The Old Man Was Not A Chief; He Never Had Ambition
Enough To Become One; He Was Not A Warrior Nor A Hunter, For He Was
Too Fat And Lazy:
But he was the richest man in the whole village.
Riches among the Dakotas consist in horses, and of these The Hog had
accumulated more than thirty. He had already ten times as many as he
wanted, yet still his appetite for horses was insatiable. Trotting
up to me he shook me by the hand, and gave me to understand that he
was a very devoted friend; and then he began a series of most earnest
signs and gesticulations, his oily countenance radiant with smiles,
and his little eyes peeping out with a cunning twinkle from between
the masses of flesh that almost obscured them. Knowing nothing at
that time of the sign language of the Indians, I could only guess at
his meaning. So I called on Henry to explain it.
The Hog, it seems, was anxious to conclude a matrimonial bargain. He
said he had a very pretty daughter in his lodge, whom he would give
me, if I would give him my horse. These flattering overtures I chose
to reject; at which The Hog, still laughing with undiminished good
humor, gathered his robe about his shoulders, and rode away.
Where we encamped that night, an arm of the Platte ran between high
bluffs; it was turbid and swift as heretofore, but trees were growing
on its crumbling banks, and there was a nook of grass between the
water and the hill. Just before entering this place, we saw the
emigrants encamping at two or three miles' distance on the right;
while the whole Indian rabble were pouring down the neighboring hill
in hope of the same sort of entertainment which they had experienced
from us. In the savage landscape before our camp, nothing but the
rushing of the Platte broke the silence. Through the ragged boughs
of the trees, dilapidated and half dead, we saw the sun setting in
crimson behind the peaks of the Black Hills; the restless bosom of
the river was suffused with red; our white tent was tinged with it,
and the sterile bluffs, up to the rocks that crowned them, partook of
the same fiery hue. It soon passed away; no light remained, but that
from our fire, blazing high among the dusky trees and bushes. We lay
around it wrapped in our blankets, smoking and conversing until a
late hour, and then withdrew to our tent.
We crossed a sun-scorched plain on the next morning; the line of old
cotton-wood trees that fringed the bank of the Platte forming its
extreme verge. Nestled apparently close beneath them, we could
discern in the distance something like a building. As we came
nearer, it assumed form and dimensions, and proved to be a rough
structure of logs. It was a little trading fort, belonging to two
private traders; and originally intended, like all the forts of the
country, to form a hollow square, with rooms for lodging and storage
opening upon the area within. Only two sides of it had been
completed; the place was now as ill-fitted for the purposes of
defense as any of those little log-houses, which upon our constantly
shifting frontier have been so often successfully maintained against
overwhelming odds of Indians. Two lodges were pitched close to the
fort; the sun beat scorching upon the logs; no living thing was
stirring except one old squaw, who thrust her round head from the
opening of the nearest lodge, and three or four stout young pups, who
were peeping with looks of eager inquiry from under the covering. In
a moment a door opened, and a little, swarthy black-eyed Frenchman
came out. His dress was rather singular; his black curling hair was
parted in the middle of his head, and fell below his shoulders; he
wore a tight frock of smoked deerskin, very gayly ornamented with
figures worked in dyed porcupine quills. His moccasins and leggings
were also gaudily adorned in the same manner; and the latter had in
addition a line of long fringes, reaching down the seams. The small
frame of Richard, for by this name Henry made him known to us, was in
the highest degree athletic and vigorous. There was no superfluity,
and indeed there seldom is among the active white men of this
country, but every limb was compact and hard; every sinew had its
full tone and elasticity, and the whole man wore an air of mingled
hardihood and buoyancy.
Richard committed our horses to a Navahoe slave, a mean looking
fellow taken prisoner on the Mexican frontier; and, relieving us of
our rifles with ready politeness, led the way into the principal
apartment of his establishment. This was a room ten feet square.
The walls and floor were of black mud, and the roof of rough timber;
there was a huge fireplace made of four flat rocks, picked up on the
prairie. An Indian bow and otter-skin quiver, several gaudy articles
of Rocky Mountain finery, an Indian medicine bag, and a pipe and
tobacco pouch, garnished the walls, and rifles rested in a corner.
There was no furniture except a sort of rough settle covered with
buffalo robes, upon which lolled a tall half-breed, with his hair
glued in masses upon each temple, and saturated with vermilion. Two
or three more "mountain men" sat cross-legged on the floor. Their
attire was not unlike that of Richard himself; but the most striking
figure of the group was a naked Indian boy of sixteen, with a
handsome face, and light, active proportions, who sat in an easy
posture in the corner near the door. Not one of his limbs moved the
breadth of a hair; his eye was fixed immovably, not on any person
present, but, as it appeared, on the projecting corner of the
fireplace opposite to him.
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