group still hesitated at the edge of the thicket. Then one of them
waved something white. We waved in return; whereupon they advanced
slowly in our direction.

As they neared we saw them to be Indians. Their leader held before him a
stick to which had been tied a number of white feathers. As they
approached us they began to leap and dance to the accompaniment of a
weird rising and falling chant. They certainly did not look very
formidable, with their heterogeneous mixture of clothing, their round,
black, stupid faces and their straight hair. Most of them were armed
simply with bows and arrows, but three carried specimens of the long
Spanish musket.

Buck Barry promptly sallied out to meet them, and shook hands with the
foremost. They then advanced to where we were gathered and squatted on
the ground. They were certainly a villainous and dirty looking lot of
savages, short, thickset, round faced, heavy featured, with coarse,
black, matted hair and little twinkling eyes. A more brutish lot of
human beings I had never seen; and I was almost deceived into thinking
them too stupid to be dangerous. The leaders had on remnants of
civilized clothing, but the rank and file were content with scraps of
blanket, old ragged coats, single shirts, and the like. The oldest man
produced a long pipe from beneath his blanket, filled it with a few
grains of coarse tobacco, lighted it by means of a coal from our fire,
puffed twice on it, and passed it to me. I perforce had to whiff at it
also, though the necessity nearly turned my stomach. I might next have
given it to one of our own party, but I did not want to deprive him of
my own first hand sensation, so I handed it back to another of the
visitors for fresh inoculation, as it were. Evidently I had by accident
hit on acceptable etiquette, as deep grunts of satisfaction testified.
After we had had a whiff all around, the chief opened negotiations in
Spanish. Most of us by now had learned enough of it from our intercourse
with Don Gaspar and Vasquez to understand without interpretation.

The Indians said they wanted to trade.

We replied that we saw nothing they might trade with us.

In return they produced some roots and several small bags of pine nuts.

We then explained that we were reduced in ammunition, and had little
food.

Don Gaspar here interpolated hastily, saying that in his judgment it
would be absolutely necessary that we made some sort of a present to
avoid the appea