LIFE IN THE FAR WEST 29 



At this moment the Indians were in deliberation. 

 Seated in a large circle round a very small fire,* the 

 smoke from which ascended in a thin straight column, 

 they each in turn puffed a huge cloud of smoke from 

 three or four long cherry-stemmed pipes, which went the 

 round of the party ; each warrior touching the ground 

 with the heel of the pipe-bowl, and turning the stem 

 upwards and away from him as "medicine" to the Great 

 Spirit, before he himself inhaled the fragrant kinnik- 

 kinnik. The council, however, was not general, for only 

 fifteen of the older warriors took part in it, the others 

 sitting outside, and at some little distance from the circle. 

 Behind each were his arms bow and quiver, and shield 

 hanging from a spear stuck in the ground; and a few 

 guns in ornamented covers of buckskin were added to 

 some of the equipments. 



Near the fire, and in the centre of the inner circle, a 

 spear was fixed upright in the ground, and on this 

 dangled the four scalps of the trappers killed the pre- 

 ceding night ; and underneath them, affixed to the 

 same spear, was the mystic " medicine bag," by which 

 Killbuck knew that the band before him was under the 

 command of the chief of the tribe. 



Towards the grim trophies on the spear, the warriors, 

 who in turn addressed the council, frequently pointed 



* There is a great difference between an Indian's fire and a 

 white's. The former places the ends of logs to burn gradually ; 

 the latter, the centre, besides making such a bonfire that the 

 Indians truly say, "The white makes a fire so hot that he 

 cannot approach to warm himself by it." 



