Before long as many as two hundred people, Indians and white, old folks and young, men, women and children, were all revolving in a great circle about the three drummers, who were beating violently, singing, shouting. The Indian women began to sing, also, a strange tune, with only one phrase, repeated over and over. Of course, the boys could not understand the words, or even tell for sure sometimes whether there were any words. But the tune got into their heads. They could never sing it afterwards just as the Indians did, for the Indian scale, the intervals, are different from ours, but they could come somewhere near it, as they danced around their camp.
The squaw dance lasted until the “pale faces” began to get tired and drop out of the ring. Then the Indians went back to their former solo dances, their other songs, their general jollification and curious games. But the three drummers, without any rest, kept right on pounding and shouting and singing, as if nothing could tire them. They were still at it when the scouts had to return to their duties at the camp, and all that evening, too, they kept it up.
The next day the steer was to be roasted, in a fire pit dug and prepared by the Indians themselves, but Joe did not see that, for he received word that evening to start out early the following morning with a party over Swift Current Pass, and down to Lake McDonald. Tom went to see the beginning of the ceremony, but the process of roasting an entire steer isn’t very pretty, nor very tempting, and he didn’t stay. Beside, he had a big party of hikers to look after, and his own meals to cook now Joe was away. He returned to Camp Kent, looked longingly at his coil of Alpine rope, took his axe, and went at the task of replenishing the wood supply.
CHAPTER XX—The Scouts Start on a Trip Together at Last, To Climb Chief Mountain
Joe was gone five days, coming back over Gunsight and Piegan Pass, the reverse of the route he had taken on his first trip. But this time, he was getting so at home in the saddle that he could manage the packhorses without worrying, could throw a diamond hitch as well as the next man, and cook for a crowd without having too much left over, or not enough prepared—not that there is ever much danger of having anything left over in the Rocky Mountains! Everybody eats while there’s food in sight. But Tom was pretty lonely without him, especially as the Ranger was away, too, for the first three days.
But on the fourth day Big Bertha called Tom up to the chalet office, and told him something that made him very happy, though it didn’t seem to please Big Bertha at all.
“Tom,” said he, “I’ve got to fire you.”
(This isn’t what made Tom happy. It made his heart drop into his boots for a second, before he realized that the man was trying to get a rise out of him.)
“Yes,” the manager went on, “there’s a party of men from Washington at the hotel. They came over Piegan, and they’ve been up to Iceberg Lake to-day, and now they want to climb Chief Mountain. Somebody’s told ’em about it, and nothing for it but they must go up there. There’s no cook for ’em till Joe gets back, and the Saddle Company is short on guides anyhow, and hasn’t anybody who knows Chief Mountain. Mills says he’ll lead the party, if he can have you and your rope. He won’t go otherwise. Now, that puts me in a hole, because I’ll have to go short handed and send one of my boys down to look after the tepees. But these Washington guys are big bugs of some sort, and I suppose we gotter please ’em. So day after to-morrow you start, if Joe gets back.”
“Hooray!” Tom shouted. “Old Joey and I’ll be on a trip together!”