lead on his band
to victory. In the chase, he is as ardent as in the battle; smiling at
danger, he plunges, on his flying steed, among a thousand buffaloes,
launching his fatal shafts with deadly effect. Thus has the Indian of
the far-west lived, and thus is he living still. But the trader and
the rum-bottle, and the rifle and the white man are on his track; and,
like his red brethren who once dwelt east of the Mississippi, he must
fall back yet farther, and gradually decline before the approach of
civilization.

_Austin._ It is a very strange thing that white men will not let red
men alone. What right have they to cheat them of their hunting-grounds?

_Hunter._ I will relate to you an account, that appeared some time ago
in most of the newspapers (though I cannot vouch for the truth of it,)
of a chief who, though he was respected by his tribe before he went
among the whites, had very little respect paid to him afterwards.

_Brian._ I hope it is a long account.

_Hunter._ Not very long: but you shall hear. "In order to assist the
officers of the Indian department, in their arduous duty of persuading
remote tribes to quit their lands, it has been found advisable to
incur the expense of inviting one or two of their chiefs some two or
three thousand miles to Washington, in order that they should see with
their own eyes, and report to their tribes, the irresistible power of
the nation with which they are arguing. This speculation has, it is
said, in all instances, more or less effected its object. For the
reasons and for the objects we have stated, it was deemed advisable
that a certain chief should be invited from his remote country to
Washington; and accordingly, in due time, he appeared there."

_Austin._ Two or three thousand miles! What a distance for him to go!

_Hunter._ "After the troops had been made to manoeuvre before him;
after thundering volleys of artillery had almost deafened him; and
after every department had displayed to him all that was likely to add
to the terror and astonishment he had already experienced, the
President, in lieu of the Indian's clothes, presented him with a
colonel's uniform; in which, and with many other presents, the
bewildered chief took his departure."

_Brian._ He would hardly know how to walk in a colonel's uniform.

_Hunter._ "In a pair of white kid gloves; tight blue coat, with gilt
buttons, gold epaulettes, and red sash; cloth trowsers with straps;
high-heeled boots; c