Its center was a pole-cat skin; its edges were fringed with eagle
feathers and antelope hoofs that rattled.

His battle-axe was of hammered iron blade and skull-pecker, with ash
handle four feet long and deer-sinew grip. Eagle feathers and fur
tufts decorated it.

His war-club was a round stone wrapped in raw-hide at the end of a
cow-tail, like a policeman's billy.

After his portrait was painted, Mahtotohpa spread out his wonderful
robe, and told the stories of the twelve battles and the fourteen
scalps pictured on it by his own hand; and these stories included that
of his Arikaree lance, and Cheyenne knife.

The lance story came about in this way. In the shaft of the lance,
near the blade, there had been set an antelope prong; and when
Mahtotohpa posed for his portrait, with the butt of the lance proudly
planted on the ground, he carefully balanced an eagle feather across
this prong.

"Do not omit to paint that feather exactly as it is," he said, "and the
spot of blood upon it. It is great medicine, and belongs to the Great
Spirit, not to me. I pulled it from the wound of an enemy."

"Why do you not tie it to the lance, then?"

"Hush!" rebuked Mahtotohpa. "If the Great Spirit had wished it to be
tied on, it would never have come off."

Whereupon, presently, he told the story of the mighty lance. This had
been the lance of a famous Arikaree warrior, Won-ga-tap. Some years
back, maybe seven or eight, the Mandans and the Arikarees had met on
horses near the Mandan towns, and had fought. The Mandans chased the
Arikarees, but after the chase the brother of Mahtotohpa did not come
in.

Several days passed; and when Mahtotohpa himself found his brother, it
was only the body, scalped and cut and pierced with an arrow, and
fastened through the heart to the prairie by the lance of Won-ga-tap.

Many in the village recognized that as the lance of Won-ga-tap.
Mahtotohpa did not clean it of its blood, but held it aloft before all
the village and swore that he would clean it only with the blood of
Wongatap the Arikaree.

He sent a challenge to the Arikarees; and for four years he waited,
keeping the lance and hoping to use it as he had promised. Finally his
heart had grown so sore that he was bursting; and again holding the
lance up before the village, he made a speech.

"Mahtotohpa is going. Let nobody speak his name, or ask where he is,
or try to seek him. He will return with fresh blood on this lance, o