When he came out again Oscar saw that he was an Indian, and that he had exchanged his blanket for a coil of rope, which he carried in his hand.
He fell in behind the colonel and his two companions, and followed them down the hill toward the corral in which the ponies were confined.
There were twenty-five or thirty of them in the enclosure, and they looked so very small, when compared with the cavalry horses that were picketed on the outside, that Oscar could hardly bring himself to believe that they were full-grown animals.
They looked more like colts, and it did not seem possible that they could carry a rider for weeks at a time, with nothing but grass to eat, or beat a Kentucky thoroughbred in a race of twenty miles.
The officers stopped when they had passed through the gate of the corral, and while the major was running his eyes over the herd in search of the particular pony he wanted to find, Oscar had opportunity to take a good survey of the Indian.
He was one of the Osage scouts attached to the colonel’s command, and though not so large a man as Big Thompson, he was taller than either of the officers, and the battered stovepipe hat he wore on his head made him look taller than he really was.
He wore leggings and moccasins, a gray flannel shirt, a tattered officer’s dress coat, with a captain’s epaulet on one shoulder and a sergeant’s chevron on the other, and the band on his hat was stuck full of feathers.
He did not look like a very formidable person, and yet, as Oscar afterward learned, he had the reputation of being the bravest man in his nation. He stood quietly by, with his lasso on his arm, awaiting the colonel’s further orders.
“There he is! there he is!” exclaimed the major, laying his hand on his commander’s shoulder, and pointing toward the pony of which he was in search. “Come here, Preston, and tell me what you think of him.”
“I don’t see him,” replied Oscar, stepping behind the major, and raising himself on tiptoe, so that he could look along the officer’s outstretched arm. “I can’t tell one from the other. They are all sorrels, and look exactly alike to me.”