Further courting adventures. The little footprint map in Plate 155 shows that these three women have intentionally diverged from the main trail to a spring. That is, the meeting was planned, and the ladies have chosen to be there. It is not Arrow's fault that his horse likes the grass in that particular spot. He is completely innocent of the assignation. Also, of course, the circumstances force him to advertise in this drawing that he is completely irresistable.

What seems to be an intentionally droll detail is the little whirlwind of discolored air issuing from beneath the horse's tail. Of such moments are memories made. This horse is Arrow's favorite grey with the black legs, of Plates 27, 32, 34, 88 & 102; although unaccountably he has omitted the black spot on its hip. Even though his signature feather talisman is tied in the horse's tail, and his patented vaquero saddle and matching leather rifle scabbard are in evidence, Arrow felt it important to include a name glyph for himself, lest anyone fail to recognize the true identity of this popular lover.

The two young women who seem to be of most interest to the artist have name glyphs which may represent (left) Tax-e-meo, "Woman Standing In a Buffalo Wallow", or "Buffalo Wallow Woman" (Petter, 1915: 733); and (right) something like "White Horse On a Hill", or "White Horse Climbs a Butte". The third, unnamed woman is dressed more drably, and may be an older, married sister or cousin who is acting as chaperone. The two oaken buckets provide the "cover" for this clandestine meeting. When they have visited as long as they dare, the girls will scurry down to the spring to fill their buckets, then sprint home before their mother begins to calculate the time. With luck, no one will be the wiser. And Arrow would never tell a soul.

The young girls' boot-moccasins are similar to those in the preceding Plate, and both wear very colorful, striped, Mexican blankets over their calico dresses. The fact that the two are sisters is indicated by their identical choice of facial painting: a yellow background, with circles of vermillion on the cheeks and chin, and a small dot of the same on the bridge of the nose. With the red line marking the parting of their hair, this arrangement charts the Four Directions and the Center, similar to the war shield in Plate 17. Although not much of Arrow's carbine is visible, the brass butt-plate designates it as the 1866 Winchester carbine of Plates 74 & 94. Probably this actually belonged to his Nisson comrade, who carries it in Plare 79; but a little extra flash never hurt an earnest lover, and Arrow has borrowed it especially for this rendezvous.

Plate 155 is a very significant cultural image. All springs are considered by Cheyenne people to be not merely sources of water, but enchanted entrances to the Underworld, and as such are locations both of power, and possible danger.

"No one knows how disease first came into the world, nor always what causes it. Often it is believed to come from invisible arrows, shot into the person by...certain spirits or personalities who inhabit springs...One who carelessly jumps across a spring, or across the water near its source, may be shot with such an arrow. These spirits must be propitiated, and gifts made to them. Such offerings are often seen lying on the ground about springs..." (Grinnell, 1923, II: 126).

The spring represented in this drawing not only issues from a sacred, red-colored outcrop, but a cottonwood---sacred tree of the Medicine Lodge ceremony---also crowns the hill. Offerings of colored cloth, precisely as reported by Grinnell, are tied to branches of the tree. This is the only 19th-century, Cheyenne graphic representation of this important custom known to the author.