On thus opening up an intelligible conversation, I called Fox
Quarternight, who spoke Spanish, and he rode up from his position of
third man in the swing and joined in the council. The two young
Indians through whom we carried on the conversation were Apaches, no
doubt renegades of that tribe, and while we understood each other in
Spanish, they spoke in a heavy guttural peculiar to the Indian. Flood
opened the powwow by demanding to know the meaning of this visit. When
the question had been properly interpreted to the chief, the latter
dropped his blanket from his shoulders and dismounted from his horse.
He was a fine specimen of the Plains Indian, fully six feet in height,
perfectly proportioned, and in years well past middle life. He looked
every inch a chief, and was a natural born orator. There was a certain
easy grace to his gestures, only to be seen in people who use the sign
language, and often when he was speaking to the Apache interpreters, I
could anticipate his requests before they were translated to us,
although I did not know a word of Comanche.

Before the powwow had progressed far it was evident that begging was
its object. In his prelude, the chief laid claim to all the country in
sight as the hunting grounds of the Comanche tribe,--an intimation
that we were intruders. He spoke of the great slaughter of the buffalo
by the white hide-hunters, and the consequent hunger and poverty
amongst his people. He dwelt on the fact that he had ever counseled
peace with the whites, until now his band numbered but a few squaws
and papooses, the younger men having deserted him for other chiefs of
the tribe who advocated war on the palefaces. When he had fully stated
his position, he offered to allow us to pass through his country in
consideration of ten beeves. On receiving this proposition, all of us
dismounted, including the two Apaches, the latter seating themselves