Matthews stared. "Carry any guns?" he asked.
"Not when I go into the stockade. The Indians are without weapons. And I like to show them that I trust them."
The other laughed. "You go t' tell some redskins that they's goin' t' be strung up, and y' don't take no gun. Well! not for me, Colonel!"
"Then, we'll have a guard."
"O. K. I'm with you."
A scout who understood the sign language was despatched to the stockade. And by the time the braves were settled down before the blaze, Colonel Cummings, Matthews, and a detail of armed men were before the aperture of the Medicine Lodge.
The soldiers waited outside the big wigwam, where they made themselves comfortable by moving up and down. Their commanding officer and the interpreter went in. At their appearance, the warriors rose gravely, shook hands, and motioned the white men to take seats upon a robe placed at Lame Foot's left hand. The air in the place was already beginning to thicken with kinnikinick and fire smoke; the mingled smell of tobacco and skins made it nauseating. Colonel Cummings would gladly have hurried his errand. But Indian etiquette forbade haste. He was forced to contain himself and let the council proceed with customary and exasperating slowness.
The first step was the pipe. A young Sioux applied a burning splinter to a sandstone bowl and handed the long stem to the medicine-man. His nostrils filled, he gave the pipe to Colonel Cummings, from whom, in turn, it passed to Matthews, Standing Buffalo, Canada John, and thence along the curving line of warriors. When all had smoked, the bowl was once more filled and lighted, and once more it was sent from hand to hand. Not until this ceremony had been repeated many times did the council come to speech.
But neither the commanding officer nor his interpreter made the first address. Though the braves guessed that something unusual had brought about an assembly at this hour, and though their curiosity on the subject was childishly live, they surpassed their captor in patience. Stolidly they looked on while Lame Foot rose to his feet.
The war-priest was not the figure that had led the band south after the battle; not the haughty, stately brave that the sentimentalist loves to picture. He was feathered and streaked as before. A stone mallet hung from his belt. But he wore no string of bears' claws. They had gone the way of the sutler, which was a tasty way, strewn with bright-labelled, but aged, canned goods. And as for his embroidered shirt, it was much soiled and worn, and he had so gained in weight—through plentiful food and lack of exercise—that he pressed out upon it deplorably with a bulging paunch.