Thus, Happy And Careless As So Many Beggars, We Crept Slowly From Day
To Day Along The Monotonous Banks Of The Arkansas.
Tete Rouge gave
constant trouble, for he could never catch his mule, saddle her, or
indeed do anything else without assistance.
Every day he had some
new ailment, real or imaginary, to complain of. At one moment he
would be woebegone and disconsolate, and the next he would be visited
with a violent flow of spirits, to which he could only give vent by
incessant laughing, whistling, and telling stories. When other
resources failed, we used to amuse ourselves by tormenting him; a
fair compensation for the trouble he cost us. Tete Rouge rather
enjoyed being laughed at, for he was an odd compound of weakness,
eccentricity, and good-nature. He made a figure worthy of a painter
as he paced along before us, perched on the back of his mule, and
enveloped in a huge buffalo-robe coat, which some charitable person
had given him at the fort. This extraordinary garment, which would
have contained two men of his size, he chose, for some reason best
known to himself, to wear inside out, and he never took it off, even
in the hottest weather. It was fluttering all over with seams and
tatters, and the hide was so old and rotten that it broke out every
day in a new place. Just at the top of it a large pile of red curls
was visible, with his little cap set jauntily upon one side, to give
him a military air.
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