We were following the regular trail, which had been slightly used for a year or two, though none of our outfit had ever been over it, when late on the third afternoon, about forty miles out from Doan’s, about a hundred mounted bucks and squaws sighted our herd and crossed the North Fork from their encampment.  They did not ride direct to the herd, but came into the trail nearly a mile above the cattle, so it was some little time from our first sighting them before we met.  We did not check the herd or turn out of the trail, but when the lead came within a few hundred yards of the Indians, one buck, evidently the chief of the band, rode forward a few rods and held up one hand, as if commanding a halt.  At the sight of this gaudily bedecked apparition, the cattle turned out of the trail, and Flood and I rode up to the chief, extending our hands in friendly greeting.  The chief could not speak a word of English, but made signs with his hands; when I turned loose on him in Spanish, however, he instantly turned his horse and signed back to his band.  Two young bucks rode forward and greeted Flood and myself in good Spanish.

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