, when we were not watching him, would slyly bring
dried meat and POMMES BLANCHES, and place them on the ground by his
side. Still this was not enough for him. When it grew dark he contrived
to creep away between the legs of the horses and crawl over to the
Indian village, about a furlong down the stream. Here he fed to his
heart's content, and was brought back again in the morning, when Jean
Gras, the trapper, put him on horseback and carried him to the fort.
He managed to survive the effects of his insane greediness, and
though slightly deranged when we left this part of the country, he was
otherwise in tolerable health, and expressed his firm conviction that
nothing could ever kill him.

When the sun was yet an hour high, it was a gay scene in the village.
The warriors stalked sedately among the lodges, or along the margin
of the streams, or walked out to visit the bands of horses that were
feeding over the prairie. Half the village population deserted the close
and heated lodges and betook themselves to the water; and here you might
see boys and girls and young squaws splashing, swimming, and diving
beneath the afternoon sun, with merry laughter and screaming. But
when the sun was just resting above the broken peaks, and the purple
mountains threw their prolonged shadows for miles over the prairie; when
our grim old tree, lighted by the horizontal rays, assumed an aspect
of peaceful repose, such as one loves after scenes of tumult and
excitement; and when the whole landscape of swelling plains and
scattered groves was softened into a tranquil beauty, then our
encampment presented a striking spectacle. Could Salvator Rosa have
transferred it to his canvas, it would have added new renown to his
pencil. Savage figures surrounded our tent, with quivers at their backs,
and guns, lances, or tomahawks in their hands. Some sat on horseback,
motionless as equestrian statues, their arms crossed on their breasts,
their eyes fixed in a steady unwavering gaze upon us. Some stood erect,
wrapped from head to foot in their long white robes of buffalo hide.
Some sat together on the grass, holding their shaggy horses by a rope,
with their broad dark busts exposed to view as they suffered their robes
to fall from their shoulders. Others again stood carelessly among the
throng, with nothing to conceal the matchless symmetry of their forms;
and I do not exaggerate when I say that only on the prairie and in the
Vatican have I seen such f