HUNTERS AND TRAPPERS OP THE FAR WEST. 85 



approach the camp more closely, and without danger of "being 

 discovered. This was soon effected ; and in half an hour the 

 trapper was lying on his belly on the summit of a pine-covered 

 bluff, which overlooked the Indians within easy rifle-shot, and 

 so perfectly concealed by the low spreading branches of the 

 cedar and arbor-vitae, that not a particle of his person could 

 be detected ; unless, indeed, his sharp twinkling gray eye 

 contrasted too strongly with the green boughs that covered 

 the rest of 'his face. Moreover, there was no danger of their 

 hitting upon his trail, for he had been careful to pick his steps 

 on the rock-covered ground, so that not a track of his moccason 

 was visible. Here he lay, still as a carcagien in wait for a 

 deer, only now and then shaking the boughs as his body 

 quivered with a suppressed chuckle, when any movement in 

 the Indian camp caused him to laugh inwardly at his (if they 

 had known it) unwelcome proquinity. He was not a little 

 surprised, however, to discover that the party was much 

 smaller than he had imagined, counting only forty warriors ; 

 and this assured him that the band had divided, one half tak- 

 ing the Yuta trail by the Boiling Spring, the other (the one 

 before him) taking a longer circuit in order to reach the 

 Bayou, and make the attack on the Yutas in a different 

 direction. 



At this moment the Indians were in deliberation. Seated 

 in a large circle round a very small fire, the smoke of 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 turn- 

 ing the stem upward and away from him as "medicine" to 

 the Great Spirit, before he himself inhaled the fragrant kin- 

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

 fifteen of the old 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 



8 



