They had wandered down one of the streets to look over the baskets and bead work when an unearthly hubbub broke out on the knoll they had just left.
“Something doing now, fellows,” Merton yelled, as he led the crowd back in the direction of the sound at full speed.
“Sounds like a cross between a dog fight and a heron rookery,” Bill muttered, as he slowly overhauled Merton in the race. Their dash had caused a veritable stampede of all the visitors in the street, and long before they reached the scene of the disturbance they were leading a fair-sized mob.
At the edge of the knoll they stopped short and gazed on the scene in amazement. Everything was peaceful enough, but prancing around the fire with a weird, halting step were the braves of the tribe, daubed with war paint and chanting their wild war song. It was a most monotonous performance which went on unceasingly without the slightest change, but there was a certain fascination about it which kept everyone silent for some time. Unconsciously the onlookers rehearsed in their minds the scenes of Butler’s raid and imagined these savages lashing themselves in this way into blood-thirsty fury. Or possibly some of those old chiefs looking on so grimly were in the force which destroyed Custer’s little troop. The same people watched and watched and then came back to see it again.
All evening as the boys wandered from booth to booth bargaining with the squaws for beaded moccasins and belts, or danced in the pavilion they could hear that monotonous “Ki yi, ki yi, ki yi, ki yi,” pervading everything. And late in the evening when they went to bed in their little camp that dull drone which had at one time caused so many sleepless nights put them to sleep.
In the morning they continued their shopping. It was a good-natured crowd composed of people from all over the country with some from the cities, and two troops of boy scouts. The boys found the squaws shrewd bargainers, with a thorough knowledge of the value of money and a pretty good idea of the white man’s craze for Indian trinkets. Nor were they all as ugly as the one Scott and Merton had seen at the little cabin. Some of them were strikingly handsome and their richly beaded, bright colored garments added much to their barbaric beauty. It was a good deal of fun arguing with them.
Immediately after lunch the boys packed their duffel and started for home, for Merton had learned that the logging train went east about three o’clock. Their trip home was uneventful. They spent the night at the lumber camp and came in sight of the school about three o’clock in the afternoon.
“Well, boys,” Bill called in a fatherly tone from a comfortable seat on the front porch, “how did you enjoy the circus?”
Fifteen miles back up the road the opinion might have been different, but now that they were home they all declared it great, and as time went on it became “greater.”