SCENES AT THE CAMP
Reynal heard guns fired one day, at the distance of a mile or two from
the camp. He grew nervous instantly. Visions of Crow war parties began
to haunt his imagination; and when we returned (for we were all absent),
he renewed his complaints about being left alone with the Canadians
and the squaw. The day after, the cause of the alarm appeared. Four
trappers, one called Moran, another Saraphin, and the others nicknamed
“Rouleau” and “Jean Gras,” came to our camp and joined us. They it was
who fired the guns and disturbed the dreams of our confederate Reynal.
They soon encamped by our side. Their rifles, dingy and battered with
hard service, rested with ours against the old tree; their strong rude
saddles, their buffalo robes, their traps, and the few rough and simple
articles of their traveling equipment, were piled near our tent. Their
mountain horses were turned to graze in the meadow among our own; and
the men themselves, no less rough and hardy, used to lie half the day in
the shade of our tree lolling on the grass, lazily smoking, and telling
stories of their adventures; and I defy the annals of chivalry to
furnish the record of a life more wild and perilous than that of a Rocky
Mountain trapper.
With this efficient re-enforcement the agitation of Reynal’s nerves
subsided. He began to conceive a sort of attachment to our old camping
ground; yet it was time to change our quarters, since remaining too long
on one spot must lead to certain unpleasant results not to be borne
with unless in a case of dire necessity. The grass no longer presented a
smooth surface of turf; it was trampled into mud and clay. So we removed
to another old tree, larger yet, that grew by the river side at a
furlong’s distance. Its trunk was full six feet in diameter; on one
side it was marked by a party of Indians with various inexplicable
hieroglyphics, commemorating some warlike enterprise, and aloft among
the branches were the remains of a scaffolding, where dead bodies had
once been deposited, after the Indian manner.
“There comes Bull-Bear,” said Henry Chatillon, as we sat on the grass at
dinner. Looking up, we saw several horsemen coming over the neighboring
hill, and in a moment four stately young men rode up and dismounted.
One of them was Bull-Bear, or Mahto-Tatonka, a compound name which he
inherited from his father, the most powerful chief in the Ogallalla
band. One of his brothers and two other young men accompanied him. We
shook hands with the visitors, and when we had finished our meal--for
this is the orthodox manner of entertaining Indians, even the best of
them--we handed to each a tin cup of coffee and a biscuit, at which they
ejaculated from the bottom of their throats, “How! how!” a monosyllable
by which an Indian contrives to express half the emotions that he is
susceptible of. Then we lighted the pipe, and passed it to them as they
squatted on the ground.
“Where is the village?”
“There,” said Mahto-Tatonka, pointing southward; “it will come in two
days.”
“Will they go to the war?”
“Yes.”
No man is a philanthropist on the prairie. We welcomed this news most
cordially, and congratulated ourselves that Bordeaux’s interested
efforts to divert The Whirlwind from his congenial vocation of bloodshed
had failed of success, and that no additional obstacles would interpose
between us and our plan of repairing to the rendezvous at La Bonte’s
Camp.
For that and several succeeding days, Mahto-Tatonka and his friends
remained our guests. They devoured the relics of our meals; they filled
the pipe for us and also helped us to smoke it. Sometimes they stretched
themselves side by side in the shade, indulging in raillery and
practical jokes ill becoming the dignity of brave and aspiring warriors,
such as two of them in reality were.
Two days dragged away, and on the morning of the third we hoped
confidently to see the Indian village. It did not come; so we rode out
to look for it. In place of the eight hundred Indians we expected, we
met one solitary savage riding toward us over the prairie, who told
us that the Indians had changed their plans, and would not come within
three days; still he persisted that they were going to the war. Taking
along with us this messenger of evil tidings, we retraced our footsteps
to the camp, amusing ourselves by the way with execrating Indian
inconstancy. When we came in sight of our little white tent under the
big tree, we saw that it no longer stood alone. A huge old lodge was
erected close by its side, discolored by rain and storms, rotted with
age, with the uncouth figures of horses and men, and outstretched hands
that were painted upon it, well-nigh obliterated. The long poles which
supported this squalid habitation thrust themselves rakishly out from
its pointed top, and over its entrance were suspended a “medicine-pipe”
and various other implements of the magic art. While we were yet at a
distance, we observed a greatly increased population of various colors
and dimensions, swarming around our quiet encampment. Moran, the
trapper, having been absent for a day or two, had returned, it seemed,
bringing all his family with him. He had taken to himself a wife for
whom he had paid the established price of one horse. This looks cheap at
first sight, but in truth the purchase of a squaw is a transaction which
no man should enter into without mature deliberation, since it involves
not only the payment of the first price, but the formidable burden of
feeding and supporting a rapacious horde of the bride’s relatives, who
hold themselves entitled to feed upon the indiscreet white man. They
gather round like leeches, and drain him of all he has.
Moran, like Reynal, had not allied himself to an aristocratic circle.
His relatives occupied but a contemptible position in Ogallalla society;
for among those wild democrats of the prairie, as among us, there are
virtual distinctions of rank and place; though this great advantage they
have over us, that wealth has no part in determining such distinctions.
Moran’s partner was not the most beautiful of her sex, and he had the
exceedingly bad taste to array her in an old calico gown bought from
an emigrant woman, instead of the neat and graceful tunic of whitened
deerskin worn ordinarily by the squaws. The moving spirit of the
establishment, in more senses than one, was a hideous old hag of eighty.
Human imagination never conceived hobgoblin or witch more ugly than she.
You could count all her ribs through the wrinkles of the leathery skin
that covered them. Her withered face more resembled an old skull than
the countenance of a living being, even to the hollow, darkened sockets,
at the bottom of which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms had
dwindled away into nothing but whipcord and wire. Her hair, half black,
half gray, hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole
garment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo robe tied round
her waist with a string of hide. Yet the old squaw’s meager anatomy was
wonderfully strong. She pitched the lodge, packed the horses, and did
the hardest labor of the camp. From morning till night she bustled about
the lodge, screaming like a screech-owl when anything displeased her.
Then there was her brother, a “medicine-man,” or magician, equally
gaunt and sinewy with herself. His mouth spread from ear to ear, and his
appetite, as we had full occasion to learn, was ravenous in proportion.
The other inmates of the lodge were a young bride and bridegroom; the
latter one of those idle, good-for nothing fellows who infest an Indian
village as well as more civilized communities. He was fit neither
for hunting nor for war; and one might infer as much from the stolid
unmeaning expression of his face. The happy pair had just entered upon
the honeymoon. They would stretch a buffalo robe upon poles, so as to
protect them from the fierce rays of the sun, and spreading beneath this
rough canopy a luxuriant couch of furs, would sit affectionately side
by side for half the day, though I could not discover that much
conversation passed between them. Probably they had nothing to say; for
an Indian’s supply of topics for conversation is far from being copious.
There were half a dozen children, too, playing and whooping about the
camp, shooting birds with little bows and arrows, or making miniature
lodges of sticks, as children of a different complexion build houses of
blocks.
A day passed, and Indians began rapidly to come in. Parties of two or
three or more would ride up and silently seat themselves on the grass.
The fourth day came at last, when about noon horsemen suddenly appeared
into view on the summit of the neighboring ridge. They descended, and
behind them followed a wild procession, hurrying in haste and disorder
down the hill and over the plain below; horses, mules, and dogs, heavily
burdened travaux, mounted warriors, squaws walking amid the throng, and
a host of children. For a full half-hour they continued to pour down;
and keeping directly to the bend of the stream, within a furlong of us,
they soon assembled there, a dark and confused throng, until, as if
by magic, 150 tall lodges sprung up. On a sudden the lonely plain was
transformed into the site of a miniature city. Countless horses were
soon grazing over the meadows around us, and the whole prairie was
animated by restless figures careening on horseback, or sedately
stalking in their long white robes. The Whirlwind was come at last! One
question yet remained to be answered: “Will he go to the war, in order
that we, with so respectable an escort, may pass over to the somewhat
perilous rendezvous at La Bonte’s Camp?”
Still this remained in doubt. Characteristic indecision perplexed their
councils. Indians cannot act in large bodies. Though their object be of
the highest importance, they cannot combine to attain it by a series of
connected efforts. King Philip, Pontiac, and Tecumseh all felt this to
their cost. The Ogallalla once had a war chief who could control
them; but he was dead, and now they were left to the sway of their own
unsteady impulses.
This Indian village and its inhabitants will hold a prominent place in
the rest of the narrative, and perhaps it may not be amiss to glance for
an instant at the savage people of which they form a part. The Dakota
(I prefer this national designation to the unmeaning French name, Sioux)
range over a vast territory, from the river St. Peter’s to the Rocky
Mountains themselves. They are divided into several independent bands,
united under no central government, and acknowledge no common head.
The same language, usages, and superstitions form the sole bond between
them. They do not unite even in their wars. The bands of the east fight
the Ojibwas on the Upper Lakes; those of the west make incessant war
upon the Snake Indians in the Rocky Mountains. As the whole people is
divided into bands, so each band is divided into villages. Each village
has a chief, who is honored and obeyed only so far as his personal
qualities may command respect and fear. Sometimes he is a mere nominal
chief; sometimes his authority is little short of absolute, and his fame
and influence reach even beyond his own village; so that the whole band
to which he belongs is ready to acknowledge him as their head. This was,
a few years since, the case with the Ogallalla. Courage, address, and
enterprise may raise any warrior to the highest honor, especially if
he be the son of a former chief, or a member of a numerous family, to
support him and avenge his quarrels; but when he has reached the dignity
of chief, and the old men and warriors, by a peculiar ceremony, have
formally installed him, let it not be imagined that he assumes any of
the outward semblances of rank and honor. He knows too well on how
frail a tenure he holds his station. He must conciliate his uncertain
subjects. Many a man in the village lives better, owns more squaws and
more horses, and goes better clad than he. Like the Teutonic chiefs of
old, he ingratiates himself with his young men by making them presents,
thereby often impoverishing himself. Does he fail in gaining their
favor, they will set his authority at naught, and may desert him at any
moment; for the usages of his people have provided no sanctions by which
he may enforce his authority. Very seldom does it happen, at least among
these western bands, that a chief attains to much power, unless he is
the head of a numerous family. Frequently the village is principally
made up of his relatives and descendants, and the wandering community
assumes much of the patriarchal character. A people so loosely united,
torn, too, with ranking feuds and jealousies, can have little power or
efficiency.
The western Dakota have no fixed habitations. Hunting and fighting, they
wander incessantly through summer and winter. Some are following the
herds of buffalo over the waste of prairie; others are traversing the
Black Hills, thronging on horseback and on foot through the dark gulfs
and somber gorges beneath the vast splintering precipices, and emerging
at last upon the “Parks,” those beautiful but most perilous hunting
grounds. The buffalo supplies them with almost all the necessaries of
life; with habitations, food, clothing, and fuel; with strings for
their bows, with thread, cordage, and trail-ropes for their horses, with
coverings for their saddles, with vessels to hold water, with boats to
cross streams, with glue, and with the means of purchasing all that they
desire from the traders. When the buffalo are extinct, they too must
dwindle away.
War is the breath of their nostrils. Against most of the neighboring
tribes they cherish a deadly, rancorous hatred, transmitted from father
to son, and inflamed by constant aggression and retaliation. Many times
a year, in every village, the Great Spirit is called upon, fasts are
made, the war parade is celebrated, and the warriors go out by handfuls
at a time against the enemy. This fierce and evil spirit awakens their
most eager aspirations, and calls forth their greatest energies. It is
chiefly this that saves them from lethargy and utter abasement. Without
its powerful stimulus they would be like the unwarlike tribes beyond
the mountains, who are scattered among the caves and rocks like beasts,
living on roots and reptiles. These latter have little of humanity
except the form; but the proud and ambitious Dakota warrior can
sometimes boast of heroic virtues. It is very seldom that distinction
and influence are attained among them by any other course than that of
arms. Their superstition, however, sometimes gives great power, to those
among them who pretend to the character of magicians. Their wild hearts,
too, can feel the power of oratory, and yield deference to the masters
of it.
But to return. Look into our tent, or enter, if you can bear the
stifling smoke and the close atmosphere. There, wedged close together,
you will see a circle of stout warriors, passing the pipe around,
joking, telling stories, and making themselves merry, after their
fashion. We were also infested by little copper-colored naked boys and
snake-eyed girls. They would come up to us, muttering certain words,
which being interpreted conveyed the concise invitation, “Come and eat.”
Then we would rise, cursing the pertinacity of Dakota hospitality, which
allowed scarcely an hour of rest between sun and sun, and to which we
were bound to do honor, unless we would offend our entertainers. This
necessity was particularly burdensome to me, as I was scarcely able to
walk, from the effects of illness, and was of course poorly qualified
to dispose of twenty meals a day. Of these sumptuous banquets I gave a
specimen in a former chapter, where the tragical fate of the little dog
was chronicled. So bounteous an entertainment looks like an outgushing
of good will; but doubtless one-half at least of our kind hosts, had
they met us alone and unarmed on the prairie, would have robbed us of
our horses, and perchance have bestowed an arrow upon us beside. Trust
not an Indian. Let your rifle be ever in your hand. Wear next your heart
the old chivalric motto SEMPER PARATUS.
One morning we were summoned to the lodge of an old man, in good truth
the Nestor of his tribe. We found him half sitting, half reclining on a
pile of buffalo robes; his long hair, jet-black even now, though he
had seen some eighty winters, hung on either side of his thin features.
Those most conversant with Indians in their homes will scarcely believe
me when I affirm that there was dignity in his countenance and mien. His
gaunt but symmetrical frame, did not more clearly exhibit the wreck of
bygone strength, than did his dark, wasted features, still prominent and
commanding, bear the stamp of mental energies. I recalled, as I saw him,
the eloquent metaphor of the Iroquois sachem: “I am an aged hemlock; the
winds of a hundred winters have whistled through my branches, and I
am dead at the top!” Opposite the patriarch was his nephew, the young
aspirant Mahto-Tatonka; and besides these, there were one or two women
in the lodge.
The old man’s story is peculiar, and singularly illustrative of a
superstitious custom that prevails in full force among many of the
Indian tribes. He was one of a powerful family, renowned for their
warlike exploits. When a very young man, he submitted to the singular
rite to which most of the tribe subject themselves before entering
upon life. He painted his face black; then seeking out a cavern in a
sequestered part of the Black Hills, he lay for several days, fasting
and praying to the Great Spirit. In the dreams and visions produced by
his weakened and excited state, he fancied like all Indians, that he
saw supernatural revelations. Again and again the form of an antelope
appeared before him. The antelope is the graceful peace spirit of the
Ogallalla; but seldom is it that such a gentle visitor presents itself
during the initiatory fasts of their young men. The terrible grizzly
bear, the divinity of war, usually appears to fire them with martial
ardor and thirst for renown. At length the antelope spoke. He told the
young dreamer that he was not to follow the path of war; that a life of
peace and tranquillity was marked out for him; that henceforward he was
to guide the people by his counsels and protect them from the evils of
their own feuds and dissensions. Others were to gain renown by fighting
the enemy; but greatness of a different kind was in store for him.
The visions beheld during the period of this fast usually determine
the whole course of the dreamer’s life, for an Indian is bound by iron
superstitions. From that time, Le Borgne, which was the only name by
which we knew him, abandoned all thoughts of war and devoted himself to
the labors of peace. He told his vision to the people. They honored his
commission and respected him in his novel capacity.
A far different man was his brother, Mahto-Tatonka, who had transmitted
his names, his features, and many of his characteristic qualities to his
son. He was the father of Henry Chatillon’s squaw, a circumstance which
proved of some advantage to us, as securing for us the friendship of
a family perhaps the most distinguished and powerful in the whole
Ogallalla band. Mahto-Tatonka, in his rude way, was a hero. No chief
could vie with him in warlike renown, or in power over his people. He
had a fearless spirit, and a most impetuous and inflexible resolution.
His will was law. He was politic and sagacious, and with true Indian
craft he always befriended the whites, well knowing that he might
thus reap great advantages for himself and his adherents. When he had
resolved on any course of conduct, he would pay to the warriors the
empty compliment of calling them together to deliberate upon it, and
when their debates were over, he would quietly state his own opinion,
which no one ever disputed. The consequences of thwarting his imperious
will were too formidable to be encountered. Woe to those who incurred
his displeasure! He would strike them or stab them on the spot; and this
act, which, if attempted by any other chief, would instantly have cost
him his life, the awe inspired by his name enabled him to repeat again
and again with impunity. In a community where, from immemorial time,
no man has acknowledged any law but his own will, Mahto-Tatonka, by the
force of his dauntless resolution, raised himself to power little short
of despotic. His haughty career came at last to an end. He had a host
of enemies only waiting for their opportunity of revenge, and our old
friend Smoke, in particular, together with all his kinsmen, hated him
most cordially. Smoke sat one day in his lodge in the midst of his
own village, when Mahto-Tatonka entered it alone, and approaching the
dwelling of his enemy, called on him in a loud voice to come out, if
he were a man, and fight. Smoke would not move. At this, Mahto-Tatonka
proclaimed him a coward and an old woman, and striding close to the
entrance of the lodge, stabbed the chief’s best horse, which was
picketed there. Smoke was daunted, and even this insult failed to call
him forth. Mahto-Tatonka moved haughtily away; all made way for him, but
his hour of reckoning was near.
One hot day, five or six years ago, numerous lodges of Smoke’s kinsmen
were gathered around some of the Fur Company’s men, who were trading
in various articles with them, whisky among the rest. Mahto-Tatonka was
also there with a few of his people. As he lay in his own lodge, a fray
arose between his adherents and the kinsmen of his enemy. The war-whoop
was raised, bullets and arrows began to fly, and the camp was in
confusion. The chief sprang up, and rushing in a fury from the lodge
shouted to the combatants on both sides to cease. Instantly--for the
attack was preconcerted--came the reports of two or three guns, and the
twanging of a dozen bows, and the savage hero, mortally wounded, pitched
forward headlong to the ground. Rouleau was present, and told me the
particulars. The tumult became general, and was not quelled until
several had fallen on both sides. When we were in the country the feud
between the two families was still rankling, and not likely soon to
cease.
Thus died Mahto-Tatonka, but he left behind him a goodly army of
descendants, to perpetuate his renown and avenge his fate. Besides
daughters he had thirty sons, a number which need not stagger the
credulity of those who are best acquainted with Indian usages and
practices. We saw many of them, all marked by the same dark complexion
and the same peculiar cast of features. Of these our visitor, young
Mahto-Tatonka, was the eldest, and some reported him as likely to
succeed to his father’s honors. Though he appeared not more than
twenty-one years old, he had oftener struck the enemy, and stolen more
horses and more squaws than any young man in the village. We of the
civilized world are not apt to attach much credit to the latter
species of exploits; but horse-stealing is well known as an avenue
to distinction on the prairies, and the other kind of depredation is
esteemed equally meritorious. Not that the act can confer fame from
its own intrinsic merits. Any one can steal a squaw, and if he chooses
afterward to make an adequate present to her rightful proprietor,
the easy husband for the most part rests content, his vengeance falls
asleep, and all danger from that quarter is averted. Yet this is
esteemed but a pitiful and mean-spirited transaction. The danger is
averted, but the glory of the achievement also is lost. Mahto-Tatonka
proceeded after a more gallant and dashing fashion. Out of several dozen
squaws whom he had stolen, he could boast that he had never paid for
one, but snapping his fingers in the face of the injured husband, had
defied the extremity of his indignation, and no one yet had dared to lay
the finger of violence upon him. He was following close in the footsteps
of his father. The young men and the young squaws, each in their way,
admired him. The one would always follow him to war, and he was esteemed
to have unrivaled charm in the eyes of the other. Perhaps his impunity
may excite some wonder. An arrow shot from a ravine, a stab given in the
dark, require no great valor, and are especially suited to the Indian
genius; but Mahto-Tatonka had a strong protection. It was not alone his
courage and audacious will that enabled him to career so dashingly
among his compeers. His enemies did not forget that he was one of thirty
warlike brethren, all growing up to manhood. Should they wreak their
anger upon him, many keen eyes would be ever upon them, many fierce
hearts would thirst for their blood. The avenger would dog their
footsteps everywhere. To kill Mahto-Tatonka would be no better than an
act of suicide.
Though he found such favor in the eyes of the fair, he was no dandy. As
among us those of highest worth and breeding are most simple in manner
and attire, so our aspiring young friend was indifferent to the gaudy
trappings and ornaments of his companions. He was content to rest his
chances of success upon his own warlike merits. He never arrayed himself
in gaudy blanket and glittering necklaces, but left his statue-like
form, limbed like an Apollo of bronze, to win its way to favor. His
voice was singularly deep and strong. It sounded from his chest like the
deep notes of an organ. Yet after all, he was but an Indian. See him as
he lies there in the sun before our tent, kicking his heels in the air
and cracking jokes with his brother. Does he look like a hero? See him
now in the hour of his glory, when at sunset the whole village empties
itself to behold him, for to-morrow their favorite young partisan goes
out against the enemy. His superb headdress is adorned with a crest of
the war eagle’s feathers, rising in a waving ridge above his brow, and
sweeping far behind him. His round white shield hangs at his breast,
with feathers radiating from the center like a star. His quiver is at
his back; his tall lance in his hand, the iron point flashing against
the declining sun, while the long scalp-locks of his enemies flutter
from the shaft. Thus, gorgeous as a champion in his panoply, he rides
round and round within the great circle of lodges, balancing with a
graceful buoyancy to the free movements of his war horse, while with a
sedate brow he sings his song to the Great Spirit. Young rival warriors
look askance at him; vermilion-cheeked girls gaze in admiration, boys
whoop and scream in a thrill of delight, and old women yell forth his
name and proclaim his praises from lodge to lodge.
Mahto-Tatonka, to come back to him, was the best of all our Indian
friends. Hour after hour and day after day, when swarms of savages of
every age, sex, and degree beset our camp, he would lie in our tent, his
lynx eye ever open to guard our property from pillage.
The Whirlwind invited us one day to his lodge. The feast was finished,
and the pipe began to circulate. It was a remarkably large and fine one,
and I expressed my admiration of its form and dimensions.
“If the Meneaska likes the pipe,” asked The Whirlwind, “why does he not
keep it?”
Such a pipe among the Ogallalla is valued at the price of a horse.
A princely gift, thinks the reader, and worthy of a chieftain and a
warrior. The Whirlwind’s generosity rose to no such pitch. He gave
me the pipe, confidently expecting that I in return should make him a
present of equal or superior value. This is the implied condition of
every gift among the Indians as among the Orientals, and should it not
be complied with the present is usually reclaimed by the giver. So I
arranged upon a gaudy calico handkerchief, an assortment of vermilion,
tobacco, knives, and gunpowder, and summoning the chief to camp, assured
him of my friendship and begged his acceptance of a slight token of it.
Ejaculating HOW! HOW! he folded up the offerings and withdrew to his
lodge.
Several days passed and we and the Indians remained encamped side by
side. They could not decide whether or not to go to war. Toward evening,
scores of them would surround our tent, a picturesque group. Late one
afternoon a party of them mounted on horseback came suddenly in sight
from behind some clumps of bushes that lined the bank of the stream,
leading with them a mule, on whose back was a wretched negro, only
sustained in his seat by the high pommel and cantle of the Indian
saddle. His cheeks were withered and shrunken in the hollow of his jaws;
his eyes were unnaturally dilated, and his lips seemed shriveled and
drawn back from his teeth like those of a corpse. When they brought him
up before our tent, and lifted him from the saddle, he could not walk or
stand, but he crawled a short distance, and with a look of utter misery
sat down on the grass. All the children and women came pouring out of
the lodges round us, and with screams and cries made a close circle
about him, while he sat supporting himself with his hands, and looking
from side to side with a vacant stare. The wretch was starving to death!
For thirty-three days he had wandered alone on the prairie, without
weapon of any kind; without shoes, moccasins, or any other clothing than
an old jacket and pantaloons; without intelligence and skill to guide
his course, or any knowledge of the productions of the prairie. All this
time he had subsisted on crickets and lizards, wild onions, and three
eggs which he found in the nest of a prairie dove. He had not seen a
human being. Utterly bewildered in the boundless, hopeless desert that
stretched around him, offering to his inexperienced eye no mark by which
to direct his course, he had walked on in despair till he could walk no
longer, and then crawled on his knees until the bone was laid bare. He
chose the night for his traveling, lying down by day to sleep in the
glaring sun, always dreaming, as he said, of the broth and corn cake he
used to eat under his old master’s shed in Missouri. Every man in the
camp, both white and red, was astonished at his wonderful escape not
only from starvation but from the grizzly bears which abound in that
neighborhood, and the wolves which howled around him every night.
Reynal recognized him the moment the Indians brought him in. He had
run away from his master about a year before and joined the party of
M. Richard, who was then leaving the frontier for the mountains. He had
lived with Richard ever since, until in the end of May he with Reynal
and several other men went out in search of some stray horses, when he
got separated from the rest in a storm, and had never been heard of up
to this time. Knowing his inexperience and helplessness, no one dreamed
that he could still be living. The Indians had found him lying exhausted
on the ground.
As he sat there with the Indians gazing silently on him, his haggard
face and glazed eye were disgusting to look upon. Delorier made him
a bowl of gruel, but he suffered it to remain untasted before him. At
length he languidly raised the spoon to his lips; again he did so, and
again; and then his appetite seemed suddenly inflamed into madness, for
he seized the bowl, swallowed all its contents in a few seconds, and
eagerly demanded meat. This we refused, telling him to wait until
morning, but he begged so eagerly that we gave him a small piece, which
he devoured, tearing it like a dog. He said he must have more. We told
him that his life was in danger if he ate so immoderately at first.
He assented, and said he knew he was a fool to do so, but he must
have meat. This we absolutely refused, to the great indignation of the
senseless squaws, who, when we were not watching him, would slyly bring
dried meat and POMMES BLANCHES, and place them on the ground by his
side. Still this was not enough for him. When it grew dark he contrived
to creep away between the legs of the horses and crawl over to the
Indian village, about a furlong down the stream. Here he fed to his
heart’s content, and was brought back again in the morning, when Jean
Gras, the trapper, put him on horseback and carried him to the fort.
He managed to survive the effects of his insane greediness, and
though slightly deranged when we left this part of the country, he was
otherwise in tolerable health, and expressed his firm conviction that
nothing could ever kill him.
When the sun was yet an hour high, it was a gay scene in the village.
The warriors stalked sedately among the lodges, or along the margin
of the streams, or walked out to visit the bands of horses that were
feeding over the prairie. Half the village population deserted the close
and heated lodges and betook themselves to the water; and here you might
see boys and girls and young squaws splashing, swimming, and diving
beneath the afternoon sun, with merry laughter and screaming. But
when the sun was just resting above the broken peaks, and the purple
mountains threw their prolonged shadows for miles over the prairie; when
our grim old tree, lighted by the horizontal rays, assumed an aspect
of peaceful repose, such as one loves after scenes of tumult and
excitement; and when the whole landscape of swelling plains and
scattered groves was softened into a tranquil beauty, then our
encampment presented a striking spectacle. Could Salvator Rosa have
transferred it to his canvas, it would have added new renown to his
pencil. Savage figures surrounded our tent, with quivers at their backs,
and guns, lances, or tomahawks in their hands. Some sat on horseback,
motionless as equestrian statues, their arms crossed on their breasts,
their eyes fixed in a steady unwavering gaze upon us. Some stood erect,
wrapped from head to foot in their long white robes of buffalo hide.
Some sat together on the grass, holding their shaggy horses by a rope,
with their broad dark busts exposed to view as they suffered their robes
to fall from their shoulders. Others again stood carelessly among the
throng, with nothing to conceal the matchless symmetry of their forms;
and I do not exaggerate when I say that only on the prairie and in the
Vatican have I seen such faultless models of the human figure. See that
warrior standing by the tree, towering six feet and a half in stature.
Your eyes may trace the whole of his graceful and majestic height, and
discover no defect or blemish. With his free and noble attitude, with
the bow in his hand, and the quiver at his back, he might seem, but
for his face, the Pythian Apollo himself. Such a figure rose before the
imagination of West, when on first seeing the Belvidere in the Vatican,
he exclaimed, “By God, a Mohawk!”
When the sky darkened and the stars began to appear; when the prairie
was involved in gloom and the horses were driven in and secured around
the camp, the crowd began to melt away. Fires gleamed around, duskily
revealing the rough trappers and the graceful Indians. One of the
families near us would always be gathered about a bright blaze, that
displayed the shadowy dimensions of their lodge, and sent its lights
far up among the masses of foliage above, gilding the dead and ragged
branches. Withered witchlike hags flitted around the blaze, and here for
hour after hour sat a circle of children and young girls, laughing and
talking, their round merry faces glowing in the ruddy light. We could
hear the monotonous notes of the drum from the Indian village, with the
chant of the war song, deadened in the distance, and the long chorus of
quavering yells, where the war dance was going on in the largest lodge.
For several nights, too, we could hear wild and mournful cries, rising
and dying away like the melancholy voice of a wolf. They came from the
sisters and female relatives of Mahto-Tatonka, who were gashing their
limbs with knives, and bewailing the death of Henry Chatillon’s squaw.
The hour would grow late before all retired to rest in the camp.
Then the embers of the fires would be glowing dimly, the men would be
stretched in their blankets on the ground, and nothing could be heard
but the restless motions of the crowded horses.
I recall these scenes with a mixed feeling of pleasure and pain. At
this time I was so reduced by illness that I could seldom walk without
reeling like a drunken man, and when I rose from my seat upon the ground
the landscape suddenly grew dim before my eyes, the trees and lodges
seemed to sway to and fro, and the prairie to rise and fall like the
swells of the ocean. Such a state of things is by no means enviable
anywhere. In a country where a man’s life may at any moment depend on
the strength of his arm, or it may be on the activity of his legs, it is
more particularly inconvenient. Medical assistance of course there was
none; neither had I the means of pursuing a system of diet; and sleeping
on a damp ground, with an occasional drenching from a shower, would
hardly be recommended as beneficial. I sometimes suffered the
extremity of languor and exhaustion, and though at the time I felt
no apprehensions of the final result, I have since learned that my
situation was a critical one.
Besides other formidable inconveniences I owe it in a great measure to
the remote effects of that unlucky disorder that from deficient
eyesight I am compelled to employ the pen of another in taking down
this narrative from my lips; and I have learned very effectually that a
violent attack of dysentery on the prairie is a thing too serious for
a joke. I tried repose and a very sparing diet. For a long time, with
exemplary patience, I lounged about the camp, or at the utmost staggered
over to the Indian village, and walked faint and dizzy among the lodges.
It would not do, and I bethought me of starvation. During five days I
sustained life on one small biscuit a day. At the end of that time I was
weaker than before, but the disorder seemed shaken in its stronghold and
very gradually I began to resume a less rigid diet. No sooner had I done
so than the same detested symptoms revisited me; my old enemy resumed
his pertinacious assaults, yet not with his former violence or
constancy, and though before I regained any fair portion of my ordinary
strength weeks had elapsed, and months passed before the disorder left
me, yet thanks to old habits of activity, and a merciful Providence, I
was able to sustain myself against it.
I used to lie languid and dreamy before our tent and muse on the past
and the future, and when most overcome with lassitude, my eyes turned
always toward the distant Black Hills. There is a spirit of energy
and vigor in mountains, and they impart it to all who approach their
presence. At that time I did not know how many dark superstitions and
gloomy legends are associated with those mountains in the minds of the
Indians, but I felt an eager desire to penetrate their hidden recesses,
to explore the awful chasms and precipices, the black torrents, the
silent forests, that I fancied were concealed there.