United States or Norway ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
In winter he wore a long coat lined with fur, a fur cap, and a pair of deerskin gloves; and there were some people who confidently maintained that he carried an open umbrella when the weather was wet. In the little room on the north side, there was a cupboard in which a bottle of Burgundy was always kept standing.
He was costumed in the deerskin cap, leggings, moccasins, and leathern shirt common to the western hunter. "You seem tickled wi' the Injuns, Dick Varley," said a man who at that moment issued from the blockhouse. "That's just what I am, Joe Blunt," replied the youth, turning with a broad grin to his companion. "Have a care, lad; do not laugh at 'em too much.
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.
In stature the young man was almost as tall as Humphrey, but of a much slighter build; yet he was wiry and muscular, as could well be seen, and plainly well used to the life of the wild woodlands. His dress was that of the backwoods, dressed deerskin being the chief material used. Both travellers wore moccasins on their feet, and carried the usual weapons of offence and defence.
Modest Israel was used to aver, that considering his practice in the woods, he could hardly be regarded as an inexperienced marksman; hinting, that every shot which the epauletted grenadiers received from his rifle, would, upon a different occasion, have procured him a deerskin. And like stricken deers the English, rashly brave as they were, fled from the opening fire.
On a clearing to the eastward of the post between the woods and water was an irregular cluster of deerskin wigwams, around which loitered dark-hued Indians puffing quietly at their pipes, while Indian women bent over kettles steaming at open fires, cooking the evening meal, and little Indian boys with bows shot harmless arrows at soaring gulls overhead, and laughed joyously at their sport as each arrow fell short of its mark.
Upon closer inspection, however, the stones were pronounced by the professor to be uncut and unpolished rubies of exceptional size and beauty, but which were ruined by the roughness and size of their perforations. There were ninety-three of them in all, strung upon a thin strip of deerskin, and, had they been perfect, would have been worth about ten thousand pounds.
The squaws were also all busy out of doors, though they chatted in groups as eagerly as if their energy were being expended by their tongues only. Many were at work scraping deerskin to soften it before they cut it into robes for themselves or into moccasins for the men.
Colter then perceived that he was to have the dreadful privilege of running for his life; he, entirely naked and unarmed, to be pursued by six hundred fleet-footed Indians with arrows and javelins, and with their feet and limbs protected from thorns and brambles by moccasins and deerskin leggins. "Save yourself if you can," said the chief in the Blackfoot language as he set him loose.
He reached within his vest and brought forth a deerskin bag. Opening it, he drew out a package of oiled silk and from that he took a paper. Carefully replacing the silk and the bag, he slowly unfolded the sheet in his hand and handed it to Buck, whose face hardened.
Word Of The Day