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In the back of the wagon sat a young squaw and two papooses, and beside them were stacked three or four of the gay, handwoven rugs for which the white people will pay many dollars. "Buenas dias," said the driver of the wagon, who was an oldish Indian with a true picture-postal face. And: "Hello," said the other, who was young and wore a bright blue coat, such as young Mexicans affect.
The squaws invariably brought their babies with them, but they had a simple and effective method of relieving themselves of the care of the infants as soon as they reached the church. The papooses, who were strapped to their boards, were hung like a garment on the back wall of the building by a hole in the top of the board, which projected above their heads.
"The papooses will never again see their fathers?" interrupted the Medicine Man eagerly. He forgot etiquette and totem alike in the excitement of knowing that the success of one part of his evil plans was practically assured.
The place contained perhaps five hundred souls men, women, children, and papooses and at least fifty mangy curs, every one of whom, including the papooses and curs, seemed to Paul to be watching him. Black eyes followed him everywhere. Nothing that he did escaped their attention.
Fifteen paid the penalty for their crimes that night; but two reached the shore: Starkey to be captured by the redskins, who made him nurse for all their papooses, a melancholy come-down for a pirate; and Smee, who henceforth wandered about the world in his spectacles, making a precarious living by saying he was the only man that Jas. Hook had feared.
Horses and mules of American breed, and cattle whose ancestral stock has come from Tennessee or Kentucky along with the early colonists of Texas. And though there are no squaws or papooses in the encampment, there are women and children that are white. A group comprising both can be seen near its centre.
Behind at a sort of dog-trot came women, clothed in skirts and shawls made of red and green blankets; papooses in moss bags on their mothers' backs, their little heads wobbling under the fur flaps and capotes.
She was always recalling her own happy early life with her man, and the clean-faced papooses that crowded round his knee one wife and many children, and the old Harvester of the Years reaping them so fast, till the children stood up as tall as their father and chief. That was long ago, and she had had her share twenty-five years of happiness; but Mitiahwe had had only four.
But it was on the squaws we depended in those days, or go without raspberry preserves for the winter. Slovenly-looking things they were with their three or four coloured petticoats and their papooses on their backs. And for dirt ! But I thought they were all gone long ago." "There are enough of them left to make trouble all right," said Alec.
"It was a sight to thank God for," exclaims Father Le Jeune, "to behold these delicate young ladies and these tender infants issuing from their wooden prison, like day from the shades of night." The Father, it will be remembered, had for some years past seen nothing but squaws, with papooses swathed like mummies and strapped to a board.
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