"Then the other Injuns made their claims, an' we all got some kind of honours. I mind one feller was allowed to drag a Fox tail at each heel when he danced, an' another had ten horseshoe marks on an Eagle feather for stealing ten horses, an' I tell you them Injuns were prouder of them feathers than a general would be of his medals."
"My, I wish I could go out there and be with those fellows," and Yan sighed as he compared his commonplace lot with all this romantic splendour.
"Guess you'd soon get sick of it. I know I did," was the answer; "forever shooting and killing, never at peace, never more than three meals ahead of starvation and just as often three meals behind. No, siree, no more for me."
"I'd just like to see you start in horse-stealing for honours round here," observed Sam, "though I know who'd get the feathers if it was chicken stealing."
"Say, Caleb," said Guy, who, being friendly and of the country, never thought of calling the old man "Mr. Clark," "didn't they give feathers for good Deer-hunting? I'll bet I could lick any of them at it if I had a gun."
"Didn't you hear me say first thing that that there shot o' Yan's should score a 'grand coup'?"
"Oh, shucks! I kin lick Yan any time; that was just a chance shot. I'll bet if you give feathers for Deer-hunting I'll get them all."
"We'll take you up on that," said the oldest Chief, but the next interrupted:
"Say, boys, we want to play Injun properly. Let's get Mr. Clark to show us how to make a real war bonnet. Then we'll wear only what feathers we win."
"Ye mean by scalping the Whites an' horse-stealing?"
"Oh, no; there's lots of things we can do—best runner, best Deer hunter, best swimmer, best shot with bow and arrows."
"All right." So they set about questioning Caleb. He soon showed them how to put a war bonnet together, using, in spite of Yan's misgivings, the crown of an old felt hat for the ground work and white goose quills trimmed and dyed black at the tips for Eagle feathers. But when it came to the deeds that were to be rewarded, each one had his own ideas.
"If Sappy will go to the orchard and pick a peck of cherries without old Cap gettin' him, I'll give him a feather with all sorts of fixin's on it," suggested Sam.
"Well, I'll bet you can't get a chicken out of our barn 'thout our Dog gettin' you, Mr. Smarty."
"Pooh! I ain't stealing chickens. Do you take me for a nigger? I'm a noble Red-man and Head Chief at that, I want you to know, an' I've a notion to collect that scalp you're wearin' now. You know it belongs to me and Yan," and he sidled over, rolling his eye and working his fingers in a way that upset Guy's composure. "And I tell you a feller with one foot in the grave should have his thoughts on seriouser things than chicken-stealing. This yere morbid cravin' for excitement is rooinin' all the young fellers nowadays."
Yan happened to glance at Caleb. He was gazing off at nothing, but there was a twinkle in his eye that Yan never before saw there.
"Let's go to the teepee. It's too hot out here. Come in, won't you, Mr. Clark?"
"Hm. 'Tain't much cooler in here, even if it is shady," remarked the old Trapper. "Ye ought to lift one side of the canvas and get some air."
"Why, did the real Injuns do that?"
"I should say they did. There ain't any way they didn't turn and twist the teepee for comfort. That's what makes it so good. Ye kin live in it forty below zero an' fifty 'bove suffocation an' still be happy. It's the changeablest kind of a layout for livin' in. Real hot weather the thing looks like a spider with skirts on and held high, an' I tell you ye got to know the weather for a teepee. Many a hot night on the plains I've been woke up by hearing 'Tap-tap-tap' all around me in the still black night and wondered why all the squaws was working, but they was up to drop the cover and drive all the pegs deeper, an' within a half hour there never failed to come up a big storm. How they knew it was a-comin' I never could tell. One old woman said a Coyote told her, an' maybe that's true, for they do change their 
song for trouble ahead; another said it was the flowers lookin' queer at sundown, an' another had a bad dream. Maybe they're all true; it comes o' watchin' little things."
"Do they never get fooled?" asked Little Beaver
"Oncet in awhile, but not near as often as a White-man would.
"I mind once seeing an artist chap, one of them there portygraf takers. He come out to the village with a machine an' took some of the little teepees. Then I said, 'Why don't you get Bull-calf's squaw to put up their big teepee? I tell you that's a howler.' So off he goes, and after dickering awhile he got the squaw to put it up for three dollars. You bet it was a stunner, sure—all painted red, with green an' yaller--animals an' birds an' scalps galore. It made that feller's eyes bug out to see it. He started in to make some portygrafs, then was taking another by hand, so as to get the colours, an' I bet it would have crowded him to do it, but jest when he got a-going the old squaw yelled to the other—the Chief hed two of them—an' lighted out to take down that there teepee. That artist he hollered to stop, said he had hired it to stay up an' a bargain was a bargain. But the old squaw she jest kept on a-jabberin' an' pintin' at the west. Pretty soon they had the hull thing down and rolled up an' that artist a-cussin' like a cow-puncher. Well, I mind it was a fine day, but awful hot, an' before five minutes there come a little dark cloud in the west, then in ten minutes come a-whoopin' a regular small cyclone, 
an' it went through that village and wrecked all the teepees of any size. That red one would surely have gone only for that smart old squaw."
Under Caleb's directions the breezy side of the cover was now raised a little, and the shady side much more. This changed the teepee from a stifling hothouse into a cool, breezy shade.
"An' when ye want to know which way is the wind, if it's light, ye wet your finger so, an' hold it up. The windy side feels cool at once, and by that ye can set your smoke-flaps."
"I want to know about war bonnets," Yan now put in. "I mean about things to do to wear feathers—that is, things we can do."
"Ye kin have races, an' swimmin' an bownarrer shootin'. I should say if you kin send one o' them arrers two hundred yards that would kill a Buffalo at twenty feet. I'd think that was pretty good. Yes, I'd call that way up."
"What—a grand coup?"
"Yes, I reckon; an' if you fell short on'y fifty yards that'd still kill a Deer, an' we could call that a coup. If," continued Caleb, "you kin hit that old gunny-sack buck plunk in the heart at fifty yards first shot I'd call that away up; an' if you hit it at seventy-five yards in the heart no matter how many tries, I'd call you a shot. If you kin hit a nine-inch bull's-eye two out of three at forty yards every time an' no fluke, you'd hold your own among Injuns though I must say they don't go in much for shooting at a target. They shoot at 'most anything they see in the woods. I've seen the little copper-coloured kids shooting away at butterflies. Then they have matches—they try who can have most arrers in the air at one time. To have five in the air at once is considered good. It means powerful fast work and far shooting. You got to hold a bunch handy in the left hand fur that. The most I ever seen one man have up at once was eight. That was reckoned 'big medicine,' an' any one that can keep up seven is considered swell."
"Do you know any other things besides bows and arrows that would do?"
"I think that a rubbing-stick fire ought to count," interrupted Sam. "I want that in coz Guy can't do it. Any one who kin do it at all gets a feather, an' any one who kin do it in one minute gets a swagger feather, or whatever you call it; that takes care of Yan and me an' leaves Guy out in the cold."