Finally dismounting near the chief’s lodge, and beckoning me to follow him, Red Cloud passed in beneath the low opening, and shaking hands with the chief, sat down on a buffalo robe at the farther side of the fire which smouldered in the centre.
The chief Tashota, or the Left-handed, was a tall and powerful-looking man, just past the prime of life. He sat reclining on his robe, looking straight into the fire before him, and blowing slow puffs from a calumet of green pipestone, curiously carved into the body and head of a bird. I also shook hands, and then seated myself in silence.
A minute or two passed, and Tashota, taking his pipe from his lips, spoke.
“Have my friends come far?”
“Yes. Seven days have passed since we left the Red Deer river.”
Then followed questions at slow intervals on most of the subjects of interest in prairie land—the game, the news of war, the movements of tribes, the doings of the white traders; but all semblance of curiosity on the part of the chief to know the objects of the present visit was carefully avoided, and that eagerness which, in civilization, is so prone to go at once “to the point” was nowhere observable.
Nor was the Sioux, anxious though he felt on the score of time, over hasty to develope his object. Of course he said nothing about the party left at the cache. He merely accounted for his presence in that part of the country by his desire to fall in with buffalo after the winter; and while expressing his willingness to become the purchaser of a few horses, he also adroitly touched upon the chances of the other tribes shortly expected to arrive, being possessed of many superfluous animals which they would be eager to dispose of.
This was a clever bit of trade tactics. Tashota was not anxious to see a customer go even to his cousins; so after a time he asked what kind of animals the Sioux might require, and what he had to offer in exchange for them?
He wanted five or six animals of average size and speed. He had only a few weapons to offer in exchange; but they were good ones. He would show them to the chief.
Whereupon he took out a short but very handy American repeating rifle, carrying in its magazine fourteen cartridges, which, by a simple action of the trigger-bar, were passed one by one into the barrel, and fired in succession with great rapidity; and he also laid on the ground a bag of cartridges and three revolver pistols.