FORT BELKNAP. 211 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Fort Belknap. Buffalo dance by Tonkaways. A-sa-ha-be. We agree to 

 his coming with us. His suspicious conduct. Ho leaves us by night. 

 We turn back. Appearance of Indians. A-sa-ha-be comes to propose 

 terms. They are rejected. The Comanches attack us. We still move 

 on. We kill and scalp an Indian. A reinforcement of Indians. Down- 

 fall of A-sa-ha-be. Arrival of three Caddo Indian scouts. We send 

 one of them for help. He is pursued, but escapes. Our casualties. 

 Halliday's courage. Arrival of troops. We reach Fort Arbuckle. 



AT Fort Belknap we found four companies of cavalry, under 

 the command of General Sturgess ; and here we remained 

 several days, and were allowed to replenish our stores from 

 the commissariat. At the Post were a number of Tonkaway 

 Indians, some of them being employed as scouts; they were 

 the remnant of a tribe which had been very much thinned by 

 small-pox, and the day after our arrival they sent us an invi- 

 tation to a buffalo dance, which is a ceremony to insure success 

 in hunting. On going to their camp we found about sixty 

 Indians collected, besides twice that number of women and 

 children, and the festivities commenced with a talk, in which 

 they said they had heard that we came from the land of the 



