The lodge was apparently deserted, the inmates having taken themselves to other lodges for purposes of talk, or to the council house. Lifting the skin flap of the lodge, Buffalo Bill peered into the dark interior. It was perfectly silent, and believing it to be quite deserted for the time, he crawled in, dropping the skin covering into place behind him.
Having gained entrance to the lodge, the scout lay quietly for a time, listening and getting his bearings. Then he moved forward until his hands came in contact with a blanket. This he appropriated, then began to feel about for some other article that would be useful. At length his hand fell on a feathered Indian headdress.
“Just the thing,” was his thought; and he took that also. “Now if I only knew where to look for this warrior’s paint box, I could soon turn myself into a pretty fair specimen of redskin.”
But, though the scout felt about in the gloom of the lodge for some time, his hands did not light on the coveted box of Indian paints.
They did light on something, though, that almost startled him, and that was an Indian baby. It was lying in a sort of cradle of deerskins; and, as soon as the scout’s fingers touched its face, it awoke and began to screech.
“Thinks I’m some sort of wild animal,” muttered the scout as the baby increased its yells. “Well, the thing for me to do is to get out of here as quick as I can.”
Thereupon he “crawfished” rapidly back to the point where he had gained ingress, and again lifting the skin lodge covering, he slipped out of the tepee.
Scarcely had he done so when a squaw came running from an adjacent lodge.
Again the scout “froze” to the ground, but this time with the Indian blanket drawn about his shoulders and with the feathered headdress on his head. His hat he held in one hand under the concealing folds of the blanket. In the other hand he held his knife.
The coming of the squaw quieted the child.