different lodges was very much like peeping through the key-hole of Hades.

Crouched around little fires not affording as much light as an ordinary tallow candle, the swarthy figures of the naked and half-naked Indians were visible, moving and chanting in unison with some leader. No words were distinguishable; the ceremony partook of the nature of an abominable incantation, and as far as I could judge had a semi-religious character. One of the Indians, mounted on a pony and stripped almost naked, passed along from lodge to lodge, stopping in front of each and calling upon the Great Spirit (so our interpreter said) to send them plenty of scalps, a big Sioux village, and lots of ponies. The inmates would respond with, if possible, increased vehemence, and the old saying about making night hideous was emphatically suggested. With this wild requiem ringing in his ears one of our soldiers, a patient in hospital, Private William Nelson, Company "L," Third Cavalry, breathed his last. The herd of beef cattle, now reduced to six, became scared by the din and broke madly for the hills. All night the rain pattered down.