"Confound these Indians!" I said. "They told me they were tame; but, if
appearances go for anything, I should say they were all on the warpath."
I made one more attempt to fraternize with them, and only one. I came
upon a camp of them gathered in the shade of a great tree, making wampum
and moccasins, and addressed them in the language of friendship:
"Noble Red Men, Braves, Grand Sachems, War Chiefs, Squaws, and High
Muck-a-Mucks, the paleface from the land of the setting sun greets you!
You, Beneficent Polecat--you, Devourer of Mountains--you, Roaring
Thundergust --you, Bully Boy with a Glass eye--the paleface from beyond
the great waters greets you all! War and pestilence have thinned your
ranks and destroyed your once proud nation. Poker and seven-up, and a
vain modern expense for soap, unknown to your glorious ancestors, have
depleted your purses. Appropriating, in your simplicity, the property of
others has gotten you into trouble. Misrepresenting facts, in your
simple innocence, has damaged your reputation with the soulless usurper.
Trading for forty-rod whisky, to enable you to get drunk and happy and
tomahawk your families, has played the everlasting mischief with the
picturesque pomp of your dress, and here you are, in the broad light of
the nineteenth century, gotten up like the ragtag and bobtail of the
purlieus of New York. For shame! Remember your ancestors! Recall their
mighty deeds! Remember Uncas!--and Red jacket! and Hole in the Day!--and
Whoopdedoodledo! Emulate their achievements! Unfurl yourselves under my
banner, noble savages, illustrious guttersnipes--"
"Down wid him!" "Scoop the blaggard!" "Burn him!" "Bang him!"
"Dhround him!"
It was the quickest operation that ever was. I simply saw a sudden flash
in the air of clubs, brickbats, fists, bead-baskets, and moccasins--a
single flash, and they all appeared to hit me at once, and no two of them
in the same place. In the next instant the entire tribe was upon me.
They tore half the clothes off me; they broke my arms and legs; they gave
me a thump that dented the top of my head till it would hold coffee like
a saucer; and, to crown their disgraceful proceedings and add insult to
injury, they threw me over the Niagara Falls, and I got wet.
About ninety or a hundred feet from the top, the remains of my vest
caught on a projecting rock, and I was almost drowned before I could get
loose. I finally fell, and brought up in a world of white foam at the
foot of the Fall, whose celled and bubbly masses towered up several
inches above my head. Of course I got into the eddy. I sailed round and
round in it forty-four times--chasing a chip and gaining on it--each
round trip a half-mile--reaching for the same bush on the bank forty-four
times, and just exactly missing it by a hair's-breadth every time.
At last a man walked down and sat down close to that bush, and put a pipe
in his mouth, and lit a match, and followed me with one eye and kept the
other on the match, while he sheltered it in his hands from the wind.
Presently a puff of wind blew it out. The next time I swept around he
said:
"Got a match?"
"Yes; in my other vest. Help me out, please."
"Not for Joe."
When I came round again, I said:
"Excuse the seemingly impertinent curiosity of a drowning man, but will
you explain this singular conduct of yours?"
"With pleasure. I am the coroner. Don't hurry on my account. I can
wait for you. But I wish I had a match."