we clapped heels to our horses, and galloped up
the track, which Frank declared led direct from the village. Within a
few minutes we topped a line of high hills, and found ourselves looking
down into the valley of the Republican and upon the rounded roofs of the
big Pawnee lodges.

One look was enough to relieve our fears regarding the safety of the
village. I had never seen a more peaceful-appearing Indian town. The
women were at work dressing buffalo robes near the lodges or harvesting
their corn and pumpkins in the little patches of field near-by. The
children were scattered far and wide, the girls playing with their
puppies or tagging their mothers, the boys practising with bows and
arrows or watching the hoop-and-pole games of the few men who were to be
seen. The young warriors, probably, were off on hunting or war parties,
and of the men who remained in the village, most were dozing in their
lodges or lolling in the shade outside.

But I did not look long at the savages. My eye was almost immediately
caught by a red-and-yellow flag afloat above the front of the great
council-lodge. Even at that distance I could not fail to recognize it as
the flag of Spain. So astonished was I at the sight that I drew up
short, unable to credit my eyes. The flag solved the mystery of the
track, only to raise the puzzling question of the presence of so large
a body of Spaniards at so great a distance from their present
boundaries.

A loud shouting and commotion in the village roused me from my
bewilderment. We had been sighted. The women and children were fleeing
to the lodges, and all the men capable of bearing arms were advancing
toward us, with threatening guns and bows and lances. However, Frank at
once made the wolf-ear sign which showed them that he was a Pawnee,
while I held up the wampum belt intrusted to me by Pike. A moment later
Frank was recognized, and the news shouted back to the village.

At the same time the men, both mounted and afoot, charged down upon us,
whooping and piercing the air with their shrill war whistle and
flourishing their weapons as if about to tear us to pieces. A man unused
to Indians, no matter how brave, might well have trembled at finding
himself thus confronted by hundreds of yelling, half-naked savages. The
Pawnee warriors are particularly formidable-looking, being tall and well
shaped, and their height accentuated by the bristling roach of short
hair which runs back over their shaven he