who can tickle a speckled trout; and after my bath the soldiers were still at it, and damning their eyes, their luck, and the pretty fish which so saucily flouted them.

So I flung ‘em a big trout and went back to camp whistling, and there found that my Indians had fed and were now gravely renewing their paint.

Tahoontowhee dressed and cooked my fish for me, each in a bass-wood leaf, and when they were done and smelling most fragrant, we all made a delicious feast, with corn bread from the ovens and salt pork and a great jug of milk from the army’s herd.

At eight o’clock another gun was fired. This was the daily signal, I learned, to stack tents and load pack-horses. And another gun fired at ten o’clock meant “March.