as
a long narrow valley, whose rocky sides, covered with underbrush, rose
some sixty feet from a little plain about fifty yards wide. The little
plain was filled with the Indian encampment. At one end a huge fire
blazed. At the other, and some fifty yards away, the lodges were set in
a semicircle, reaching from side to side of the canyon, and in front of
the lodges were a mass of Indian warriors, squatting on their hunkers,
beating time, some with tom-toms, others with their hands, to the
weirdly monotonous chant, that rose and fell in response to the
gesticulations of one who appeared to be their leader. In the centre of
the plain stood a post and round this two circles of dancers leaped
and swayed. In the outer circle the men, with clubs and rifles in their
hands, recited with pantomimic gestures their glorious deeds in the
war or in the chase. The inner circle presented a ghastly and horrid
spectacle. It was composed of younger men, naked and painted, some of
whom were held to the top of the post by long thongs of buffalo hide
attached to skewers thrust through the muscles of the breast or back.
Upon these thongs they swayed and threw themselves in frantic attempts
to break free. With others the skewers were attached by thongs to
buffalo skulls, stones or heavy blocks of wood, which, as they danced
and leaped, tore at the bleeding flesh. Round and round the post the
naked painted Indians leaped, lurching and swaying from side to side
in their desperate efforts to drag themselves free from those tearing
skewers, while round them from the dancing circle and from the mass of
Indians squatted on the ground rose the weird, maddening, savage chant
to the accompaniment of their beating hands and throbbing drums.

"This is a big dance," said the Inspector, subduing his voice to an
undertone, though in the din there was little chance of his being heard.
"See! many braves have been made already," he added, pointing to a place
on one side of the fire where a number of forms could be seen, some
lying flat, some rolling upon the earth, but all apparently more or less
in a stupor.

Madder and madder grew the drums, higher and higher rose the chant.
Now and then an older warrior from the squatting circle would fling his
blanket aside and, waving his rifle high in the air, would join with
loud cries and wild gesticulations the outer circle of dancers.

"It is a big thing this," said the Inspector again. "No squaws, you see,
and a