the least good-looking. Hundreds were waiting outside the gates, among
them some half-breed boys.

Soon the braves began to come in. With a glass we could see great
numbers of them winding out of the hills from their hidden camps, well
mounted and flashing with bright arms and gay trappings. It was a
strange, wonderful scene of motion and color, with the gray,
unchangeable desert and the pale walls of the buttes for a background.
The men came crowding, tearing in at a great pace, and soon we could
see the dancing-party dashing along in all their feathers and
war-paint, an inconceivably wild, savage cavalcade. On they rushed,
beating a great drum in solemn cadence, shouting, blowing fifes, and
firing their pieces into the air. There was as much noise as on a
Fourth of July. We had to stand back to let them pass, for there was a
scene of the wildest confusion as they all, horse and foot, rushed
pell-mell into the stockade, followed closely by the squaws and
children on their spirited ponies. It was a piece of _real_ savage
life. Following after them, we went up into the second story of the
agent's house, where we could look down upon the barbaric crowd. The
squaws made a brilliant circle all round the inside of the enclosure,
gay as a terrace of flowers. About fifteen men squatted round the big
drum, which must have been five or six feet in diameter, and began a
weird song, interspersed with grunts and yells. It had a measured
cadence, but not a semblance of music. Meanwhile the braves who were
to join in the dance formed themselves into two circles of about
thirty men each, and the rest sat upon their horses, looking
imperturbable. The principal chiefs did not join in the dance, and two
or three came up into the room where we were.

The dresses of the dancers were varied and splendid. Most of them wore
the usual trousers or Indian leggings of blue cloth, cut off below the
hips, with another cloth for the loins, and those that had no trousers
had their legs painted. Embroidered blankets of blue or red cloth,
moccasins, belts, tobacco-pouches, and cases for scalping-knives, all
beaded, with glittering arms and tomahawks, hung about them
everywhere, but the chief piece of finery was the war-bonnet; and a
tremendous show it made. A turban of fur or scarlet cloth went round
the head, adorned with tall eagles' feathers in a crown, such as we
see upon the wooden figures before cigar-shops, and from this hung
down a long piece