When the family had finished their supper, Joe and Rob, with a team of work horses, dragged several large logs from the creek to the front of the house to make a big bonfire, for the Pawnee dance.
Shortly after dark the redskins came up with their best toggery on, and when Joe, who had donned his Indian suit for the occasion, told White Wolf he was ready, the Indians commenced to circle around the great fire of logs, in their savage fashion. Some of them jumped stiff-legged like an antelope when he is first startled. Others, bending nearly double, shuffled in pairs, each one on his own hook, trying to see which could make the most ridiculous postures, for they have no regular figures, but keep admirable time to the drumming on the tom-toms.
When the first dance was finished, they gave a representation of the scalp dance. The chief crept along the ground, putting his ear close to it, in the attitude of listening on the trail of the enemy, then waving his hand for his warriors to come on, they rushed into a supposed Indian camp, and went through the simulation of killing their victim, and wrenching off his hair with their knives. The motions, which at times were really graceful, were carried on in perfect unison with the monotonous pounding of the drums.
The next dance was named "Make the buffalo come." The medicine-men, who claim to possess mysterious powers, tell the warriors to dance, for that will make the buffalo come, and then they can get their meat. The crafty old fellows are sure never to order the dance until about the season that the animals come to that part of the country where the tribe may happen to be. They are kept dancing night after night until the buffalo really make their appearance, then the medicine-men claim that they brought them by their incantations and the wonderful power of their medicine.
For this dance, White Wolf's warriors and himself covered their heads with the skin of a buffalo's head, horns and all, so that they looked like a lot of men with the heads of that animal as part of their anatomy. It was a long dance, and during its performance, the most indescribable antics were gone through.
The family were well pleased with the entertainment, and when it was over, Mrs. Thompson invited the Indians into the sitting-room, where the girls had prepared a little supper for them, consisting of cake and lemonade. The latter was new, and created quite a sensation, but Joe told them it was not fire-water, and they might drink a barrel full without becoming crazy.
At midnight when the dances and the supper were over, the Pawnees rode back to their camp, delighted with their evening's entertainment.
The next morning Joe was down at the Indian camp very early to see his dusky friends make ready for their departure. The chief told him that they had camped on the Oxhide for the last time; the whites had taken up all the country, and the buffalo would come there no more. Now when they needed buffalo meat, they would be obliged to go out as far as the Walnut, and in a few more years there would be no buffalo at all. His people would have to take the "white man's road" if they expected to live. He and the other warriors made their youthful friend some presents, and told him that they had to go by the house to take the trail down the Smoky Hill Fork to their distant home. He said that they would stop a moment at the ranche to say good by to all the people who had been so kind to him and the tribe every year since they had camped on the creek.
Joe returned to Errolstrath, feeling very sad, because he had become much attached to the Indians, and he knew that he would miss them so much, and feel lonely for a long time. He told the family that the Pawnees would come soon to say farewell, and that they must be sure to be out on the veranda when they came.