A party was coming down the trail just as they got there, and Tom was soon busy. But when supper was over, he and Joe went back, taking the hikers along, to see the camp again. As they drew near, they heard strange noises, the TÚM-tum, TÚM-tum, of Indian drums. The pow-wow had begun.
“It won’t amount to much, though, till to-morrow,” Mills said. “They just get worked up a little to-night.”
There was a big fire going in the central dancing ground, and near it, dressed in all their finery, two of them stripped bare to the waist with their skins covered with yellow paint, were the three makers of music, each holding a shallow skin drum in one hand and beating it with the other, in a regular, monotonous, unvaried rhythm, a two-foot beat, heavily accented on the first foot—TÚM-tum, TÚM-tum, TÚM-tum, over and over, rather slowly. As they pounded out this rhythm, they kept laughing, emitting yells and calls, and sometimes sang. Meanwhile some boy or young brave would spring out into the fire-light, in the centre of the ring of braves and squaws and children squatted or standing around, and dance to the music, going through strange gestures, brandishing a decorated spear, stooping, bending, circling around, but always, the boys soon detected, adhering to some formal plan, although they didn’t know what this dance might signify, and always surprisingly graceful.
“Some of those dances are very intricate,” Mills said to them, as an Indian boy, after finishing a hard dance, dropped panting back into the circle, while the older braves applauded and another took his place instantly. “It takes a boy weeks to learn them, and each one has a meaning. It may be the boy’s medicine dance, part of the ritual which will keep harm away from him.”
Even after the scouts left, they could hear the TÚM-tum of the drums, till the roar of the falls drowned it. The next day they hurried back, as soon as the camp work was done, and found the Indians dancing again, in broad daylight now, of course, with a great crowd of tourists around watching them. They were still at it when the boys came back after luncheon, seemingly untiring. But presently they stopped, and an old chief stepped out and began to make a speech.
“What’s he talking about?” Tom asked Mills, edging in close to the circle.
“Don’t ask me—I can’t talk the language,” the Ranger answered. “Hi, Pete, what’s old Stabs-by-Mistake saying?”
This last question was addressed to a half-breed who was standing just in front of them, in the Indian circle.
Pete, who was dressed in cowboy costume, but without any hat, turned with a grin.
“He says they are going to take my white man name away from me, and give me a Blackfeet name,” Pete replied. “He says the white men give the mountains foolish white man names, but I’m part Indian, and they’re going to take my name, Pete Jones, away from me.”