“Halt! Halt!” called Isaac, leveling his Winchester, but the Indian, followed by his faithful squaw, continued to advance up to the very muzzle of the gun, repeating, “Me good Indian! Me good Indian!”
Cope dressed and went out, and found that the Indian had mistaken us for illicit whisky dealers, and come over to get a supply. The Professor told the man to go to sleep under the wagon, and at daylight to recross and invite half a dozen of the principal chiefs to breakfast with us.
The two Indians lay down and went to sleep as directed, but they had just begun to snore peacefully when Isaac’s turn at guard duty was over, and he came to the wagon to wake the cook, a slow, heavy man, whose fat cheeks had induced the Professor to believe that he could cook digestible food. The scout Cope had hired was not on hand, although he, as well as the cook, had demanded his pay in advance before he would accompany us.
After much growling, the cook got up, and remembering that he had left his shoes under the wagon, went to get them and came upon the sleeping beauties. Without more ado, he seized their dirty blanket in both hands and coolly hauled them out on to the open prairie. After which he proceeded to get his shoes.
At four o’clock in the morning it was Cope’s turn to go on guard. He was awakened, but as his Spencer carbine was at the bottom of his trunk, and perhaps, too, because he was a Friend, and did not believe in war, he refused to get up; and we slept in safety the rest of the night without a guard.
Just before breakfast the Professor, as was his custom, was washing his set of false teeth in a basin of water, when a party of six stalwart chieftains strode up in single file, in answer to his invitation through the brave we had entertained.
Quickly slipping the teeth into his mouth, Cope advanced with a smiling face to greet his guests, who shouted as one man, “Do it again! Do it again!” He repeated the performance for them again and again, much to their mystification.
After they had tried to pull out their own and each other’s teeth, and had failed, they settled down to breakfast. The cook poured out their coffee for them, and when they had had enough they shouted, “When!”
We never knew whether this hospitality was of any benefit to us, as the whole tribe went on their buffalo hunt, and we saw no more of them, but very likely their chiefs forbade petty stealing from our camp, for we lost nothing.
We crossed the Missouri, here a clear, sparkling stream, and the Judith River, and went into camp in the narrow valley of Dog Creek, in the midst of the fossil fields which we had come so far and at such risks to explore.