At the same time the men, both mounted and afoot, charged down upon us, whooping and piercing the air with their shrill war whistle and flourishing their weapons as if about to tear us to pieces. A man unused to Indians, no matter how brave, might well have trembled at finding himself thus confronted by hundreds of yelling, half-naked savages. The Pawnee warriors are particularly formidable-looking, being tall and well shaped, and their height accentuated by the bristling roach of short hair which runs back over their shaven heads to the feathered scalp-lock. I was, however, too well versed in the Indian character either to show or to feel any trepidation.
As the wild band closed about us in mock attack, a stately warrior whom Frank said was Characterish, or White Wolf, the grand chief of the nation, forced his horse through the mob and greeted me with a guttural "Bon jour!" Upon my return of the salute, he invited me to his lodge. This was gratifying, for I could see by the Spanish grand medal he wore suspended from his neck that he had been particularly favored by the Spaniards, and so might very well have felt ill-disposed toward all Americans.
When we advanced, escorted by the warriors, we were met by all the rest of the population, running and shouting and leaping with excitement at the arrival of their fellow-tribesman and the white man. But at a word from Characterish, not only the women and children but the warriors as well quitted their clamor and gave us free passage into the village.
Unlike the mat and slab lodges of the Osages, the Pawnee houses are substantial structures. Their wattled walls and grassed roof, supported by a double circle of posts, are covered with a thick layer of sods and earth above and over all. This makes them cool in Summer and warm in cold weather; yet, like the Osages, the Pawnees always move down into the timbers for the Winter.
Arriving at the lodge of White Wolf, I was shown in through the covered portico which gave the lodge quite the aspect of a civilized home. Within I found the chief's wives and men-servants busily cooking a meal for us on the fire in the middle of the wide pit which occupied the greater part of the lodge's interior. That there might be no doubt of his hospitality, the chief at once assigned to me one of the snug little curtained compartments built against the wall, around the edge of the pit. My room was in the place of honor, beneath the sacred medicine bundle, on the far side of the lodge.
By the time I had my rifle and saddle stowed away, the chief's cook, a maimed old warrior, called us to come and eat. I sat down with my host and his two sons to a none too savory stew of dried buffalo meat, thickened with pumpkin. To this was added a mess of corn cooked in buffalo grease. But a prairie traveller is seldom troubled with a dainty stomach, and I managed to compliment my host by making a hearty meal of it.
As soon as we had eaten, White Wolf sent out a crier to call in the chiefs and a few of the foremost warriors of the village. They seated themselves with us in a circle, and the head chief's calumet was passed around without any man refusing to smoke.
When the pipe came back around to White Wolf, he addressed me in Pawnee, which was interpreted by Frank: "Let the white man speak; tell why he come Pawnee terre."
I held up the wampum belt, and answered briefly: "I come in friendship from the war chief of the great white father at Washington."
"Ugh! Washington!" grunted the least stolid of the warriors. Even these remote prairie savages knew that illustrious name.