The Indian village was all astir, as he discovered when he came in sight of it. There were lights in many of the lodges, and in the council house, which was the largest lodge, and pitched in the center of the village. The droning sound had now revealed itself as the singing and chanting of warriors and medicine men, and the thump of the drums reached the scout with great distinctness. Because of the brightness of the moonlight, Buffalo Bill assumed a stooping posture as he crept forward, and a little later he got flat down on the ground and crept on with the litheness and softness of the panther stealing on its prey. Not a leaf rustled under him as he thus stole forward, not a twig snapped; his advance was like the forward movement of a shadow, so silent was it. Buffalo Bill was no ordinary scout, no ordinary trailer, no ordinary Indian fighter. He could out-Indian an Indian himself in all the tricks of Indian warfare. Now and then, when an Indian figure appeared at an opening in a lodge or hurried along through the moonlight, the scout simply “froze” in his place; and, if seen would then have been thought to be a mere shadow or some prominence in the landscape, a stone or a bit of elevated earth. When the Indian had disappeared, the scout wriggled on again. Thus by progress that was slow and annoying, or would have been annoying to almost any other man, Buffalo Bill drew close to the Indian village. In a short while after reaching it he was squirming along behind the lodges, seeking concealment in their shadows. Always he headed toward the central lodge, where the drums were thumping and the braves were howling. What Buffalo Bill feared most was that some mangy cur, of which numbers are always found in every Indian village, should scent him out and raise a clatter which would bring some of the Indians down upon him. As if to be prepared for this, or to guard against it, when he had advanced a short distance he drew his knife from its case at his belt and held it in his teeth, ready for instant use. Lying flat in the shadow of a lodge, and looking out into the bright moonlight which lay before him, and seeing how difficult his advance from that point would be, the scout thought of an expedient which he had more than once used on a similar errand. The lodge was apparently deserted, the inmates having taken themselves to other lodges for purposes of talk, or to the council house. Lifting the skin flap of the lodge, Buffalo Bill peered into the dark interior. It was perfectly silent, and believing it to be quite deserted for the time, he crawled in, dropping the skin covering into place behind him. Having gained entrance to the lodge, the scout lay quietly for a time, listening and getting his bearings. Then he moved forward until his hands came in contact with a blanket. This he appropriated, then began to feel about for some other article that would be useful. At length his hand fell on a feathered Indian headdress.