Indian policy, very logical in this as in many other things, orders the natives to seek at any price an alliance with the whites, whose recognized skill in the management of arms, and profound knowledge of the manners of their countrymen, may at a given moment be of great service to the Indians, either in the interminable wars they wage against each other, or to defend them against the soldiers, _civicos_, and armed colonists, whom the civilized governments surrounding them frequently send to take vengeance for incursions on the territories of the White men, incursions in which the Indians indulge only too frequently, and during which they are guilty of deeds of unheard-of cruelty, and cause irreparable misfortunes. After the final ceremony we have described, the Indian Sachems took the White hunters in their midst, and placing themselves at the head of their warriors, started at a gallop for the village, which they reached in less than a quarter of an hour. At the entrance Black-deer was waiting for them, surrounded by the most important and wisest Sachems of the tribe. Without uttering a syllable, he took the head of the column and led it to the centre of the village, near the Ark of the first man. On reaching it the Indians suddenly halted, as if the feet of their horses were imbedded in the ground. Black-deer then stationed himself at the doorway of the medicine lodge, between the hachesto, who held in his hand the totem of the tribe, and the pipe bearer, who supported the sacred calumet. "Who are the Pale men who thus enter as friends the atepetl of the Antelope Comanches?" he asked, addressing Loyal Heart. "They are brothers, who ask leave to sit by the hearth of the Red men," the latter answered. "It is well," Black-deer continued; "these men are our brothers. The Council fire is lighted; they will enter with us the lodge of the Great Medicine, sit down by the fire and smoke _morichee_ from the sacred calumet with the Sachems of the nation." "Let it be as my brother has decided," Loyal Heart responded. Black-deer gave a wave of the hand, upon which the hachesto raised the curtained door of the lodge, and the Chiefs entered, followed by the hunters. The medicine lodge, much larger than the other callis of the village, was also built with greater care. The buffalo skins that covered it entirely were painted red with a profusion of black designs, a species of sacred hieroglyphics, only understood by the medicine men and the most renowned Sachems of the tribe, who possessed the scent of the war trail. The interior of the lodge was perfectly empty. In the centre was a round hole dug in the earth to a depth of about two feet; in this hole the requisite wood and charcoal were prepared.