Loyal Heart and Belhumeur, concealed among the tufted branches of the cork tree, were observing the Comanches.
The Indians depended upon the vigilance of their sentinels. Far from suspecting that their enemies were so near them and were watching their motions, they crouched or lay around the fires, eating or smoking carelessly.
These savages, to the number of twenty-five, were dressed in their buffalo robes, and painted in the most varied and fantastic manner. Most of them had their faces covered with vermillion, others were entirely black, with a long white stripe upon each cheek; they wore their bucklers on their backs, with their bows and arrows, and near them lay their guns.
By the number of wolves' tails fastened to their moccasins, and which dragged on the ground behind them, it was easy to perceive that they were all picked warriors, renowned in their tribe.
At some paces from the group, Eagle Head leant motionless against a tree. With his arms crossed on his breast, and leaning gently forward, he seemed to be listening to vague sounds, perceptible to himself alone.
Eagle Head was an Osage Indian; the Comanches had adopted him when quite young, but he had always preserved the costume and manners of his nation.
He was, at most, twenty-eight years of age, nearly six feet high, and his large limbs, upon which enormous muscles developed themselves, denoted extraordinary strength.
Differing in this respect from his companions, he only wore a blanket fastened round his loins, so as to leave his bust and his arms bare. The expression of his countenance was handsome and noble; his black, animated eyes, close to his aquiline nose, and his somewhat large mouth, gave him a faint resemblance to a bird of prey. His hair was shaved off, with the exception of a ridge upon the middle of his head, which produced the effect of the crest of a helmet, and a long scalp lock, in which was fixed a bunch of eagle's feathers, hung down behind him.
His face was painted of four different colours—blue, white, black, and red; the wounds inflicted by him upon his enemies were marked in blue upon his naked breast. Moccasins of untanned deerskin came up above his knees, and numerous wolves' tails were fastened to his heels.
Fortunately for the hunters, the Indians were on the warpath, and had no dogs with them; but for this, they would have been discovered long before, and could not possibly have approached so near the camp.