“You would have these twenty to keep far in the advance then, capture the videttes, and wait till the main body comes up?”
“Sartinly; thet’s my idee adzactly.”
“It is the best, the only one. We shall follow it.” And Seguin immediately ordered the Indians to be stripped of their dresses. These consisted mostly of garments that had been plundered from the people of the Mexican towns, and were of all cuts and colours.
“I’d recommend ’ee, cap,” suggested Rube, seeing that Seguin was looking out to choose the men for his advance party, “I’d recommend ’ee to take a smart sprinklin’ of the Delawars. Them Navaghs is mighty ’cute and not easily bamfoozled. They mout sight white skin by moonlight. Them o’ us that must go along ’ll have to paint Injun, or we’ll be fooled arter all; we will.”
Seguin, taking this hint, selected for the advance most of the Delaware and Shawano Indians; and these were now dressed in the clothes of the Navajoes. He himself, with Rube, Garey, and a few other whites, made up the required number. I, of course, was to go along and play the role of a prisoner.
The whites of the party soon accomplished their change of dress, and “painted Injun,” a trick of the prairie toilet well known to all of them.
Rube had but little change to make. His hue was already of sufficient deepness for the disguise, and he was not going to trouble himself by throwing off the old shirt or leggings. That could hardly have been done without cutting both open, and Rube was not likely to make such a sacrifice of his favourite buckskins. He proceeded to draw the other garments over them, and in a short time was habited in a pair of slashing calzoneros, with bright buttons from the hip to the ankle. These, with a smart, tight-fitting jacket that had fallen to his share, and a jaunty sombrero cocked upon his head, gave him the air of a most comical dandy. The men fairly yelled at seeing him thus metamorphosed, and old Rube himself grinned heartily at the odd feelings which the dress occasioned him.
Before the sun had set, everything was in readiness, and the advance started off. The main body, under Saint Vrain, was to follow an hour after. A few men, Mexicans, remained by the spring, in charge of the Navajo prisoners.