Men Were Wandering Among The Bushes That
Lined The Brook Along The Margin Of The Camp, Cutting Sticks Of Red
Willow, Or Shongsasha, The Bark Of Which, Mixed With Tobacco, They
Use For Smoking.
Reynal's squaw was hard at work with her awl and
buffalo sinews upon her lodge, while her proprietor, having just
finished an enormous breakfast of meat, was smoking a social pipe
along with Raymond and myself.
He proposed at length that we should
go out on a hunt. "Go to the Big Crow's lodge," said he, "and get
your rifle. I'll bet the gray Wyandotte pony against your mare that
we start an elk or a black-tailed deer, or likely as not, a bighorn,
before we are two miles out of camp. I'll take my squaw's old yellow
horse; you can't whip her more than four miles an hour, but she is as
good for the mountains as a mule."
I mounted the black mule which Raymond usually rode. She was a very
fine and powerful animal, gentle and manageable enough by nature; but
of late her temper had been soured by misfortune. About a week
before I had chanced to offend some one of the Indians, who out of
revenge went secretly into the meadow and gave her a severe stab in
the haunch with his knife. The wound, though partially healed, still
galled her extremely, and made her even more perverse and obstinate
than the rest of her species.
The morning was a glorious one, and I was in better health than I had
been at any time for the last two months.
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