All night long the Chiricahuas and the Apache scouts danced together in sign of peace and good-will. The drums were camp-kettles partly filled with water and covered tightly with a well-soaked piece of calico. The drumsticks were willow saplings curved into a hoop at one extremity. The beats recorded one hundred to the minute, and were the same dull, solemn thump which scared Cortés and his beleaguered followers during _la Noche triste_. No Caucasian would refer to it as music; nevertheless, it had a fascination all its own comparable to the whirr-r-r of a rattlesnake. And so the song, chanted to the measure of the drumming, had about it a weird harmony which held listeners spell-bound. When the dance began, two old hags, white-haired and stiff with age, pranced in the centre of the ring, warming up under the stimulus of the chorus until they became lively as crickets. With them were two or three naked boys of very tender years. The ring itself included as many as two hundred Indians of both sexes, whose varied costumes of glittering hues made a strange setting to the scene as the dancers shuffled and sang in the silvery rays of the moon and the flickering light of the camp-fires. On May 23, 1883, rations were issued to 220 Chiricahuas, and, soon after, Nané, one of the most noted and influential of the Chiricahua chiefs, rode into camp with seventeen of his people. He has a strong face, marked with intelligence, courage, and good nature, but with an under stratum of cruelty and vindictiveness. He has received many wounds in his countless fights with the whites, and limps very perceptibly in one leg. He reported that Chiricahuas were coming in by every trail, and that all would go to the San Carlos as soon as they collected their families. On the 24th of May the march back to the San Carlos began. All the old Chiricahuas were piled on mules, donkeys, and ponies; so were the weak little children and feeble women. The great majority streamed along on foot, nearly all wearing garlands of cotton-wood foliage to screen them from the sun. The distance travelled was not great, and camp was made by noon.