The Indian children around this encampment were the brightest spot in my entire Western trip. They are the prettiest and most beautifully barbaric little children I have ever seen. They grow out of it very soon, but that is no reason why one should not make the most of it while it lasts. And they are as wild and fearful of the white visitor, unless he happens to be Lieutenant Scott or Second Lieutenant Quay, as the antelope in the prairie around him. It required a corporal’s guard, two lieutenants, and three squaws to persuade one of them to stand still and be photographed, and whenever my camera and I appeared together there was a wild stampede of Indian children, which no number of looking-glasses or dimes or strings of beads could allay. Not that they would not take the bribes, but they would run as soon as they had snatched them. It was very distressing, for I did not mean to hurt them very much. The older people were kinder, and would let me sit inside the tepees, which were very warm on the coldest days, and watch them cook, and play their queer games, and work moccasins, and gamble at monte for brass rings if they were women, or for cartridges if they were men. And for ways that are dark and tricks that are vain, I think the Indian monte-dealer can instruct a Chinese poker-player in many things. What was so fine about them was their dignity, hospitality, and strict suppression of all curiosity. They always received a present as though they were doing you a favor, and you felt that you were paying tribute. This makes them difficult to deal with as soldiers. They cannot be treated as white men, and put in the guard-house for every slight offence. Lieutenant Scott has to explain things to them, and praise them, and excite a spirit of emulation among them by commending those publicly who have done well. For instance, they hate to lose their long hair, and Lieutenant Scott did not order them to have it cut, but told them it would please him if they did; and so one by one, and in bunches of three and four, they tramped up the hill to the post barber, and back again with their locks in their hands, to barter them for tobacco with the post trader. The Indians at Fort Sill were a temperate lot, and Lieutenant Harris, who has charge of the canteen, growled because they did not drink enough to pay for their share of the dividend which is returned to each troop at the end of the month.