The Guests Arrived And
Sat Wedged Together, Shoulder To Shoulder, Within The Hot And
Suffocating Lodge.
The Stabber, for that was our entertainer's name,
had killed an old buffalo bull on his way.
This veteran's boiled
tripe, tougher than leather, formed the main item of the repast. For
the rest, it consisted of wild cherries and grease boiled together in
a large copper kettle. The feast was distributed, and for a moment
all was silent, strenuous exertion; then each guest, with one or two
exceptions, however, turned his wooden dish bottom upward to prove
that he had done full justice to his entertainer's hospitality. The
Stabber next produced his chopping board, on which he prepared the
mixture for smoking, and filled several pipes, which circulated among
the company. This done, he seated himself upright on his couch, and
began with much gesticulation to tell his story. I will not repeat
his childish jargon. It was so entangled, like the greater part of
an Indian's stories, with absurd and contradictory details, that it
was almost impossible to disengage from it a single particle of
truth. All that we could gather was the following:
He had been on the Arkansas, and there he had seen six great war
parties of whites. He had never believed before that the whole world
contained half so many white men. They all had large horses, long
knives, and short rifles, and some of them were attired alike in the
most splendid war dresses he had ever seen.
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