At length we all were seated upon opposite sides of the fire, each party forming the arc of a circle, concave to the other.
There was a heavy door still hanging upon its hinge; and as there were no windows in the house, this was suffered to remain open. It opened to the inside.
The fire was soon kindled, and the clay-stone calumet filled with “kini-kinik.” It was then lighted, and passed from mouth to mouth in profound silence.
We noticed that each of the Indians, contrary to their usual custom of taking a whiff or two, smoked long and slowly. We knew it was a ruse to protract the ceremony and gain time; while we—I answer for Seguin and myself—were chafing at the delay.
When the pipe came round to the hunters, it passed in quicker time.
The unsocial smoke was at length ended, and the negotiation began.
At the very commencement of the “talk,” I saw that we were going to have a difficulty. The Navajoes, particularly the younger warriors, assumed a bullying and exacting attitude that the hunters were not likely to brook; nor would they have submitted to it for a moment but for the peculiar position in which their chief was placed. For his sake they held in as well as they could; but the tinder was apparent, and would not bear many sparks before it blazed up.
The first question was in relation to the number of the prisoners. The enemy had nineteen, while we, without including the queen or the Mexican girls, numbered twenty-one. This was in our favour; but, to our surprise, the Indians insisted that their captives were grown women, that most of ours were children, and that two of the latter should be exchanged for one of the former!
To this absurdity Seguin replied that we could not agree; but, as he did not wish to keep any of their prisoners, he would exchange the twenty-one for the nineteen.
“Twenty-one!” exclaimed a brave; “why, you have twenty-seven. We counted them on the bank.”