ass at
dinner. Looking up, we saw several horsemen coming over the neighboring
hill, and in a moment four stately young men rode up and dismounted.
One of them was Bull-Bear, or Mahto-Tatonka, a compound name which he
inherited from his father, the most powerful chief in the Ogallalla
band. One of his brothers and two other young men accompanied him. We
shook hands with the visitors, and when we had finished our meal--for
this is the orthodox manner of entertaining Indians, even the best of
them--we handed to each a tin cup of coffee and a biscuit, at which they
ejaculated from the bottom of their throats, "How! how!" a monosyllable
by which an Indian contrives to express half the emotions that he is
susceptible of. Then we lighted the pipe, and passed it to them as they
squatted on the ground.

"Where is the village?"

"There," said Mahto-Tatonka, pointing southward; "it will come in two
days."

"Will they go to the war?"

"Yes."

No man is a philanthropist on the prairie. We welcomed this news most
cordially, and congratulated ourselves that Bordeaux's interested
efforts to divert The Whirlwind from his congenial vocation of bloodshed
had failed of success, and that no additional obstacles would interpose
between us and our plan of repairing to the rendezvous at La Bonte's
Camp.

For that and several succeeding days, Mahto-Tatonka and his friends
remained our guests. They devoured the relics of our meals; they filled
the pipe for us and also helped us to smoke it. Sometimes they stretched
themselves side by side in the shade, indulging in raillery and
practical jokes ill becoming the dignity of brave and aspiring warriors,
such as two of them in reality were.

Two days dragged away, and on the morning of the third we hoped
confidently to see the Indian village. It did not come; so we rode out
to look for it. In place of the eight hundred Indians we expected, we
met one solitary savage riding toward us over the prairie, who told
us that the Indians had changed their plans, and would not come within
three days; still he persisted that they were going to the war. Taking
along with us this messenger of evil tidings, we retraced our footsteps
to the camp, amusing ourselves by the way with execrating Indian
inconstancy. When we came in sight of our little white tent under the
big tree, we saw that it no longer stood alone. A huge old lodge was
erected close by its side, discolored by rain and storms, rotted with