|THE popularity of the above-named chieftain dates from a very trifling
little incident, as did that of many other men who are now great.
Spotted Tail had never won much distinction up to that time, except as
the owner of an appetite, in the presence of which his tribe stood in
dumb and terrible awe.
During the early days of what is now the great throbbing and ambitious
west, the tribe camped near Fort Sedgwick, and Big Mouth, a chief of
some importance, used to go over to the post regularly for the purpose
of filling his brindle hide full of "Fort Sedgwick Bloom of Youth."
As a consequence of Big Mouth's fatal yearning for liquid damnation, he
generally got impudent, and openly announced on the parade ground that
he could lick the entire regular army. This used to offend some of the
blood-scarred heroes who had just arrived from West Point, and in the
heat of debate they would warm the venerable warrior about two feet
below the back of his neck with the fiat of their sabers.
[Illustration: 0219]
This was a gross insult to Big Mouth, and he went back to the camp,
where he found Spotted Tail eating a mule that had died of inflammatory
rheumatism. Big Mouth tearfully told the wild epicure of the way he had
been treated, and asked for a council of war. Spot picked his teeth with
a tent pin, and then told the defeated relic of a mighty race that if he
would quit strong drink, he would be subjected to fewer insults.
Big Mouth then got irritated, and told S. Tail that his remarks showed
that he was standing, in with the aggressor, and was no friend to his
people.
Spotted Tail said that Mr. B. Mouth was a liar, by yon high heaven, and
before there was time to think it over, he took a butcher knife, about
four feet long, from its scabbard and cut Mr. Big Mouth plumb in two
just between the umbilicus and the watch pocket.
As the reader who is familiar with anatomy has already surmised, Big
Mouth died from the effects of this wound, and Spotted Tail was at once
looked upon as the Moses of his tribe. He readily rose to prominence,
and by his strict attention to the duties of his office, made for
himself a name as a warrior and a pie biter, at which the world turned
pale.
This should teach us the importance of taking the tide at its flood,
which leads on to fortune, and to lay low when there is a hen on, as
Benjamin Franklin has so truly said.