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Updated: August 16, 2024
We found after some trouble a point where we could pass the abyss, and now the valley began to open upon the plains which spread to the horizon before us. On one of their distant swells we discerned three or four black specks, which Reynal pronounced to be buffalo. "Come," said he, "we must get one of them. My squaw wants more sinews to finish her lodge with, and I want some glue myself."
At length he came and sat down, close wrapped in his robe, before the lodge of Reynal, but when he found that neither he nor I knew how to relieve him, he arose and stalked over to one of the medicine-men of the village.
It was a wretched oven-shaped structure, made of begrimed and tattered buffalo hides stretched over a frame of poles; one side was open, and at the side of the opening hung the powder horn and bullet pouch of the owner, together with his long red pipe, and a rich quiver of otterskin, with a bow and arrows; for Reynal, an Indian in most things but color, chose to hunt buffalo with these primitive weapons.
So he began the following story, and as the pipe passed in turn to him, Reynal availed himself of these interruptions to translate what had preceded. But the old man accompanied his words with such admirable pantomime that translation was hardly necessary.
"You've hit it," answered Reynal. "Go and bring in the animals, Raymond," said I: "we'll camp there to-night, and start for the Fort in the morning." The mare and the mule were soon before the lodge. We saddled them, and in the meantime a number of Indians collected about us.
Then dismounting, he remained for some minutes prostrate upon the ground, as if in an act of supplication. On the following morning I looked in vain for the departure of the warriors. All was quiet in the village until late in the forenoon, when the White Shield, issuing from his lodge, came and seated himself in his old place before us. Reynal asked him why he had not gone out to find the enemy.
When I'm hungry I have only got to take my rifle and go out and get better meat than the rich folks down below can get with all their money. You won't catch me living in St. Louis another winter." "No," said Reynal, "you had better say that after you and your Spanish woman almost starved to death there. What a fool you were ever to take her to the settlements."
The warriors were mounting their horses, and one by one riding away over the prairie toward the neighboring hills. Shaw and I sat on the grass near the lodge of Reynal. An old woman, with true Indian hospitality, brought a bowl of boiled venison and placed it before us.
He said that the old Le Borgne had felt too weak to pass over the mountains, and so had remained behind with all his relations, including Mahto-Tatonka and his brothers. The Whirlwind too had been unwilling to come so far, because, as Reynal said, he was afraid.
Having no change of clothes, I contrived to borrow a curious kind of substitute from Reynal: and this done, I went home, that is, to the Big Crow's lodge to make the entire transfer that was necessary. Half a dozen squaws were in the lodge, and one of them taking my arm held it against her own, while a general laugh and scream of admiration were raised at the contrast in the color of the skin.
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