my tablecloth
made me want to bob up and down for other feelings than delight!

After dinner they all sat by the stove and smoked, and Powder-Face told
funny things about his trip East that we could not always interpret, but
which caused him and Wauk to laugh heartily. Wauk sat very close to him,
with elbows on her knees, looking as though she would much prefer to be
squatted down upon the floor.

The tepee odor became stifling, so in order to get as far from the
Indians as possible, I went across the room and sat upon a small trunk
by the window. I had not been there five minutes, however, before that
wily chief, who had apparently not noticed my existence, got up from
his chair, gathered his blanket around him, and with long strides came
straight to me. Then with a grip of steel on my shoulder, he jerked me
from the trunk and fairly slung me over against the wall, and turning to
Faye with his head thrown back he said, "Whisk! Whisk!" at the same time
pointing to the trunk.

The demand was imperious, and the unstudied poise of the powerfully
built Indian, so full of savage dignity, was magnificent. As I calmly
think of it now, the whole scene was grand. The rough room, with its
low walls of sand-bags and logs, the Indian princess in her picturesque
dress of skins and beads, the fair army officer in his uniform of
blue, both looking in astonishment at the chief, whose square jaws and
flashing eyes plainly told that he was accustomed to being obeyed, and
expected to be obeyed then!

Faye says that I missed part of the scene; that, backed up against
sand-bags and clinging to them on either side for support, stood a
slender young woman with pigtail hanging down one shoulder, so terrified
that her face, although brown from exposure to sun and wind, had become
white and chalky. It is not surprising that my face turned white; the
only wonder is that the pigtail did not turn white, too!

It was not right for Faye to give liquor to an Indian, but what else
could be done under the circumstances? There happened to be a flask of
brandy in the trunk, but fortunately there was only a small quantity
that we had brought up for medicinal purposes, and it was precious, too,
for we were far from a doctor. But Faye had to get it out for the chief,
who had sat there smoking in such an innocent way, but who had all the
time been studying out where there might be hidden some "whisk!" Wauk
drank almost all of it, Powder-Face seeming to d