“What do you think of the music?” asked the smuggler, when the boy had listened to the bedlamic din for several moments. “Not as good as an opery, but it strikes the Injun ear like the song of angels. Just over them hills are the red boys what whipped Custer last summer. It war the biggest fight we ever had in these parts. The blue-coats toed the scratch like men, an' it war a pity to shoot 'em down as we did.”
Gopher Gid started as the little pronoun that told so much fell upon his ear.
“Were you there?” he asked.
“Yes, I war thar. What are you goin' to do about it, my peewee? Keep close to me, boy,” he said, as, with a quick jerk of the rein, he brought Gopher Gid's mule close alongside. “Take everything in good-humour. Ef the Injuns rile you a little, don't let on. They're not lookin' fur me on HOSSBACK!”
The young trapper knew the meaning of his captor's emphasis, and the real destination of the cargo of whisky which he helped to destroy was now cleared up.
Moss guided his charge to a part of the village from which the bedlam seemed to rise, and almost suddenly they emerged upon the great square, where more than one famous sun-dance and act of cruel torture had taken place.
In the centre of the square rose a pole about thirty feet in height, and from the top dangled innumerable buckskin ropes, the other ends of which lay on the ground, giving them an appearance of being nearly fifty feet in length.
Hundreds of Indians of both sexes swarmed about this pole, whose use we shall presently witness. Not a white face was to be seen, and the boy trapper instinctively drew back when he first looked upon the sight.
“We're the only white skins hyar, onless—”
But Gid was not permitted to debate the mental question, for their presence was soon espied, and they found themselves surrounded by scores of Indians, clad in wild paraphernalia for the brutal rites about to commence.