SATANTA'S STORY 



stitch of clothes off his body, but, seein' that the 

 man had committed suicide, their superstitions 

 kept 'em from scalping him or mutilating his 

 body. 



"An', now comes a gratifying part of the pro- 

 ceedings, as told to Dave by Satanta, that the 

 signs didn't reveal to us. When Lame Deer an' 

 his party had stripped the dead man an' his horse 

 of all their equipments an' was gittin' ready to 

 return to Satanta's party at the hunters' camp, 

 some of the Injuns concluded to cut out a big 

 chunk of the hump steak of the buffalo that the 

 white man had just stripped the hide off of an' 

 intended to cut out the steak himself, as they 

 s'posed. 



"But it turned out that the white man had un- 

 consciously set a death-trap for some of 'em; for 

 he had already poisoned the skinned side of the 

 buffalo, and when the Injuns got back to the 

 camp an' cooked an' eat their fresh hump steak 

 all that eat the fresh meat was poisoned, an' four 

 of 'em kicked the bucket right there. 



"Well, sir, Dave says, this so scared the rest of 

 the Injuns that, although they had packed their 

 ponies with a lot of the white men's provender, 

 they were afraid to use any of the food, an' so 

 they piled all of it into the white men's wagon 

 an' set fire to it an' burned the whole business. 



"Then, packing the bodies of their dead war- 

 riors on their ponies, they made their way back 



163 



