The next day we drove over to the agency, eager to see the Indian dance that had been promised us. The place consists of several government and private buildings surrounded by a stockade. When we arrived a large number of Indians were already there, mostly squaws and children, mounted on ponies and dressed in their gayest blankets and embroideries. Their ponies are very pretty, small, gracefully-formed horses, not clumsy as we had expected. The mantles of the squaws were of deer-skin, but covered entirely with beads, the groundwork of deep sky-blue ones, with gay stiff figures in brilliant colors. They were gracefully cut, somewhat like a "dolman," and had a rich, gorgeous effect in the crowd. Most of them wore necklaces of "thaqua"--the quill-like white shell which is brought from the Pacific, and serves them for small change--and heavy earrings of the same shells, a quarter of a yard long. Their ears were slit from top to bottom to hold these great earrings: sometimes they wore two pairs, with heavy mother-of-pearl shells at the end of each. The necklaces covered the whole chest, like a bib or a breastplate. The parting of their long black hair was painted red, and their cheeks daubed with red, yellow and blue. Most of them had flat faces and flat noses: very few were in the least good-looking. Hundreds were waiting outside the gates, among them some half-breed boys. Soon the braves began to come in. With a glass we could see great numbers of them winding out of the hills from their hidden camps, well mounted and flashing with bright arms and gay trappings. It was a strange, wonderful scene of motion and color, with the gray, unchangeable desert and the pale walls of the buttes for a background. The men came crowding, tearing in at a great pace, and soon we could see the dancing-party dashing along in all their feathers and war-paint, an inconceivably wild, savage cavalcade. On they rushed, beating a great drum in solemn cadence, shouting, blowing fifes, and firing their pieces into the air. There was as much noise as on a Fourth of July. We had to stand back to let them pass, for there was a scene of the wildest confusion as they all, horse and foot, rushed pell-mell into the stockade, followed closely by the squaws and children on their spirited ponies. It was a piece of _real_ savage life. Following after them, we went up into the second story of the agent's house, where we could look down upon the barbaric crowd. The squaws made a brilliant circle all round the inside of the enclosure, gay as a terrace of flowers. About fifteen men squatted round the big drum, which must have been five or six feet in diameter, and began a weird song, interspersed with grunts and yells. It had a measured cadence, but not a semblance of music. Meanwhile the braves who were to join in the dance formed themselves into two circles of about thirty men each, and the rest sat upon their horses, looking imperturbable.