er her ornaments, dresses, and everything she had,
and told her to go home to her father. Having consummated this summary
divorce, for which he could show good reasons, he came back, seated
himself in his usual place, and began to smoke with an air of utmost
tranquillity and self-satisfaction.

I was sitting in the lodge with him on that very afternoon, when I felt
some curiosity to learn the history of the numerous scars that appeared
on his naked body. Of some of them, however, I did not venture to
inquire, for I already understood their origin. Each of his arms was
marked as if deeply gashed with a knife at regular intervals, and there
were other scars also, of a different character, on his back and on
either breast. They were the traces of those formidable tortures
which these Indians, in common with a few other tribes, inflict upon
themselves at certain seasons; in part, it may be, to gain the glory of
courage and endurance, but chiefly as an act of self-sacrifice to secure
the favor of the Great Spirit. The scars upon the breast and back were
produced by running through the flesh strong splints of wood, to which
ponderous buffalo-skulls are fastened by cords of hide, and the wretch
runs forward with all his strength, assisted by two companions, who take
hold of each arm, until the flesh tears apart and the heavy loads
are left behind. Others of Kongra-Tonga's scars were the result of
accidents; but he had many which he received in war. He was one of the
most noted warriors in the village. In the course of his life he had
slain as he boasted to me, fourteen men, and though, like other Indians,
he was a great braggart and utterly regardless of truth, yet in this
statement common report bore him out. Being much flattered by my
inquiries he told me tale after tale, true or false, of his warlike
exploits; and there was one among the rest illustrating the worst
features of the Indian character too well for me to omit. Pointing out
of the opening of the lodge toward the Medicine-Bow Mountain, not many
miles distant he said that he was there a few summers ago with a war
party of his young men. Here they found two Snake Indians, hunting. They
shot one of them with arrows and chased the other up the side of the
mountain till they surrounded him on a level place, and Kongra-Tonga
himself, jumping forward among the trees, seized him by the arm. Two of
his young men then ran up and held him fast while he scalped him alive.
The