Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/439

 fallen into my possession in the fight with Mackenzie. There was no affection lost between us, but he imagined that by getting upon good terms with me negotiations might be opened for a return of the ghastly relic. But I knew its value too well: there is no other in the world that I know of—that is, in any museum—although the accounts of explorations in the early days in the South Sea, among the Andamanese, and by Lewis and Clark, make mention of such things having been seen. While we were destroying the Cheyenne village, "Big Bat" found two of these necklaces, together with a buckskin bag containing twelve of the right hands of little babies of the Shoshone tribe, lately killed by the Cheyennes. The extra necklace was buried, the buckskin bag with its dreadful relics was given to our Shoshone allies, who wept and wailed over it all night, refusing to be comforted, and neglecting to assume the battle-names with which the Pawnees were signalizing their prowess. The necklace belonging to "High Wolf" contained eight fingers of Indian enemies slain by that ornament of society, and has since been deposited in the National Museum, Washington, D. C.

There was an old, broken-down electrical apparatus in the post hospital, which had long ago been condemned as unserviceable, but which we managed to repair so that it would send a pretty severe shock through the person holding the poles. The Indian boys and girls looked upon this as wonderful "medicine," and hung in groups about the headquarters, from reveille till retreat, hoping to see the machine at work—not at work upon themselves exactly, but upon some "fresh fish" which they had enticed there from among the later surrenders. Many and many a time, generally about the lunch hour, a semicircle would form outside the door, waiting for the appearance of some one connected with the headquarters, who would be promptly nudged by one of the more experienced boys, as a sign that there was fun in sight. The novice couldn't exactly comprehend what it all meant when he saw at the bottom of a pail of water a shining half-dollar which was to be his if he could only reach it while holding that innocent-looking cylinder in one hand. There was any amount of diversion for everybody; the crop of shorn lambs increased rapidly, each boy thinking that the recollection of his own sorrows could be effaced in no better way than by contemplating those of the newer arrivals; and so from guard mount to