The Indians were irresolute. They hardly knew whether to attribute the strange scene to supernatural demonstration or trickery. They held brief council and then one stepped back, and taking deliberate aim, fired.
He was answered by a defiant blast and wild waving of the arms, as the figure danced along the edge of the rock for a few feet and back.
The Indians moved away in awe at the spectacle. But they mustered courage enough to fire again, and once more came the strong blast of the bugle and the dancing and waving of arms.
Then came a volley from a score of rifles, and some of the bullets found the framework of Tootsie’s image and the thing crumpled pitifully upon the rock above his head.
But Tootsie was equal to the occasion, for he sent forth a weird, plaintive wail that died away in a moan and then kept up a series of nerve-rasping cries and wails.
At the same time Buffalo Bill dropped a rock over the brink, which, descending with great good luck, landed fairly in the kettle of water, sending hot water and steam in all directions, breaking the kettle and extinguishing the fire, with much hissing and popping, all in one operation.
The Indians could not see the rock descending, but they saw the dying figure on the brink of the precipice and the demolition of their offering, as if by magic.
Then they fled, vaulting upon their ponies and urging the animals away across the plain with quirt and heel.
When Buffalo Bill could speak, from laughing, he said:
“The sound of a bugle will give those fellows nervous prostration for a long time to come. And the mysterious ‘bad medicine’ will be handed from party to party and tribe to tribe for generations, and whenever an Indian passes these buttes he will offer some present to propitiate the spirits.”