“What do you think of our head-dresses?” Yan ventured.

’Hm!  You ain’t never seen a real one or you wouldn’t go at them that way at all.  First place, the feathers should all be white with black tips, an’ fastened not solid like that, but loose on a cap of soft leather.  Each feather, you see, has a leather loop lashed on the quill end for a lace to run through and hold it to the cap, an’ then a string running through the middle of each feather to hold it—­just so.  Then there are ways of marking each feather to show how it was got.  I mind once I was out on a war party with a lot of Santees—­that’s a brand of Sioux—­an’ we done a lot o’ sneaking an’ stealing an’ scalped some of the enemy.  Then we set out for home, and when we was still about thirty miles away we sent on an Injun telegram of good luck.  The leader of our crowd set fire to the grass after he had sent two men half a mile away on each side to do the same thing, an’ up went three big smokes.  There is always some one watching round an Injun village, an’ you bet when they seen them three smokes they knowed that we wuz a-coming back with scalps.

“The hull Council come out to meet us, but not too reckless, coz this might have been the trick of enemies to surprise them.

“Well, when we got there, maybe there wasn’t a racket.  You see, we didn’t lose a man, and we brung in a hundred horses and seven scalps.  Our leader never said a word to the crowd, but went right up to the Council teepee.  He walked in—­we followed.  There was the Head Chief an’ all the Council settin’ smoking.  Our leader give the ’How, an’ then we all ‘Howed.’  Then we sat an’ smoked, an’ the Chief called on our leader for an account of the little trip.  He stood up an’ made a speech.

“‘Great Chief and Council of my Tribe,’ says he.  ’After we left the village and the men had purified themselves, we travelled seven days and came to the Little Muddy River.  There we found the track of a travelling band of Arapaho.  In two days we found their camp, but they were too strong for us, so we hid till night; then I went alone into their camp and found that some of them were going off on a hunt next day.  As I left I met a lone warrior coming in.  I killed him with my knife.  For that I claim a coup; and I scalped him—­for that I claim another coup; an’ before I killed him I slapped his face with my hand—­for this I claim a grand coup; and I brought his horse away with me—­for that I claim another coup.  Is it not so,’ sez he, turning to us, and we all yelled ‘How!  How!  How!’ For this fellow, ‘Whooping Crane,’ was awful good stuff.  Then the Council agreed that he should wear three Eagle feathers, the first for killing and scalping the enemy in his own camp—­that was a grand coup, and the feather had a tuft of red hair on it an’ a red spot on the web.  The next feather was for slapping the feller’s face first, which, of course, made it more risky.  This Eagle feather had a red tuft on top an’ a red hand on the web; the one for stealing the horse had a horseshoe, but no tuft, coz it wasn’t counted A1.