The night-herder's song awoke me at four a. m.—the first streak of day—and I didn't have time to pull on my boots before the bulls were inside the corral; so, in bare feet, I yoked my fourteen head and then proceeded to pull on the cowhides, roll up my blankets and throw them on my trail wagon. Due to the haste—for nearly everyone else in the outfit was ready to "pull out" in response to the assistant wagon boss' order—I proceeded to pull on the left boot without the usual precautions. My fingers were in the straps as I sat on the ground,[1] and in another minute my toes would have been in the boot. But the rattler that had spent the night in it stuck out his head. I shook him out, first calling my pard to come with his whip.

After the rattler was dead I plucked off eleven beautifully graduated white rattles and a black button, later on adding them to a hatband of several hundred which I had sewn together, using silk thread and a cambric needle. The other boot was tenantless.

The blankets, in a neat roll secured by a heavy leather strap, were thrown on top of the freight in the trailer, and away we went for a dry camp in the bad lands, where we spent six hours of the middle of the day hiding under our wagons to escape the hot rays of the sun.

A late afternoon start ended at nine p. m., in a moonlit camp on a creek that ran swiftly through chalk-like bluffs—perhaps the headwaters of the Niobrara river. In those days none but a geographer or a government surveyor knew the names of many of the waterways, if they had names. It had been a hard drive through deep sand most of the way, and after the bulls had been relieved of their yokes and the chains that held the teams together, all hands raced for the water, both for internal and external purposes.

Our night camp was on a flat between the bluffs and a few yards from the stream in a most inviting spot, the edge of the crooked channel being lined with stunted and gnarled box-elder, while farther back were a few dozen dead and gaunt cottonwoods. Some small bushes grew in clumps here and there, but our camp commanded a good view, even in the night, of the country for a mile in at least two directions—north and south.

Though tired, it was too nice a night even in this wilderness to go to bed; for a youngster who had acquired two revolvers, a Winchester rifle, a butcher knife and other weapons believed the crumpled grass he had seen at the edge of the creek indicated the presence not far away of others of the human family, and he intended to find out about it. He had confided this suspicion to one other youth of the outfit, and as the supper camp-fire died down to a bed of coals and a cool wind began to fan the hot earth these boys stole out of camp, waded the creek, and carefully examined the earth up and down its margin until they came upon a distinct moccasin, pony and lodge pole trail. They followed it along the bottoms for two miles to a jutting bluff where around the corner they saw six tepees, near which were picketed several ponies.

All was silent as the boys, concealed in a safe spot, viewed the scene. Then there was a sound, low at first, like the crooning of a mother to a babe, which grew louder and louder, until finally there emerged from one of the tepees a big buck who stood silently for a full minute, listening. He wore nothing but a breech-clout, and over his shoulder hung a buckskin strap upon which was attached the arrows for the big bow held in his hand. He did wear a bonnet and it consisted principally of feathers that looked exactly like some of the creations worn by women of the present day.

When he had located the sound he moved toward the hiding boys but stopped at the nearest tepee. The crooning grew to a lamentation. Then other tepees showed signs of life, and in a few moments bucks, squaws and papooses were running hither and thither in a bewildering way. But the boys remained silent, for there was no sign of a movement of camp and not an indication that there was an outside alarm. Then what could it be? What was all this fuss about? The lamentations became louder and louder and the excitement apparently greater.

Finally a number of squaws who had gone to the creek bottom appeared in the center of the little camp. They carried bundles of green willows, dozens of large hard-head boulders and rawhide receptacles filled with water; also a bundle of dry faggots.

After the stones had been piled in a neat heap a fire was built upon them which was allowed to burn briskly for half an hour. Then the coals and ashes were brushed off and a tent-like covering put over a quickly woven basket-like structure that had been built over the stones. Then the water was dashed upon the stones and the steam began to ascend.

Presently out from a tepee came a squaw with a bundle which she gently shoved under the elkskin covered cauldron of steam.

"Say," said one of the boys, "are you on?"

"Sure enough," the other whispered, "they are giving that kid a Turkish bath."

And that's what they were doing; but it wasn't Turkish-just Injun.

Returning to camp the boys proceeded to slip into their blankets quietly, say nothing about what they had seen, and go to sleep. They believed the straggling band of Arapahoes were not on the war-path and had work for the "medicine-man"—the big buck they first saw come out of his tepee.

You have no idea how cautiously the boys went about getting the blankets off the wagon so as not to disturb the boss, a man they feared. So they moved noiselessly.

One threw his roll of blankets from the top of the trailer and the other caught the bundle and proceeded to flatten it out into a comfortable bed when he heard a familiar noise, and forgetting that they were to be silent, the youth on the ground yelled:

"Look out—a rattler!"

It woke up the whole camp. The snake had occupied the blankets from four a. m., at least, until this time—midnight. Perhaps he had slept with the boy until four a. m.; I think he did; anyway, he had rolled him up and put him where found.