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Show 188 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. ful and majestic height, and discover no defect or blemish. \V ith his free and noble attitude, with the bow in his hand ' and the quiver at his back, he might seem, but for his face, the Pythian A polio himself. Such a figure rose before the imagination of West, when on first seeing the Belvidere in the Vatican, he exclaimed, 'By God, a Mohawk!' When the sky darkened and the stars began to appear; when the prairie was involved in gloom, and the horses were driven in and secured around the camp, the c1:owd began to melt away. Fires gleamed around, duskily revcaJjng the rough trappers and the graceful Indians. One of the families near us would always be gathered about a bright blaze, that displayed the shadowy dimensions of their lodge, and sent its lights far up among the masses of foliage above, gilding the dead and ragged branches. Withered witch-like hags flitted around the blaze ; and here for hour after hour sat a circle of children and young girls, laughing and talking, their round merry faces glowing in the ruddy light. We could hear the monotonous notes of the drum from the Indian village, with the chant of the war-song, deadened in the distance, and the long chorus of quavering yells, where the war-dance was going on in the largest lodge. For several nights, too, we could hear wild and mournful cries, rising and dying away like the melancholy voice of a wolf. They came from the sisters and female relatives of l\1ahto-Tatonka, who were gashing their limbs with knives, and bewailing the death of H nry Chatillon's squaw .. The hour would grow late before all re6red to rest in the camp. Then the embers of the fires would be glowing dimly, the men would be stretched in their blanl\:ets on the ground, .. SCENES AT THE CAMP. 189 and nothing could be heard but the restless motions of the •crowded horses. I recall these scenes with a mixed feeling of pleasure and pam. At this time, I was so reduced by illness that I could seldom walk without reeling like a drunken man, and when I rose from my seat upon the ground the landscape suddenly grew dim before my eyes, the trees and lodges seemed to sway to and fi·o, and the prairie to rise and fall like the swells of the ocean. Such a state of things is by no means enviable any where. In a country where a man's life may at any moment depend on the strength of his arm, or it may be on the activity of his legs, it is more particularly inconvenient. Medical assistance of course there was none; neither had I the means of pursuing a system of diet ; and sleeping on damp ground, with an occasional drenching from a shower, would hardly be recommended as beneficial. I sometimes suffered the extremity of languor and exhaustion, and though at . the time I felt no apprehensions of the final result, I have since learned that my situation was a critical one. Besides other fonnidable inconveniences, I owe it in a great measure to the remote effects of that unlucky disorder, that from deficient eyesight I am compelled to employ the pen of another in taking down this narrative from my lips; and I have learned very effectually that a violent attack of dysentery on the prairie is a thing too serious for a joke. I tried repose and a very sparing diet. For a long time, with exemplary patience, I lounged about the camp, or at the utmost staggered over to the Indian villaae, and walked faint and dizzy among the lodges. It would not do ; and I bethought me of starvation. During five days I sustained life on one small biscuit a day. |