A Painted Party.
About five miles from the spot upon which the emigrants were encamped, and almost at the same hour, another party had pitched their tents upon the plain.
There was not the slightest resemblance between the two sets of travellers, either in personal appearance, in the language spoken, or in their camp-equipments.
The latter were all horsemen, unencumbered with wagons, and without even the impedimenta of tents.
On dismounting they had simply staked the horses on the grass, and laid down upon the buffalo robes, that were to serve them both as shelter and for couches.
There were about two score of them in all; and all without exception were men. Not a woman or child was among them. They were young men too; though to this there were several exceptions.
To have told the colour of their skins it would have been necessary to submit them to ablution: since that portion of it not covered by a breech-clout with legging continuations of leather, was so besmeared with paint that not a spot of the natural tint could be detected.
After this, it is scarce necessary to say, that they were Indians; or to add that their painted bodies, nude from neck to waist, proclaimed them “on the war-trail.”
There were other evidences of this, in the manner in which they were armed. Most of them carried guns. On a hunting excursion they would have had bows and arrows—the prairie tribes preferring these weapons in the chase. (Note 1.) They had their spears, too, slung lance-fashion by the side of the saddle; with tomahawks stuck in their belts. All of them were furnished with the lazo.
Among them was one sufficiently conspicuous to be at once recognised as their chief. His superior dress and adornment told of his title to this distinction; while there was that in his bearing toward the others, that placed it beyond doubt. They seemed not only to fear, but respect him; as if something more than the accident of hereditary rank gave him a claim to command them.