The discipline practised by John Smith on his son Jack will bear repeating. It seems that the child had taken to crying one night, much to the annoyance of four or five chiefs who had come to the lodge to talk and smoke. “In vain did the mother shake and scold him with the severest Cheyenne words, until Smith, provoked beyond endurance, took the squalling youngster in hands; he ‘shu-ed’ and shouted, and swore, but Jack had gone too far to be easily pacified. He then sent for a bucket of water from the river, and poured cupfull after cupfull on Jack, who stamped and screamed, and bit, in his puny rage. Notwithstanding, the icy stream slowly descended until the bucket was emptied, another was sent for, and again and again the cup was replenished and emptied on the blubbering youth. At last, exhausted with exertion, and completely cooled down, he received the remaining water in silence, and, with a few words of admonition, was delivered over to his mother, in whose arms he stifled his sobs, until his heart-breaking grief and cares were drowned in sleep. What a devilish mixture Indian and American blood is!”
Garrard was a healthy, natural boy, and with all a boy’s love of fun. He mingled readily and naturally in the sports and amusements of the young people of the Cheyenne camp and heartily enjoyed it. In those days the white trader in the Indian camp was regarded as a great man, and was treated with respect, to retain which he carried himself with much dignity. But Garrard cared nothing for this respect, and made no effort to preserve this dignity. He danced and sang with the boys and girls, and the women were astonished to find a white person so careless of appearances, though they liked him all the better for it.
On one occasion in the winter there was much excitement in the Cheyenne camp. A war-party was returning, and all the men, women, and children blackened their faces and went out to meet them. The returning warriors advanced in triumph, for they had three scalps, borne on slender willow wands, and hanging from each scalp was a single tuft of hair which told that they were Pawnees. Now there was great rejoicing in the camp, and many dances to celebrate the victory and to rejoice over the triumph that the tribe had made over its enemies. “The drum, at night, sent forth its monotony of hollow sound, and our Mexican, Pedro, and I, directed by the booming, entered a lodge, vacated for the purpose, full of young men and squaws, following one another in a continuous circle, keeping the left knee stiff, and bending the right with a half-forward, half-negative step, as if they wanted to go on and could not, accompanying it, every time the right foot was raised, with an energetic, broken song, which, dying away, was again and again sounded—hay-a-hay, hay-a-hay, they went—laying the emphasis on the first syllable. A drum, similar to, though larger than, a tamborine, covered with parfleche, was beat upon with a stick, producing with the voices a sound not altogether disagreeable....
“During the day, the young men, except the dancers, piled up dry logs in a level, open space near, for a grand demonstration. At night, when it was fired, I folded my blanket over my shoulders, comme les sauvages, and went out. The faces of many girls were brilliant with vermillion; others were blacked, their robes, leggins and skin dresses, glittering with beads and porcupine quill work. Rings and bracelets of shining brass encircled their taper arms and fingers, and shells dangled from their ears. Indeed, all the finery collectable was piled on in barbarous profusion, though a few, in good taste or through poverty, wore a single band, and but few rings; and with jetty hair, parted in the middle, from the forehead to the neck, terminating in two handsome braids....
“The girls, numbering two hundred, fell into line together, and the men, of whom there were two hundred and fifty, joining, a circle was formed, which ‘traveled’ around with the same shuffling step already described. The drummers, and other musicians (twenty or twenty-five of them) marched in a contrary direction, to, and from, and around the fire, inside the large ring; for, at the distance kept by the outsiders, the area was one hundred and fifty feet in diameter. There Appolonian emulators chanted the great deeds performed by the Cheyenne warriors; as they ended, the dying strain was caught up by the hundreds of the outside circle, who, in fast-swelling, loud tones, poured out the burden of their song. At this juncture, the march was quickened, the scalps of the slain were borne aloft and shaken in wild delight, and shrill warnotes, rising above the furious din, accelerated the pulsation, and strung high the nerves. Timeworn shields, careering in mad holders’ hands, clashed, and keen lances, once reeking in Pawnee blood, clanged. Braves seized one another with an iron grip, in the heat of excitement, or chimed more tenderly in the chant, enveloped in the same robe with some gentle maiden as they approvingly stepped through one of their own original polkas.
“Thirty of the chiefs, and principal men were ranged by the pile of blazing logs. By their invitation, I sat down near ‘Old Bark,’ and smoked death and its concomitant train of evils to those audacious tribes, who doubt the courage or supremacy of the brave, the great, and powerful Cheyenne nation.
“The pipe was lavishly decorated with beaver strips, beads, and porcupine; the mixture of tobacco and bark, was prepared with unusual care for this, their grand gala night.”
A CHEYENNE INDIAN CAMP
It would be interesting to follow Garrard through his life in the Cheyenne camp, but space forbids this. He was called away from this interesting life by the news which came from the West of the death at the hands of the Pueblos of Governor Charles Bent, in New Mexico. Fugitives who had escaped the attack had come to Fort William and told what had happened, and soon after, William Bent, with twenty-three men, started for the Mexican settlements. They passed far to the southward of Pike’s Peak, met a few United States soldiers and volunteers, and toward the middle of February were joined by Sublette, with two companions, who reported forty thousand men enlisted for Mexico. Toiling through the mountains in true winter weather, the party marched on until they came to one of Bent’s ranches and at last reached Taos. From this on, the author’s route was much among the Mexicans of the various towns until, at last, turning his face eastward, he came back across the mountains, and once more found himself in the Cheyenne village, whence soon afterward he set out for the East.