Pahnawhay had again taken the red blanket from my bed and walked round me praising it loudly, while I was sitting by Cachakia, but she seemed not to have the courage to ask me for it. I noticed her embarrassment, and as I had long wished to have a dress like these girls were wearing, I pointed when she again stood before me to the various articles of her costume, then to the woollen blanket, and made the sign of exchange. As if the greatest piece of good fortune had happened to her, she fell back a step and repeated my signs inquiringly as if not believing her luck, and when I again affirmed it, she threw off in a few moments all her clothing, folded herself in the blanket, and stretching out her arm under it, carefully laid her leathern dress on my bed. I was so surprised at this instantaneous metamorphosis that at the first moment I did not think how Cachakia would be humiliated by it; but Pahnawhay pointed to her, and said I must give her a blanket as well. In truth the thermometer had already fallen in the eyes of my pretty neighbour, so I got up quickly and opened a chest in which I had several blankets, but not a red one; however, there were five blue ones among them, which pleased Cachakia remarkably, and in an equally short period her dress was also lying on my bed, and she was seated, highly delighted, in the Turkey blue blanket in my rocking chair smoking her cigar.
The sun had already set, and darkness was spreading over the landscape, when my princesses trotted out proudly into the prairie, wrapped in their blankets, with an assurance that they would return early the next morning with the whole tribe. At an early hour I had a very large kettle of coffee made and extra bread baked before the cattle were driven out to pasture, a fat ox was driven into the enclosure, the dogs were chained up, and I ordered my men to keep the Fort closed, as the Indians whom I wished to enter it would be led through my house, which stood at the south-eastern angle, and had an entrance through the palisade.
At the appointed hour we saw the party of Indians coming down the river, and soon halt in front of my fence. I went out, received the chief with the usual ceremony, and saluted his two daughters who on this day only wore snow-white bran-new petticoats, painted in the brightest colours with very considerable taste. They wore necklaces of very handsome beads, earrings of the same material hung down on their shoulders, and their round arms were ornamented with flashing brass rings, while a new long tuft of feathers of the most brilliant hues was planted on the left side of the head. They left the blankets, which had hung loosely on their shoulders while riding, on their horses, and the latter were led off by the Mexican slave. After this both girls, but Cachakia not so quickly as her sister, hurried to me, and we exchanged the usual signs of good-will in the customary fashion; they pressed my hands, wound their pretty arms around me, and would assuredly have kissed me were not this mark of affection quite unknown to the Indians, and would have seemed to them highly ridiculous. After the first greetings they pointed to their father and then to my house, saying "Vino," and making the sign of drinking. The chief was a man of about fifty years of age, about six feet high, with broad shoulders, and arched chest, regular handsome features, straight nose, sharp black eyes, lofty forehead, and—a rarity among the Indians—a heavy moustache twisted into points. He had a haughty, imposing mien, and something very determined in his appearance, which was however kindly and hearty, so that we fraternized in a few moments. I proposed to lead him and his daughters to my house, but he turned to his tribe and said something I did not understand, upon which two men stepped out of the mob and joined us. We reached the gallery in front of my house to which I had had all my chairs carried, in order, if possible, to keep the interior clear for the curious guests. I made them sit down at table, and handed the chief the pipe I had myself lighted; he passed it to his neighbours, and so it went the round; while the two girls swung themselves in the rocking chair or the hammock hung up in the gallery, and smoked cigars. After the calumet of peace had passed round, the chief informed me of the purpose of his visit, to make peace with me, and introduced the other two Indians to me as the Chief of Peace and the Sage in Council, in which the Mexican acted as interpreter. Dinner was now served, the chief employing knife and fork as I did, while the two others used their fingers. Pahnawhay had fetched a buffalo robe out of the house and laid it on the ground, and sat upon it with her sister to have her dinner. I handed them the plates of food, but they returned me the knives and forks, saying it was easier work with their fingers. They amused themselves famously on their buffalo hide, and teazed each other with the heartiest merriment, for which their father gave them several warnings, to which they responded with a laugh. The chief now explained to me that many tribes of his nation entertained hostile feelings against the white men, but he hoped they would soon see it was to their advantage to enter into friendly relations with them, and that his tribe from henceforth would never commit any act of hostility against us.
We had finished dinner, and I told the chief that I now wished to give his men their dinner, on which he rose and said that he had better be present or else no order would be kept. We went out in front of the palisade after I had locked my house door, unseen by the two girls, and had the caldron of coffee, sweetened with honey and mixed with milk, brought out, as well as the bread, which last the chief distributed among the various families, telling them to use in coffee-drinking their own utensils, which consisted of shells, horns, and cocoa-nuts. There were above two hundred souls in camp, though among them all were only forty warriors.
I now showed the chief the fat ox, which I had shut up in the cow's milking enclosure, remarking at the same time that I intended to give it to his people, and asked whether it should be shot now, to which he assented. Königstein brought me a rifle and I shot the ox through the skull, after which some of the Indians skinned and carried the joints to camp. Ere long some thirty fires were lighted, round which the Indians lay and roasted the meat, while constantly running to the coffee-caldron to fill their vessels.
I was standing and admiring the appetites of these people, when Cachakia thrust her arm through mine and affectionately tried to induce me to go to my house with her to open the door, which, as she made me signs, she could not manage. I told her I would wait for her father, so that he might drink coffee with us. I walked through the groups of Indians to him, with my young lady friend hanging tightly on my arm. These Mescalero Indians were certainly the least civilized I had as yet seen: their dress consisted of leathern breech-clouts fastened round their hips, and large, strangely-painted dressed buffalo-hides. In the whole camp, however, I found nothing emanating from white men. On all their faces something shy, mistrustful, and savage could be noticed, which is not generally the case with other tribes. The people were, on the average, not very tall, but sturdy and broad-shouldered, and well fed; the women, however, were nearly all good looking, and I do not remember having seen so many pretty Indian girls together as in this camp. As we walked from fire to fire, which appeared to please the savages, Pahnawhay dashed every now and then like a young filly through the grass to my side. It had taken too long to open the house, and she now hung on my other arm, and pulled my beard as a punishment for having kept her waiting so long. I told her I was waiting for her father, she could go and bring him to my house while I went on in front with Cachakia. On arriving, my companion could not at all understand in what way the door was closed so tightly, and was quite surprised when I opened it with the key. She wished to try the experiment herself, and said she would keep the key so as to let herself in when she pleased, and it was not till I made her understand that in that case I could not open the house without her, that she returned it to me.
I now took my guitar from its case, and sitting down on my bed, let my fingers stray over the strings. Cachakia stood with widely-opened eyes and mouth before me, and became quite beside herself when I began playing. With one leap she sat cross-legged on the bed behind me, and peeping over my right shoulder, watched my performance. She was really delighted at the music, attempted to play the guitar herself, and became very angry and impatient when she could not manage it. At last Pahnawhay arrived with her father and the two ministers: we again took our seats in the verandah, and I ordered the coffee and cake, which my guests tremendously enjoyed, then I gave them all cigars to smoke, after which the chief told me that his people were well satisfied, were very good friends of mine, and would remain so. I took him to the arms-case in my house to let him see my weapons, about fifty first-rate implements. They did not fail to arouse my guest's admiration, and when we returned to the gallery I took a revolver, and at about one hundred yards put a bullet into a young tree, not nearly so wide as a man, and then fired the other five rounds in rapid succession. After this I placed in a few seconds a fresh cylinder in the lieu of the discharged one and fired the six rounds with equal rapidity, remarking the while that I could go on firing thus uninterruptedly. This weapon excited my guest's attention in the highest degree, and he looked at it for a long time with the greatest astonishment, and declared with the utmost seriousness that it was the grandest medicine he had ever seen. I made him a present of a very pretty hunting-knife, whose handle was composed of a roe-foot mounted with a silver shoe: his joy at it was childish, and in his excitement he assured me that he would lift the hair of the first enemy he conquered with it: this knife was also a great medicine.
The girls now left me no peace. I must fetch wine, which the three men at first looked at very suspiciously, but on my assurance that it was not fire-water, they tasted it, and drank with great satisfaction. When I carried the bottle back to the cupboard I filled a glass and put it on the table, making Cachakia a sign that it was for her, but at the same time I laid my finger on my lip so that she might not let the others know it, as I did not wish to open a fresh bottle, and this one was nearly empty. She understood me perfectly well, and as a proof nodded to me when I came out of the house, while a quiet smile played round her little mouth. I returned to my seat, and she carelessly rose, walked into my room, took the glass from the table, and gave me a nod unseen by the others, as she slowly drank the contents. Then she walked back into the gallery carelessly and sat down with us, like a person who is proud at having been preferred; but she cast her eyes down, as their sparkle might betray her.
Evening arrived; we supped, and when the moon had fully risen, went out to the Indian camp, as the chief wished to spend the night with his men, because the latter might be alarmed about him if he slept in the Fort with me. We had hardly reached the first fire, when we heard a fearful row at the other end of the camp, and the chief ran with his two colleagues in the direction of it. I was anxious about what was going on there, and hastened after them, accompanied by the two Indian girls. Two young men had quarrelled, and were engaged in a violent dispute when we came up, while the voices of the chief and his colleagues were raised to a loud key. Suddenly, however, the two men rushed to different fires, seized their bows and arrows, flew about a hundred yards apart into the prairie, and in a few minutes disappeared from sight. The chief shouted after them, but no one pursued them. The Mexican was standing not far from us at the next fire, and I called him up to give me an explanation of the disturbance. Pahnawhay, however, explained to me with a few very intelligible signs, that the two young men loved the same girl, and she had given her affection to both, upon which they quarrelled, and had run off to kill one another. The Mexican confirmed this statement, on which I asked why no one tried to prevent it, but I received the laughing reply, as if the thing were self-evident, that this was impossible.
A number of Indians had by this time collected round one of the fires, and Cachakia, taking me by the arm, drew me to it, when we saw a weeping and loudly lamenting girl seated with her head between her knees, with dishevelled hair almost concealing the whole of her person. This was the sweetheart of the two jealous knights, one of whom had probably by this time the deadly arrow in his heart. We were standing by the side of the unhappy girl, when a frightful yell echoed far across the moonlit prairie, the war-cry of the combatants, who had now met in open fight, as they had not been able, probably, to discern each other by crawling through the grass. The first note scarce reached us ere the weeping girl sprang up, threw back her hair, and hurling back the people standing round her, ran off with a shrill scream and disappeared. A deadly silence set in, as everybody expected to hear at the next moment that the fire was over; and all looking in the direction where the girl had disappeared, seemed to be anxiously holding their breath. At this moment the girl's piercing scream rang through the night air, and immediately after a fearful yell that pierced the marrow, and was answered by all the occupants of the camp pretty nearly. It seemed as if the latter had only been waiting for this signal, for now a number of men and squaws, some of whom held firebrands, ran off, and we could see these fires collected into a point far away. Cachakia said to me, "He is dead," and pressed her head down with her right hand to the left side, and closed her eyes. We soon saw the light moving towards us, until we could at length distinguish the separate torches, and the procession marched into camp. Four Indians bore the bloody corpse of the murdered man to the first fire, and laid it on the ground. I took a torch to see whether life still remained, but the last spark had disappeared. On his left side, near the heart, gaped three fearful wounds, which almost divided the chest in two parts, and his hair was bound into a mass by the curdled blood, while his head was cleft with a tomahawk. The Indians only take a scalp when it belongs to an enemy of their tribe. He was carried to the middle of the camp and covered with a buffalo robe. I asked Cachakia what would become of the other man and the girl? and she told me that the warrior must fly within four and twenty hours, and keep away till he had made it up with the dead man's relations, or otherwise they would take his life in return. Thus time was allowed him to fetch his traps, and if he came into camp during the period, he would not be molested, but after that he would be nowhere safe from them.