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“I’m not allowed,” said Oliver, eyeing the great pipe which he was certain he had seen a few moments before in the Museum case.

“Good, good,” said the old Cheyenne; “a youth should not smoke until he has gathered the bark of the oak.”

Oliver looked puzzled and the Dog Warrior smiled broadly, for gathering oak bark is a poetic Indian way of speaking of a young warrior’s first scalping.

“He means you must not smoke until you have done something to prove you are a man,” explained one of the Arapahoes, who was painted bright red all over and wore a fringe of scalps under his ceremonial belt. Pipes came out all around the circle and some one threw a handful of sweet-grass on the fire.

“What I should like to know,” said Oliver, “is why you are called Dog Dancer?”

The painted man shook his head.

“All I know is that we are picked men, ripe with battles, and the Dog is our totem. So it has been since the Fathers’ Fathers.” He blew two puffs from his pipe straight up, murmuring, “O God, remember us on earth,” after the fashion of ceremonial smoking.

“God and us,” said the Cheyenne, pointing up with his pipe-stem; and then to Oliver, “The Tsis-tsis-tas were saved by a dog once in the country of the Ho-He. That is Assiniboine,” he explained, following it with a strong grunt of disgust which ran all around the circle as the Dog Chief struck out with his foot and started a little spurt of dust with his toe, throwing dirt on the name of his enemy. “They are called Assiniboine, stone cookers, because they cook in holes in the ground with hot stones, but to us they were the Ho-He. The first time we met we fought them. That was in the old time, before we had guns or bows either, but clubs and pointed sticks. That was by the Lake of the Woods where we first met them.”

“Lake of the Woods,” said Oliver; “that’s farther north than the headwater of the Mississippi.”

“We came from farther and from older time,” said the Dog Soldier. “We thought the guns were magic at first and fell upon our faces. Nevertheless, we fought the Ho-He and took their guns away from them.”

“So,” said the officer of the Yellow Rope, as the long buckskin badge of rank was called. “We fought with Blackfoot and Sioux. We fought with Comanches and Crows, and expelled them from the Land. With Kiowas we fought; we crossed the Big Muddy and long and bitter wars we had with Shoshones and Pawnees. Later we fought the Utes. We are the Fighting Cheyennes.

“That is how it is when a peaceful people are turned fighters. For we are peaceful. We came from the East, for one of our wise men had foretold that one day we should meet White Men and be conquered by them. Therefore, we came away, seeking peace, and we did not know what to do when the Ho-He fell upon us. At last we said, ‘Evidently it is the fashion of this country to fight. Now, let us fight everybody we meet, so we shall become great.’ That is what has happened. Is it not so?”

“It is so!” said the Dog Dancers. “Hi-hi-yi,” breaking out all at once in the long-drawn wolf howl which is the war-cry of the Cheyennes. Oliver would have been frightened by it, but quite as suddenly they returned to their pipes, and he saw the old Dog Chief looking at him with a kindly twinkle.

“You were going to tell me why you are called Dog Soldiers,” Oliver reminded him.

“Dog is a good name among us,” said the old Cheyenne, “but it is forbidden to speak of the Mysteries. Perhaps when you have been admitted to the Kit Foxes and have seen fighting–“

“We’ve got a war of our own, now,” said Oliver hopefully.

The Indians were all greatly interested. The painted Arapahoe blew him a puff from his pipe. “Send you good enemies,” he said, trailing the smoke about in whatever direction enemies might come from. “And a good fight!” said the Yellow Rope Officer; “for men grow soft where there is no fighting.”