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CHAPTER XXXIY. 



DRILLING. 



IN" good weather a very considerable portion of time is 

 spent in drill, and very great proficiency is attained. 

 There seems to be no fixed system of tactics, each chief 

 instructing according to his own particular ideas. There 

 are no ranks, no organisations or units of command ; but 

 there are words or signals of command, by which the 

 same evolutions are repeatedly performed, seemingly 

 more by the admirable intuition of the individual Indian 

 than by any instruction that could possibly have been 

 given him. The whole band will charge en masse, and 

 without order, on a supposed position of the enemy. At 

 a word it breaks or scatters like leaves before the storm. 

 Another signal : a portion wheels, masses, and dashes 

 on a flank, to scatter again at another signal. The plain 

 is alive with circling, flying horsemen ; now single, lying 

 flat on the horse, or hanging to his side, as if to escape 

 the shots of a pursuing enemy, and now joined together 

 in a living mass of charging, yelling terror. 



The most remarkable part of the drill is the perfect 

 control the chief seems to exert, not only on the mass, 

 but on the individual, and this in spite of clouds of dust, 

 and noise enough to drown the roar of a cannon. It is 

 done by signals, devised after a system of the Indian's 

 own invention, and communicated in various ways. 



Wonderful as the statement may appear, the signalling 

 on a bright day, and when the sun is in the proper direction, 

 is done with a piece of looking-glass held in the hollow 



