[VI]
War Bonnet, Teepee and Coups
Forty yards and first shot. Well, that's what the Injuns would call a 'grand coup,' and Caleb's face wore the same pleasant look as when he made the fire with rubbing-sticks.
"What's a grand coup?" asked Little Beaver.
"Oh, I suppose it's a big deed. The Injuns call a great feat a 'coup,' an' an extra big one a 'grand coup.' Sounds like French, an' maybe 'tis, but the Injuns says it. They had a regular way of counting their coup, and for each they had the right to an Eagle feather in their bonnet, with a red tuft of hair on the end for the extra good ones. At least, they used to. I reckon now they're forgetting it all, and any buck Injun wears just any feather he can steal and stick in his head."
"What do you think of our head-dresses?" Yan ventured.
'Hm! You ain't never seen a real one or you wouldn't go at them that way at all. First place, the feathers should all be white with black tips,
an' fastened not solid like that, but loose on a cap of soft leather. Each feather, you see, has a leather loop lashed on the quill end for a lace to run through and hold it to the cap, an' then a string running [300] through the middle of each feather to hold it—just so. Then there are ways of marking each feather to show how it was got. I mind once I was out on a war party with a lot of Santees—that's a brand of Sioux—an' we done a lot o' sneaking an' stealing an' scalped some of the enemy. Then we set out for home, and when we was still about thirty miles away we sent on an Injun telegram of good luck. The leader of our crowd set fire to the grass after he had sent two men half a mile away on each side to do the same thing, an' up went three big smokes. There is always some one watching round an Injun village, an' you bet when they seen them three smokes they knowed that we wuz a-coming back with scalps.
"The hull Council come out to meet us, but not too reckless, coz this might have been the trick of enemies to surprise them.