Eyes, our hearts are glad." In fact, nothing could exceed the
curiosity evinced by these people as to the objects before them.
Wagons had never been seen by them before, and they examined them
with the greatest minuteness; but the calf was the peculiar
object of their admiration. They watched it with intense interest
as it licked the hands accustomed to feed it, and were struck
with the mild expression of its countenance, and its perfect
docility.
After much sage consultation, they at length determined that it
must be the "great medicine" of the white party; an appellation
given by the Indians to anything of supernatural and mysterious
power that is guarded as a talisman. They were completely thrown
out in their conjecture, however, by an offer of the white men to
exchange the calf for a horse; their estimation of the great
medicine sank in an instant, and they declined the bargain.
At the request of the Crow chieftain the two parties encamped
together, and passed the residue of the day in company. The
captain was well pleased with every opportunity to gain a
knowledge of the "unsophisticated sons of nature," who had so
long been objects of his poetic speculations; and indeed this
wild, horse-stealing tribe is one of the most notorious of the
mountains.
