AN INDIAN DANCE. 109 



that all wore moccasins and had blankets instead of 

 overcoats. 



After paying his respects to the old chieftain, 

 Dyche followed the advice of Horton and purchased 

 two pairs of moccasins from the girls, paying double 

 price therefor, and thus winning the old fellow's 

 favour. Following the presentation the whole party 

 went to a large tepee, where the dance was to be 

 given. In the centre of a room about thirty feet in 

 diameter was built a fire in the most economical 

 fashion, the sticks radiating from the blaze like 

 spokes in a wheel. Around the wall, on rolls of 

 blankets, sat about twenty-five squaws and two-thirds 

 as many cowboys, with a number of young bucks. 

 The sound of the "devil's fiddle," a peculiar drum 

 made from a hollow log over which are stretched raw 

 cowskins, was heard. Around this drum sat five 

 Indians with short sticks, and they monotonously 

 beat the drum in perfect unison, hitting it at inter- 

 vals of about a second and a half in regular time, the 

 "thump, thump" filling the whole room. To assist 

 in the musical effort the five bucks set up a howl, 

 prolonged, guttural, and undulating, rising and fall- 

 ing with regular rhythm and cadence. In this song 

 the other bucks joined at intervals at their pleasure, 

 while occasionally the squaws would unite their high 

 falsetto voices in a most peculiar sound which they 

 produced with lips and teeth and the tips of their 

 fingers inserted in their mouths. The scene was 

 weird in the extreme, and the darkened tepee, filled 

 with a motley crowd of red and white men, sitting in 

 the flitting lights and shadows of the fire and listen- 



