even
then famous as the scene of many an exciting event between the
enterprising fur traders and the proud, warlike Indians of the plains.

Here they left their canoes, and after exchanging some furs for needed
supplies they started southwest on the long trail of many days' toilsome
travelling, until at length the place of the fearful ordeal was reached.

Into the details of the scenes and events of the Indian ceremony of
torture, I am not going to enter. Catlin has with pen and brush
described it in a way to chill the blood and fill our sleeping hours
with horrid dreams.

Suffice to say that Oowikapun put himself in the hands of the torturers,
and, first of all, they kept him for four days and nights without
allowing him a mouthful of food or drink. Neither did they permit him
to have a moment's sleep. Then they stripped off his upper garments,
and, cutting long, parallel gashes in his breast down to the bone, they
lifted up the flesh and there tied to the quivering flesh ends of
horsehair ropes about three quarters of an inch in diameter. The other
ends of these two ropes were fastened to a high pole about fifteen feet
from the ground. At first the upper ends of these ropes were drawn
through rude pulleys, and poor Oowikapun was dragged up six or eight
feet from the ground and held there for several minutes by the bleeding,
lacerated, distended muscles of his breast. Then the ropes were
suddenly loosened from above, and he fell with a sickening thud to the
ground. Quickly they raised him up on his feet and made fast the ropes
to the upper end of the pole, and left him to struggle and pull until
the muscles rotted or were worn away, and he was free. Four days passed
by ere he succeeded in breaking away, and during that time not a morsel
of food or a drop of water was given him.

Weeks passed away ere Oowikapun recovered from those fearful wounds,
and, after all, what did they accomplish for him? Nothing at all. He
was, if possible, more wretched in mind than in body. No voice of
comfort had he heard. No dispelling of the darkness, no lifting of the
heavy loads, no assurance of pardon and forgiveness. Is it any wonder
that he was discouraged, and that his sharp-eyed neighbours looked at
him at times with suspicion, and said one to another that something must
be wrong in his head?

To convince them that his mind was not disordered or his reason
affected, Oowikapun attended the councils of the tribe, an