Taking This
From Its Case, He Put It On And Stood Before Me, As If Conscious Of
The Gallant Air Which It Gave To His Dark Face And His Vigorous,
Graceful Figure.
He told me that upon it were the feathers of three
war-eagles, equal in value to the same number of good horses.
He
took up also a shield gayly painted and hung with feathers. The
effect of these barbaric ornaments was admirable, for they were
arranged with no little skill and taste. His quiver was made of the
spotted skin of a small panther, such as are common among the Black
Hills, from which the tail and distended claws were still allowed to
hang. The White Shield concluded his entertainment in a manner
characteristic of an Indian. He begged of me a little powder and
ball, for he had a gun as well as bow and arrows; but this I was
obliged to refuse, because I had scarcely enough for my own use.
Making him, however, a parting present of a paper of vermilion, I
left him apparently quite contented.
Unhappily on the next morning the White Shield took cold and was
attacked with a violent inflammation of the throat. Immediately he
seemed to lose all spirit, and though before no warrior in the
village had borne himself more proudly, he now moped about from lodge
to lodge with a forlorn and dejected air. 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.
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