“Where have you been all the forenoon?” Scott called tauntingly.
“I suppose you have been here all of five minutes,” Morris sneered, “or are you on your way home?”
“No,” Merton said, “we’re not quite ready to go home, but we have been here two hours. We came over from the lumber camp on the logging train. What time did you leave the camp?”
“We did not see any camp,” Morris answered sullenly. “We have not seen a soul since we left home.”
They had taken the north fork of the road, which carried them north of the camp, but had the virtue of being five miles shorter. They had put up for the night in a deserted log cabin on the edge of a swamp, where they had been eaten up by the mosquitoes, and had been walking since five o’clock that morning. It was a rather peevish crowd, and the luck of the others in getting a lift on the logging train did not improve their temper. While they talked they walked over to the camp, put up the rest of the tents and cooked dinner. An hour’s rest set them all up, and they were ready for anything the afternoon might bring forth.
The program opened with the grand parade. It was quite an imposing sight. There were some three hundred Indians of the two tribes. They formed at opposite ends of the grounds, rode solemnly forward till the columns met, and joined forces in one big parade. The two oldest chiefs rode side by side at the head of the procession, decked in all the extravagance of paint and feathers that the savage mind could invent. To them it was a solemn occasion—for they could remember the times when they had opposed each other in bitter strife—and they sat their ponies in stately dignity. The lesser chiefs followed, and the young bucks brought up the rear. They slowly circled the entire grounds amidst the cheers of the onlookers.
The procession finally came to a halt on a little knoll which commanded a view of the lake on one side and the level race track on the other. Here the chiefs seated themselves solemnly in a large circle supported by a larger circle of braves. One of these brought the ancient peace pipe, lighted it at the fire in the middle of the circle and handed it to the oldest chief. The old man puffed solemnly a few times, and handed it on to his neighbor. At last the circuit was completed and the sacred rite was ended. The far-away look in the eyes of the older chiefs showed that their thoughts were wandering back to the bloody scenes of their early days and that they were counting again the scalps they had taken in those relentless fights.
These rites ended, the young men hurried away to prepare themselves for the contests to come. As an athletic exhibition it was really pathetic. The competitors were in miserable physical condition; the half-starved ponies ran in a listless way, and the foot racers would have stood very little show in a high school track meet. The canoe races were slow, for the men who took part in them were so accustomed to letting their squaws do the paddling that they made a poor showing.
“It takes all the glamour of romance to throw any interest into that,” Scott remarked. “We enjoy it because they are real Indians, but I’ll bet they would not stand a ghost of a show in our Fourth of July Celebration.”
“We ought to have brought along one of the oxen and entered him in the horse race,” Steve whispered.