The horse of the squawman had by this time been brought up, and he swung himself into the saddle, first making a motion to Carl to keep close by his side. As they got a little way out of the camp Carl saw that the crier’s voice had been obeyed, for they fell in behind a long row of Indians who were already taking their way toward the new camping-ground. They were mostly braves, the women having been left behind to strike the tepees. The squawman did not exchange a word with any of them, and neither did Harding converse with him as freely as he had done heretofore. He did not want to let the bucks see how familiar he was with a prisoner.
The boy was not accustomed to travelling so far on foot, and before their journey was ended he was about as tired as he could well be. At length, to his immense relief, he discovered the camp within plain sight of him. It was situated on a plain which seemed to have no end, with high rolling hills on three sides of it, and on the outskirts were several “sweat-houses” in which the braves purified themselves while making ready for the dance, and in the centre was perhaps a quarter of an acre of ground on which the grass was completely worn off. This had been done by the braves while learning the Ghost Dance from Kicking Bull. There were a large number of tepees scattered around the edge of the plain, but Carl had witnessed the sight so often that he barely took a second look at them. What he wanted was to get somewhere and sit down.
“I’ll bet that the men who dance here will get dust enough in their mouths to keep them from telling the truth for months,” said Carl. “Five days! That’s a long time to keep it up.”
“It is sometimes called the ‘dragging dance,’” said the squawman. “The men get so tired after a while that they can’t lift their feet. Now we will pick out a good place for my tepee, and then we will sit down. You act as though you were tired.”
Harding kept on for half a mile farther, picked out a spot that would do him, dismounted, and pulled his never-failing pipe from his pocket. Carl thought he could enjoy a smoke and passed his tobacco-bag to the squawman. The latter ran the weed through his fingers and praised its purity.
“We don’t get any such tobacco out here,” said he. “We have to eke it out by smoking bark with it. Say, Carl, how much do you get for scouting for that fort?”
“I don’t get anything,” said Carl.
“Do you get up at all hours of the night and run around for that man for nothing?” asked the squawman in astonishment.
“Oh, that’s no trouble. When I want money I can easily get it.”
“That is what comes of your having more money than you want,” said Harding; and it was plain that he was getting angry over it. “If I had one quarter of what you have got, I would leave this country altogether.”