As the party neared the lodge, from which the light of the fire within streamed out through the windows into the moon haze, they heard the sound of the drum and the singing that accompanies an Indian feast; a wild melodious flight of notes, threaded with the snarl of the drum like the beat of a fevered temple, rising in ecstasy, like the wail of a fitful night wind in the scrub oaks of a bluff, and falling suddenly to die in a guttural note like the burr of a wounded rattlesnake. A barbaric music filled with the sounds of Nature and old as the wrinkled prairie!
“This,” said Meekleman, stopping near the entrance to listen to the deep, beautiful voices within, “This, McBarty, is the Indian of romance. Now for the bitter truth—and the soup!”
As they entered the long, narrow passageway leading into the lodge, they saw before them a large octagonal room with a wood fire blazing in the centre. About the dusky walls the huge, perverted shadows of the singers flitted in grotesque dances as they swayed in the ecstasy of song. A circle of brown men sat about the sputtering fire over which a large iron kettle steamed forth the scent of beef. Near the circle sat the smaller circle of drummers about a washtub with a cowhide stretched across it.
Within the larger circle near the fire, sat a squaw, cutting bits of beef from a quantity of ribs that she held conveniently in her lap.
“Shade of Mrs. Rorer!” exclaimed the would-be Congressman in a whisper to his companion; “is that the soup?”
“Hist!” returned Meekleman; “one should be willing to suffer for his country!”
At the entrance of the great men, the singing ceased abruptly, and the singers turned their sullen, brute-like eyes upon their visitors and grunted.
“Are there any of the leading men here?” asked Meekleman of the Agent. Rainwalker and White Horse were both present.
“Ah!” said Meekleman, pointing to an unusually homely old Indian; “who is that black scamp with the big face and the remarkably stupendous nose?”
“Rainwalker,” replied the Agent; “a leader; it would be well to make peace with him first.”