And now it was my turn to take the foul pipe and become eloquent. I also rose, took a whiff, and—yes, the turnip, hemp, acorns, sour sorrel were all there in the pipe-bowl, but there seemed to be a fifth ingredient in the mixture, for it tasted as if it had bits of felt shoes in it. I puffed the smoke towards the earth and the sky and said: “The sunshine and air come from Heaven, whence come all good gifts. The earth receives the warmth and moisture, and gives them to the buffalo and mustang and bear and deer, to the pumpkin and corn and all good plants from which the red man makes his kinnikinnic, that in the pipe of peace breathes brotherly love.”
I had read that Indians call their tobacco “kinnikinnic,” and the knowledge opportunely came back to me now. A second time I filled my mouth with smoke and blew it toward heaven, and continued: “In the west rise the Rocky Mountains, and to the east stretch the plains; on the north roll the seas, and the south is washed by the waters of the great ocean. Were all the land between these points mine I would share it with the warriors of the Kiowas, for they are my brothers. This year may they kill ten times as many buffaloes and fifty times as many grizzly bears as they number. May their corn grow as large as pumpkins, and their pumpkins so great that twenty could be made from one. I have spoken. How!”
These wishes were not very practical, but they seemed to please the Indians as much as if they were already fulfilled. The Fox seized my hand, assured me of his friendship for all time, then took the pipe between his teeth, and smoked in supreme content.
Having brought the Indians into a state of high good humor, Sam said: “My brothers say that the war-hatchet has been dug up between them and the Apaches of the Mascaleros. How long has this been so? and what has ended the peace between them?”
“Since the time two weeks ago, when the Apache dogs killed four of our warriors.”
“Where?”
“At Rio Pecos.”
“That is not your camp, but that of the Mascaleros; what were your warriors doing there?”
The Kiowa did not hesitate to reply candidly: “A band of our braves went at night to capture some of the Apaches’ horses. The vile dogs watch well; they killed our brave men. Therefore we have taken up the war-hatchet.”
So the Kiowas had intended to steal, yet would make the Apaches atone for their defence of their own property. I would have expressed my mind on this conduct, but Sam signalled to me so energetically to be quiet that I obeyed him, and he said: “My brother the Fox is out to spy; when will his braves follow?”