st any feather he can
steal and stick in his head."

"What do you think of our head-dresses?" Yan ventured.

'Hm! You ain't never seen a real one or you wouldn't go at them that
way at all. First place, the feathers should all be white with black
tips, an' fastened not solid like that, but loose on a cap of soft
leather. Each feather, you see, has a leather loop lashed on the quill
end for a lace to run through and hold it to the cap, an' then a
string running through the middle of each feather to hold it--just so.
Then there are ways of marking each feather to show how it was got.
I mind once I was out on a war party with a lot of Santees--that's a
brand of Sioux--an' we done a lot o' sneaking an' stealing an' scalped
some of the enemy. Then we set out for home, and when we was still
about thirty miles away we sent on an Injun telegram of good luck. The
leader of our crowd set fire to the grass after he had sent two men
half a mile away on each side to do the same thing, an' up went three
big smokes. There is always some one watching round an Injun village,
an' you bet when they seen them three smokes they knowed that we wuz
a-coming back with scalps.

"The hull Council come out to meet us, but not too reckless, coz this
might have been the trick of enemies to surprise them.

"Well, when we got there, maybe there wasn't a racket. You see, we
didn't lose a man, and we brung in a hundred horses and seven scalps.
Our leader never said a word to the crowd, but went right up to the
Council teepee. He walked in--we followed. There was the Head Chief
an' all the Council settin' smoking. Our leader give the '_How_,
an' then we all '_Howed_.' Then we sat an' smoked, an' the Chief
called on our leader for an account of the little trip. He stood up
an' made a speech.

"'Great Chief and Council of my Tribe,' says he. 'After we left the
village and the men had purified themselves, we travelled seven days
and came to the Little Muddy River. There we found the track of a
travelling band of Arapaho. In two days we found their camp, but
they were too strong for us, so we hid till night; then I went alone
into their camp and found that some of them were going off on a hunt
next day. As I left I met a lone warrior coming in. I killed him
with my knife. For that I claim a _coup_; and I scalped him--for
that I claim another _coup_; an' before I killed him I slapped his
face with my hand--for this I claim a _grand coup_; and I brought