Around him was the barbarian encampment, with here and there a fire
burning and a group of warriors talking beside it. He walked forth
among the lodges. Some were silent, save for the heavy breathing of
the sleepers; others were lighted up within, and he could hear the
murmur of voices.

At one place he found around a large fire a crowd who were feasting,
late as was the hour, and boasting of their exploits. He stood in the
shadow a moment and listened. One of them concluded his tale by
springing to his feet, advancing a few paces from the circle of
firelight, and making a fierce speech to invisible foes. Looking
toward the land of the Shoshones, he denounced them with the utmost
fury, dared them to face him, scorned them because they did not
appear, and ended by shaking his tomahawk in their direction, amid the
applause of his comrades.

Cecil passed on and reached the outer limit of the camp. There, amid
some large bowlders, he almost stumbled on a band of Indians engaged
in some grisly ceremony. He saw them, however, in time to escape
observation and screen himself behind one of the rocks.

One of the Indians held a rattlesnake pinned to the ground with a
forked stick. Another held out a piece of liver to the snake and was
provoking him to bite it. Again and again the snake, quivering with
fury and rattling savagely, plunged his fangs into the liver. Several
Indians stood looking on, with arrows in their hands. At length, when
the meat was thoroughly impregnated with the virus, the snake was
released and allowed to crawl away. Then they all dipped the points of
their arrows in the poisoned liver,[7] carefully marking the shaft of
each in order to distinguish it from those not poisoned. None of them
saw Cecil, and he left without being discovered.

Why did they wish to go to the council with poisoned arrows?

Further on, among the rocks and remote from the camp, he saw a great
light and heard a loud hallooing. He went cautiously toward it. He
found a large fire in an open space, and perhaps thirty savages,
stripped and painted, dancing around it, brandishing their weapons
and chanting a kind of war-chant. On every face, as the firelight fell
on it, was mad ferocity and lust of war. Near them lay the freshly
killed body of a horse whose blood they had been drinking. Drunk with
frenzy, drunk with blood, they danced and whirled in that wild
saturnalia till Cecil grew dizzy with the sight.[8]

He made his way back