第41章

The Ogallalla, the Brules, and other western bands of the Dakota, are thorough savages, unchanged by any contact with civilization.Not one of them can speak a European tongue, or has ever visited an American settlement.Until within a year or two, when the emigrants began to pass through their country on the way to Oregon, they had seen no whites except the handful employed about the Fur Company's posts.They esteemed them a wise people, inferior only to themselves, living in leather lodges, like their own, and subsisting on buffalo.But when the swarm of MENEASKA, with their oxen and wagons, began to invade them, their astonishment was unbounded.They could scarcely believe that the earth contained such a multitude of white men.Their wonder is now giving way to indignation; and the result, unless vigilantly guarded against, may be lamentable in the extreme.

But to glance at the interior of a lodge.Shaw and I used often to visit them.Indeed, we spent most of our evenings in the Indian village; Shaw's assumption of the medical character giving us a fair pretext.As a sample of the rest I will describe one of these visits.The sun had just set, and the horses were driven into the corral.The Prairie Cock, a noted beau, came in at the gate with a bevy of young girls, with whom he began to dance in the area, leading them round and round in a circle, while he jerked up from his chest a succession of monotonous sounds, to which they kept time in a rueful chant.Outside the gate boys and young men were idly frolicking; and close by, looking grimly upon them, stood a warrior in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a Pawnee scalp.Passing these, the tall dark lodges rose between us and the red western sky.We repaired at once to the lodge of Old Smoke himself.It was by no means better than the others; indeed, it was rather shabby; for in this democratic community, the chief never assumes superior state.Smoke sat cross-legged on a buffalo robe, and his grunt of salutation as we entered was unusually cordial, out of respect no doubt to Shaw's medical character.Seated around the lodge were several squaws, and an abundance of children.The complaint of Shaw's patients was, for the most part, a severe inflammation of the eyes, occasioned by exposure to the sun, a species of disorder which he treated with some success.He had brought with him a homeopathic medicine chest, and was, I presume, the first who introduced that harmless system of treatment among the Ogallalla.No sooner had a robe been spread at the head of the lodge for our accommodation, and we had seated ourselves upon it, than a patient made her appearance; the chief's daughter herself, who, to do her justice, was the best-looking girl in the village.Being on excellent terms with the physician, she placed herself readily under his hands, and submitted with a good grace to his applications, laughing in his face during the whole process, for a squaw hardly knows how to smile.This case dispatched, another of a different kind succeeded.A hideous, emaciated old woman sat in the darkest corner of the lodge rocking to and fro with pain and hiding her eyes from the light by pressing the palms of both hands against her face.

At Smoke's command, she came forward, very unwillingly, and exhibited a pair of eyes that had nearly disappeared from excess of inflammation.No sooner had the doctor fastened his grips upon her than she set up a dismal moaning, and writhed so in his grasp that he lost all patience, but being resolved to carry his point, he succeeded at last in applying his favorite remedies.

"It is strange," he said, when the operation was finished, "that Iforgot to bring any Spanish flies with me; we must have something here to answer for a counter-irritant!"So, in the absence of better, he seized upon a red-hot brand from the fire, and clapped it against the temple of the old squaw, who set up an unearthly howl, at which the rest of the family broke out into a laugh.

During these medical operations Smoke's eldest squaw entered the lodge, with a sort of stone mallet in her hand.I had observed some time before a litter of well-grown black puppies, comfortably nestled among some buffalo robes at one side; but this newcomer speedily disturbed their enjoyment; for seizing one of them by the hind paw, she dragged him out, and carrying him to the entrance of the lodge, hammered him on the head till she killed him.Being quite conscious to what this preparation tended, I looked through a hole in the back of the lodge to see the next steps of the process.The squaw, holding the puppy by the legs, was swinging him to and fro through the blaze of a fire, until the hair was singed off.This done, she unsheathed her knife and cut him into small pieces, which she dropped into a kettle to boil.In a few moments a large wooden dish was set before us, filled with this delicate preparation.We felt conscious of the honor.A dog-feast is the greatest compliment a Dakota can offer to his guest; and knowing that to refuse eating would be an affront, we attacked the little dog and devoured him before the eyes of his unconscious parent.Smoke in the meantime was preparing his great pipe.It was lighted when we had finished our repast, and we passed it from one to another till the bowl was empty.This done, we took our leave without further ceremony, knocked at the gate of the fort, and after making ourselves known were admitted.

One morning, about a week after reaching Fort Laramie, we were holding our customary Indian levee, when a bustle in the area below announced a new arrival; and looking down from our balcony, I saw a familiar red beard and mustache in the gateway.They belonged to the captain, who with his party had just crossed the stream.We met him on the stairs as he came up, and congratulated him on the safe arrival of himself and his devoted companions.But he remembered our treachery, and was grave and dignified accordingly; a tendency which increased as he observed on our part a disposition to laugh at him.

After remaining an hour or two at the fort he rode away with his friends, and we have heard nothing of him since.As for R., he kept carefully aloof.It was but too evident that we had the unhappiness to have forfeited the kind regards of our London fellow-traveler.