He had been carefully trained to all this knowledge by the Pawnees, who were the hereditary enemies of the Cheyennes who still claimed sovereignty over the great plains. Once, in fact, when he had been out for a fortnight with his Indian friends on a buffalo hunt, the party was suddenly met by a band of Cheyennes, and, of course, a battle ensued to which Joe was a witness. After the fight that night, when the band camped on the Walnut, he saw the dances of the victorious Pawnees and learned a great deal about savage warfare. Shortly after the advent of the Pawnees on the Oxhide, and when Joe had established his friendly relations with them, although he could shoot fairly well previously, he now began to take a special delight in hunting. Every moment he could get to himself, he was off in the timber or out on the prairie with his rifle or shot-gun. He never carried these, however, unless he hunted alone, as on many occasions he was accompanied by one or two of the Pawnee boys about his own age whom the band had brought with them; young bucks, not yet old enough to have reached the dignity of warriors. They had to do the work generally assigned to the women, for no squaws were with the band. It is beneath a warrior to do anything but hunt, eat, smoke, and go to war; for idleness is the predominant characteristic of the men of every savage race, and the Pawnees were no exception. While they were encamped on the Oxhide the warriors scarcely ever left the delightful place except, of course, when summoned by their chief to the hunt. They sat all day in the shadow of their lodges, puffing lazily at their pipes and relating over and over again the stories of their feats in personal encounters with their enemies, the Cheyennes. The North American Indians are very assiduous in teaching their boys all that becomes a great warrior,--how to ride the wildest horses, and how to hunt and trap every variety of animal used in the domestic economy of their families. The very moment a son is large enough to handle them, bows and arrows are constantly in his hands. As the Indians had only a few poor rifles, whenever Joe went out with his dusky young companions on a hunt, he, too, took nothing but his bow and arrows which the Pawnees had given him, for he did not want his boy friends to feel his superiority when armed with the white man's weapons. The number of squirrels, rabbits, and game birds he killed in a single day would have astonished a city-bred boy.