His hands were painted blood red, and hanging to a string of braided scalps was a hatchet painted a carmine hue.
As he went along he chanted a weird song, yet his keen eyes seemed to take in the country thoroughly as he approached the Bad Lands.
And such a country, if so it could be called, for it was wild and barren to the extreme of desolation.
The surroundings were seamed and scarred with ravines, rocks, and desert patches.
A table land, or what the Indians called a mesa, arose abruptly from the plain surrounding, and could only be reached by two or three passes, one coming in from the Cheyenne River, which was wild, precipitous, and dangerous to ascend.
Ascending this steep, winding pass, the medicine chief halted, and gazed about him by the fast receding light, for the sun was upon the horizon.
The mesa was many miles long, and several in width in some places, and almost as desolate as the plains surrounding it.
Over in one corner, securely sheltered, the camp of the hostiles was discernible, for the camp fires began to brighten in the gathering twilight.
Indian guards were stationed at the passes, and scouts in small bands were encircling the plateau, to warn the camps of the approach of a foe.
The approach of the medicine man had been signaled by the scouts, and the guards at the pass crowded about him, and yet with seeming awe and respect, for not a word did they utter.