boys--some of them not
more than five years old pushed ahead of their elder brothers, eager to
show to their fathers, who accompanied them, how little they feared
their enemies, as they termed the hornets. And formidable enemies they
were too--for many of the little fellows returned sadly stung, with
swollen limbs, and closed eyes; but they bore their wounds as well as
brave men would have endured their pain on a battle-field.

After leaving their village, they entered the woods farther from the
banks of the river. The guide who had seen the nest led the way, and the
miniature warriors trod as lightly as if there was danger of rousing a
sleeping foe. At last the old man pointed to the nest, and without a
moment's hesitation, the young Dahcotahs attacked it. Out flew the
hornets in every direction. Some of the little boys cried out with the
pain from the stings of the hornets on their unprotected limbs--but the
cries of Shame! shame! from one of the old men soon recalled them to
their duty, and they marched up again not a whit discomfited. Good Road
cheered them on. "Fight well, my warriors," said he; "you will carry
many scalps home, you are brave men."

It was not long before the nest was quite destroyed, and then the old
men said they must take a list of the killed and wounded. The boys
forced a loud laugh when they replied that there were no scalps taken by
the enemy, but they could not deny that the list of the wounded was
quite a long one. Some of them limped, in spite of their efforts to walk
upright, and one little fellow had to be assisted along by his father,
for both eyes were closed; and, although stung in every direction and
evidently suffering agony, the brave boy would not utter a complaint.

When they approached the village, the young warriors formed into Indian
file, and entered as triumphantly as their fathers would have done, had
they borne twenty Chippeway scalps with them.

The mothers first applauded the bravery of their sons; and then applied
herbs to their swollen limbs, and the mimic war furnished a subject of
amusement for the villages for the remainder of the day.

CHAPTER IV.

It would be well for the Dahcotahs if they only sought the lives of
their enemies. But they are wasting in numbers far more by their
internal dissensions than from other causes. Murder is so common among
them, that it is even less than a nine days' wonder; all that is thought
necessary is to bury the dead, an