quite at their ease; and,
while they are whiffing away, the young men of the Sacs ride round and
round the circle, every now and then cutting at the shoulders of the
Foxes with their whips, making the blood start forth. After keeping up
this strange custom for some time, the young Sacs dismount, and
present their horses to those they have been flogging.

_Austin._ What a curious custom! I should not much like to be flogged
in that manner.

_Hunter._ There is a certain rock which the Camanchees always visit
when they go to war. Putting their horses at full speed, they shoot
their best arrows at this rock, which they consider great medicine. If
they did not go through this long-established custom, there would be
no confidence among them; but, when they have thus sacrificed their
best arrows to the rock, their hope and confidence are strong.

_Austin._ I should have thought they would have wanted their best
arrows to fight with.

_Hunter._ There is no accounting for the superstitions of people.
There is nothing too absurd to gain belief even among civilized
nations, when they give up the truth of God's word, and follow the
traditions or commandments of men. The Sioux have a strange notion
about thunder; they say that the thunder is hatched by a small bird,
not much bigger than the humming-bird. There is, in the Couteau des
Prairies, a place called "the nest of the thunder;" and, in the small
bushes there, they will have it that this little bird sits upon its
eggs till the long claps of thunder come forth. Strange as this
tradition is, there would be no use in denying it; for the
superstition of the Indian is too strong to be easily done away with.
The same people, before they go on a buffalo hunt, usually pay a visit
to a spot where the form of a buffalo is cut out on a prairie. This
figure is great medicine; and the hunt is sure to be more prosperous,
in their opinion, after it has been visited.

_Austin._ I do hope that we shall forget none of these curious things.

[Illustration]

[Illustration: Eliot Preaching to the Indians.]

CHAPTER XV.

For the last time but one, during their holidays, Austin and his
brothers set off, with a long afternoon before them, to listen to the
hunter's account of the proceedings of the missionaries among the
Indians. On this occasion, they paid another visit to the Red
Sand-stone Rock by the river, the place where they first