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In the corners stood squat, earthen water-jars of Mexican molding. On the adobe walls were hung trophies of the hunt; war-bonnets and the crudely made adornments of the Apaches. Navajo blankets covered the window-seats, and were used as screens for sets of shelves built into the spaces between the windows. Polly carried in on a tray a large bowl of punch surrounded by glasses and gourds.
Most of them were naked, and as their persons were painted in gaudy colors and decorated with strips of red flannel, red blankets and gay war-bonnets, their appearance presented a scene of picturesque barbarism, fascinating but repulsive.
The old war-bonnets and war-shirts were brought out; the coup stick with its trembling eagle feathers, the ancient bows and arrows. The favourite horse was blanketed, and the journey begun. Old scenes and landmarks were made new. Here they crossed a river through whose rushing waters they had, in other days, pursued a foe.
A powder horn was slung picturesquely from one shoulder, and a great hunting-knife alas useless to him now stuck conspicuously in his belt. Around this hapless captive there moved the figures of three savages, their faces streaked with various hues of paint, their war-bonnets of eagles' feathers flaunting, and wonderful to behold.
Both Indians were wearing beautiful war-bonnets, of which I took possession, as well as of their fancy trappings. Then, taking Powder Face by the rope, I led him back to the Springs to see how the lieutenant had made out. The herd of horses was held and surrounded by a few soldiers. The rest were still popping at the Indians.
He made his way through several halls filled with tall glass cases, skirting the Polynesians, bearing away from the Eskimos and finally reaching the North Americans. Their room was empty, save for a slender girl in brown who was making notes on a collection of war-bonnets in a morocco memorandum-book. It was Virgilia. "Why, what are you doing out here?" he asked.
When the great Chief Spotted Tail died they killed his two ponies, placing the two heads toward the east, fastening the tails on the scaffold toward the west. The war-bonnets and war-shirts are folded away with the silent dead; then follow the desolate days of fasting and mourning.
Not two hundred yards away from them four Sioux warriors, with trailing war-bonnets and brilliant display of paint and glitter, are "opening out" as they approach, and warily moving toward the summit.
As long as you live you must wear a head-dress, to pay for your laughing, and all your children must do the same. "This was long, long ago, but the Kingfishers have not forgotten, and they all wear war-bonnets, and always will as long as there are Kingfishers. "Now I will say good night, and when the sun sleeps again I will tell you why the curlew's bill is so long and crooked. Ho!"
Their lean torsos gleamed under the rays of the rising sun like old copper; patches of ocher and vermilion stood out in vivid contrast against the dusky skins; feathered war-bonnets and dyed scalp-locks fluttered, gay bits of color in the morning breeze. The instant passed; the white men flung themselves from their saddles; the red men deployed forming a wide circle about them.
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