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Followed by Raymond I pursued the main body of hunters, while Reynal in a great rage whipped his horse over the hill after his ragamuffin relatives. The Indians, still about a hundred in number, rode in a dense body at some distance in advance. They galloped forward, and a cloud of dust was flying in the wind behind them.
"I cannot go," answered the White Shield in a dejected voice. "I have given my war arrows to the Meneaska." "You have only given him two of your arrows," said Reynal. "If you ask him, he will give them back again." For some time the White Shield said nothing. At last he spoke in a gloomy tone: "One of my young men has had bad dreams.
We took leave of Reynal, but not of the Indians, who are accustomed to dispense with such superfluous ceremonies. Leaving the camp we rode straight over the prairie toward the white-faced bluff, whose pale ridges swelled gently against the horizon, like a cloud.
We crossed over to Reynal's lodge, though it hardly deserved this name, for it consisted only of a few old buffalo robes, supported on poles, and was quite open on one side. Here we sat down, and the Indians gathered round us. "What is it," said I, "that makes the thunder?" "It's my belief," said Reynal, "that it is a big stone rolling over the sky."
"Well," said Reynal, "there's old Red-Water, and the Eagle-Feather, and the Big Crow, and the Mad Wolf and the Panther, and the White Shield, and what's his name? the half-breed Cheyenne." By this time we were close to the village, and I observed that while the greater part of the lodges were very large and neat in their appearance, there was at one side a cluster of squalid, miserable huts.
As I came out of Kongra-Tonga's lodge one morning, Reynal called to me from the opposite side of the village, and asked me over to breakfast. The breakfast was a substantial one. It consisted of the rich, juicy hump-ribs of a fat cow; a repast absolutely unrivaled.
I remarked to Reynal that at last we had found a good camping-ground. "Oh, it is very good," replied he ironically; "especially if there is a Snake war party about, and they take it into their heads to shoot down at us from the top of these hills. It is no plan of mine, camping in such a hole as this!" The Indians also seemed apprehensive.
I looked toward them, and made some remark about their wretched appearance. But I was touching upon delicate ground. "My squaw's relations live in those lodges," said Reynal very warmly, "and there isn't a better set in the whole village." "Are there any chiefs among them?" asked I. "Chiefs?" said Reynal; "yes, plenty!" "What are their names?" I inquired. "Their names? Why, there's the Arrow-Head.
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.
He reluctantly obeyed, though Reynal, who had relied on his assistance in skinning, cutting up, and carrying to camp the buffalo that he and his party should kill, loudly protested and declared that we should see no sport if we went with the rest of the Indians.
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