The young men who belong to the Cheyenne nation, are fond of dress, and when arrayed in full costume one of them is a picture to look upon; when thus gilded no man could be prouder.  These Indians wear their hair in a long cue a la Chinese style.  They take great pleasure in ornamenting this cue with innumerable pieces of silver, which are made from half dollar pieces, and are beat out in the shape of small shields.  With their blue, or red blankets, long ribbons of different colored flannel, fancy leggins and bead decorations, and finally (as I once saw one) with a red cotton umbrella, they represent the very Paris tip of Indian fashion.  Their squaws do not possess as regular and fine features as the men; but, this may be said to be true of most of the wild tribes of savages in North America, for it requires an enormous stretch of the imagination to call them handsome, while many of the men are fine looking.  Hard work spoils the beauty of the Indian women.  To admire an Indian woman one must seclude himself from the society of other females; under such circumstances it may be that a person might be inclined to change his opinion and think the race lovely.  The lazy brave considers it beneath his station to work; therefore all camp labor and the packing, saddling and looking after the ponies devolves upon the squaw.  When there is a scanty supply of horses, she is obliged to give her lord the preference in taking his ease, and go herself on foot and carry her pappoose.  In fact it is lowering to the Indian’s pride to do else than hunt and fight.  Owing to the scarcity of timber on the western prairies the Indians transport their lodge poles from camp to camp.  This is done by attaching them to the sides of the pack animals while the free ends drag on the ground, and in time of war this constitutes one of the signs of the trail by which to follow when in pursuit of them.

The reason why the commanding officer of this party of recruits inflicted the summary punishment referred to, is not known to the writer; but, it surely does appear as if the person who ordered its execution or perhaps courageously performed it himself, might have reflected, that a savage, least of all men, allows a supposed injury done to him or his tribe to pass by unrevenged, and also that it is a matter of perfect indifference to him as to who the victim is, if he only gets the chance to strike a blow on the same nation.  This revenge will quench his cruel thirst for blood quite as effectually as if he had the satisfaction of scalping the perpetrator of his real or supposed injury.  It is a fact—­alas too frequently true—­that the parties who are strong in numbers, courage, and equipment, while crossing the plains, are prone to treat, in an overbearing and insolent manner, the bands of Indians with whom they chance to come into contact.  For these insults and injuries weaker parties who travel upon the same road are held to a strict and revengeful account by being made to suffer even with their lives, as well as effects.  Kit Carson and his small force, unfortunately, or rather, fortunately, so far as Kit himself was concerned, for no man could be better fitted to deal with such a crisis of trouble than he, were the first white men who came along after the flogging of their warrior had wrought up the temper of the Cheyenne nation to a degree which nearly bordered on frenzy.