A group of women came forward, took their horses by the bridles and led them quite a way through the encampment. The women wore beaded deerskin dresses. The inhabitants of the camp regarded the visitors with an interest intense enough to set Wil Dow’s nerves on edge but still he had the presence of mind to note the elaborate variety of color and styles amid the Indians’ costumery and the intricate designs painted on the slopes of the leather tepees. The colors were as rich as fine paintings in the dying sunlight.

There was a great deal of chattering among the Indians; it dispelled at once Wil Dow’s previous understanding of them as laconic savages who grunted at intervals. These people were as animated and talkative as ladies at a Sunday social.

Naturally it was Roosevelt who commanded the most attention. The Indians regarded him with admiring astonishment. Some of them squinted and shaded their eyes, pretending to be blinded by his regalia. By their reaction they incited Wil Dow to have another look at his employer’s outfit, which included not only Mrs. Reuter’s fringed buckskin suit, which he was breaking in, but also a wealthy New Yorker’s idea of wilderness wear: alligator boots, silver spurs, leather chaps, huge beaver sombrero, engraved Colt revolver in an elaborately tooled holster on a carved belt with an enormous silver buckle upon which was sculpted the head of a snarling bear, and silver-decorated hunting knife from Tiffany in New York.

Then there was his horse Manitou—as handsome a beast as could have set foot in these people’s midst. Wil Dow was not pleased by the fascination with which the Indians examined the big gelding.

Undismayed, Roosevelt dismounted and went about energetically examining everything with the belligerent scowling interest of a new dog sniffing his way around a pack’s home ground.

Wil Dow followed Dutch’s lead: he dismounted with the rifle in his hand and kept it there.

With cartridges and gold pieces they purchased moccasins, war plumes and cured buckskins from a happy old pirate called Sitting Owl. Roosevelt kept going back to a red blanket with five parallel black stripes. “How much does he want for it?”

“Buffalo blanket?” Dutch spoke rapidly to Sitting Owl and the old Indian talked back to him. Dutch’s English might be atrocious but it appeared he could speak Gros Ventre as well as any Indian; Sitting Owl seemed to have no trouble conversing with him. There was a great deal of headshaking and shouting.

“He says worth twenty gold dollars. More like four or five, you ask me.”

“What about that robe?”

The Gros Ventre buffalo robe was beautiful, Wil thought. It was painted with quills and flowers. Sitting Owl said he had been offered twenty-five dollars but Dutch argued amiably with him until he gave it up for eight, being hard up—“I am a deadbroke Indian”—and the blanket for five. They bought war plumes and a mountain lion skin.

To settle a matter in his mind Roosevelt asked Sitting Owl which white men had discovered the Bad Lands first—French? Spanish? English?

After several Indians broke into raucous laughter, Dutch translated the Indian’s reply: “‘Then it’s true—You think nothing can exist before by a white man it be discovered.’”

Then Dutch said, “Horses you want to buy? A bargain here.” You could buy Indian ponies for forty to eighty dollars; that was good business if you were capable of training the animals because anywhere in cattle country a more-or-less tamed saddle horse could go for ninety-five to a hundred and twenty-five dollars.

But Roosevelt said, “We’ve more than enough horses to keep tame as it is.”

Then there was the matter of scalps. Sitting Owl brought them out, appended to a pole; they were dried and shrunk down to a few inches across. Among the dark ones it was hard not to take note of a single scalp of pale sandy hair. It was about the hue of Roosevelt’s. Dutch said, “Five dollar. Don’t buy. Cheaper take one yourself, if you want one.”

Roosevelt said, “I don’t think I want one that badly, thank you.”

Uncle Bill Sewall’s long red whiskers captured the interest of Sitting Owl, who clearly was a leader of fashion among the Indian dandies; he wore beaded finery and his hands were bejeweled with brass trade rings. He looked at Sewall’s whiskers, felt of them, then began to braid them. Sewall dourly let him work while Wil Dow urgently watched Dutch Reuter to find out whether he should be alarmed. Dutch didn’t seem concerned. The Indians were laughing, taking it in what Wil Dow hoped was good nature. After Sitting Owl got Uncle Bill’s whiskers braided he reached for a very large knife and that was when Sewall grabbed him by the top of the head quick and lofted his free hand threateningly.

Sitting Owl shrank back; the other Indians laughed—but the crowd was pressing in closer and Wil Dow tasted fear.

Dutch said in a calm way, “Wil, the deadfall yonder—you see?”

He glanced nervously toward a fallen tree beyond the camp. “I see it. Why?”

“Shoot roots off.”

“You better do that yourself, Dutch.”

“You the best shot.”

“My hands are shaking something awful.”

“You shoot, you steady all right.”

He looked at Roosevelt and saw the big grin with which the boss regarded the Indians and remembered what Roosevelt had said to him about being afraid.

Dutch was talking fast to Sitting Owl, who drew himself up and with immense dignity accepted the loan of Dutch’s rifle, aimed it imperiously at the distant fallen tree and blazed away so furiously that Wil’s ears rang.

Afterward the old Indian had to step aside to peer past the great cloud of black powder smoke.

As far as Wil Dow could see, the tree remained intact. He lifted his own rifle, smiled confidently at the crowd, tried to will his hands to hold still, and squeezed off a shot. It knocked the tip off a root of the deadfall. An admiring mutter ran through the crowd. He moved a pace and fired again. When this shot also chipped wood from the target, the Indians went altogether silent.

Roosevelt said, “Excellent shooting, old fellow. First class.”

Wil Dow knocked another branch off with another bullet. His heart felt hollow. But Dutch said, “Enough, that is,” and that seemed to be the end of it: the crowd eased back and everyone was all smiles.

Dutch reclaimed his rifle from Sitting Owl. He said to Wil Dow, “Yah, yah, first class, yah. No red fellow fixin’ with us to mess now. Good boy.”

Wil smiled, pleased by Dutch’s praise. Sitting Owl smiled right back at him, showing a mouth full of cracked teeth and blackened gums.

Dutch talked briefly with the old boy while he reloaded the magazine. Sitting Owl grinned his ugly grin and led them into his lodge.

An old woman tended a fire inside the tepee. She bowed her way back toward the entrance flap, which evidently was the place of lowest honor, while Sitting Owl moved all the way to the back of the lodge where he sat down beside a tripod from which dangled what looked like a canvas poke. Dutch pointed to it and said, “Sacred medicine bundle. Best not touch that.” Sitting Owl pounded his fist on the robe that formed the floor of the lodge and Dutch sat down, indicating they all should follow suit. Sitting Owl spoke. Dutch said, “We to take supper are invited.”

Roosevelt said, “But they have very little food.”

“Just so.”

“Ask if we may share out our food with them—if it’s not a breach of etiquette.”

Dutch hesitated. Roosevelt said, “Go ahead, ask him. Be very polite. Tell him I don’t know their ways—tell him we mean no offense.”

Dutch spoke more slowly than before. He spread his hands and smiled through his beard, and when the Indian replied, Dutch eased back with relief. “Used to be insult. But not these days.”

“We are poor Indian,” Sitting Owl said. “Hungry Indian.”

And so they ate tough fried meat from a pan and afterward they were invited to observe the council. The long pipe of peace was smoked. Sewall passed; Wil Dow eagerly took a whiff and was instantly dizzy. The Sioux sang their songs, accompanied by drums, and the visitors watched them dance. Roosevelt’s eyes were merry behind the dusty glasses; he grinned with pleasure; and Wil Dow thought, Now I’m a frontiersman for certain!