Coming to his lodge he got a new pony, and, as he mounted, said to his youngest wife: “Wan-ha-ya, give me my little boy: put him up behind me on my pony. I will show him war.”
The squaw held the chubling and put him on the desired place, where he caught on like a burr. The Fire Eater made his way to the battle ground. There the squaws were stripping and mutilating. Finding a dead soldier who was naked, he dismounted, setting the boy on the ground. Pulling his great knife from its buckskin sheath he curled the fat little hand around its haft and led him to the white body. “Strike the enemy, little son, strike like a warrior,” and the Fire Eater, simulating a blow, directed the small arm downward on the corpse. Comprehending the idea, the infant drew up and drove down, doing his best to obey the instructions, but his arm was far too weak to make the knife penetrate. The fun of the thing made him scream with pleasure, and the old Fire Eater chuckled at the idea of his little warrior’s first coup. Then he rode back to the lodge.
VIII. The Medicine-Fight of the Chis-chis-chash.
Hither and yon through the valleys dragged the wagon-soldiers, while the Indians laughed at them from the hills. In the time of the yellow-grass the tribe had made a successful hunt and the sides of their lodges were piled high with dry meat. Their kettles would boil through this snow.
As the tops of the mountains grew white, the camp was moved into a deep gorge of the Big Horn Mountains out of the way of the trailing Yellow-Eyes. For a thousand feet the rock walls rose on either side. A narrow brook wound down between their narrow ways. Numerous lateral canons crossed the main one, giving grass and protection to their ponies. As it suited the individual tastes of the people, the lodges were placed in cozy places. When the snows fell the Indians forgot the wagon-soldiers, as they feasted and gossiped by their camp-fires.
They felt secure in their eerie home, though the camp-cryer frequently passed, shouting: “Do not let your ponies wander down the canon and make trails for the Yellow-Eyes to see.” The women worked the colored beads and porcupine quills, chatted with each other, or built discreet romances as fancy dictated. The men gambled, or made smoke-talks by the night fires. It was the Indian time of social enjoyment.
Restless young men beat up the country in search of adventure; and only this day a party had arrived with Absaroke scalps which they were dancing after the sun had gone. The hollow beat of the tom-toms multiplied against the sides of the canon, together with the wild shrieking and yelling of the rejoicers; but the old Fire Eater had grown weary of dancing scalps. He had danced his youthful enthusiasm away, caring more to sit by his lodge fire playing with his little boy or passing the pipe with men who could remember the days which were better than these—with men who could recall to his mind the ardor of his lost youth. Thus he sat on this wild, whooping night with old Big Hand by his side to smoke his talk, and with his son asleep across his lap.
“Where did the war-party leave its trail as it came to the lodges?” he asked.
Big Hand in reply said: “The man who strikes said they came over the mountains—that the snow lay deep. They did not lead up from the plains. They obeyed the chiefs. If it was not so, the camp-soldiers would have beaten them with sticks. You have not heard the women or the dogs cry.”