"Who are the Pale men who thus enter as friends the atepetl of the Antelope Comanches?" he asked, addressing Loyal Heart.
"They are brothers, who ask leave to sit by the hearth of the Red men," the latter answered.
"It is well," Black-deer continued; "these men are our brothers. The Council fire is lighted; they will enter with us the lodge of the Great Medicine, sit down by the fire and smoke morichee from the sacred calumet with the Sachems of the nation."
"Let it be as my brother has decided," Loyal Heart responded.
Black-deer gave a wave of the hand, upon which the hachesto raised the curtained door of the lodge, and the Chiefs entered, followed by the hunters. The medicine lodge, much larger than the other callis of the village, was also built with greater care. The buffalo skins that covered it entirely were painted red with a profusion of black designs, a species of sacred hieroglyphics, only understood by the medicine men and the most renowned Sachems of the tribe, who possessed the scent of the war trail. The interior of the lodge was perfectly empty. In the centre was a round hole dug in the earth to a depth of about two feet; in this hole the requisite wood and charcoal were prepared.
When all the Chiefs had entered the lodge, the hachesto let the curtain fall again that formed the entrance. A band of picked warriors immediately surrounded the lodge to keep off the curious, and insure the secrecy of the deliberations. The Indians are excessively strict about the laws of etiquette; with them everything is regulated with a minuteness we should be far from expecting among a semi-barbarous nation; and each is bound by the severest penalties to conform to the ceremonial. In order to make our readers thoroughly understand their strange manners, we thought it best to give them in their fullest detail.
Thus Black-deer was perfectly well aware who the Palefaces were that reached the village, since he had acted as their guide. But etiquette demanded that he should receive them as he had done, for otherwise the other Chiefs might have been scandalized by such a breach of custom, and the strangers would, in all probability, have questions to discuss. In the first place, it was proposed to organise a great expedition against the Buffalo Apaches, a plundering tribe, who had several times stolen horses from the very villages of the Comanches, and on whom the Sachems desired to take exemplary revenge. Secondly, Tranquil, through the medium of Loyal Heart, whose influence was great with the tribe, requested that a band of picked braves, amounting to fifty, and placed under the command of Loyal Heart, should be entrusted to him for an expedition, the object of which he could not divulge at the moment, but its success would benefit his allies as much as himself.
The first question was, after several speeches, unanimously resolved in the affirmative. The council was proceeding to discuss the second, when a loud noise was heard outside, the curtain of the medicine lodge was raised, and the hachesto walked in. Let us shortly explain what the hachesto of an Indian village is, and the nature of his duties. The hachesto is a man who must be gifted with a loud and powerful voice. He represents among the Redskins the town crier, and his duty is to make news public, and convene the Chiefs to council. When he made his appearance in the lodge, Black-deer gave him an angry glance.
"When the Chiefs are assembled in the Medicine lodge, they must not be disturbed," he said to him.
"My father, Wah-Rush-a-Menec, speaks well," the Indian answered with a respectful bow; "his son knows it."