Page:On the border with Crook - Bourke - 1892.djvu/440

 parade the wonder grew as to what was the mysterious machine which kept people from seizing the piece of silver.

We were becoming more generous, or more confident, by this time, and doubled the value of the money prize, and issued a challenge to the "medicine men" to try their powers. Several of them did so, only to be baffled and disgraced. No matter what "medicine" they made use of, no matter what "medicine song" they chanted, our "medicine song" was more potent: never were the strains of "Pat Malloy" warbled to a nobler purpose, and ere long it began to be bruited about from "tepi" to "tepi"—from "Sharp Nose's" hearth-fire to "White Thunder's," and farther down the vale to where the blue smoke from "Little Wolf's" cottonwood logs curled lazily skyward—that "Wichak-*pa-yamani" ("Three Stars," the Sioux name for General Crook) had a "Mini-hoa " (Ink Man-Adjutant General) whose "medicine song" would nullify anything that Cheyenne or Arapahoe or Dakota could invent; and naturally enough, this brought "High Wolf," the great doctor of the Cheyennes, to the fore. The squaws nagged him into accepting the gauntlet thrown down so boldly. Excitement ran high when word was passed around that "High Wolf" was going to test the power of the battery. There was a most liberal attendance of spectators, and both whites and reds knew that the ordeal was to be one of exceptional importance. "High Wolf" had with him a good deal of "medicine," but he asked a few moments' delay, as he had to make some more. I watched him closely to guard against trickery, but detected nothing to cause me any apprehension: he plucked one or two lengths of grass just peeping above the ground, rolled them in the palms of his hands, and then put them into his mouth, wherein he had previously placed a small stone, glanced up at the sun, and then at the cardinal points, all the while humming, half distinctly, his "medicine song," in which two sympathizing friends were joining, and then was ready for the fray.

I was not asleep by any means, but putting in all the muscle I could command in revolving the handle of the battery, and so fully absorbed in my work, that I almost forgot to summon "Pat Malloy" to my aid. "High Wolf" took one of the poles, and of course felt no shock; he looked first at the glittering dollar in the bottom of the bucket, and next at the extra prize—five dollars, if I remember correctly—contributed by the officers stand