OCR Text |
Show 172 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. wealth has no part in determining such distinctions. Moran's partner was not the most beautiful of her sex, and he had the exceedingly bad taste to array her in an old calico gown, bought from an emigrant woman, instead of the neat and graceful tunic of whitened deer-skin worn ordinarily by the squaws. The moving spirit of the establishment, in more senses than one, was a hideous old hag of eighty. I-Iuman imagination never conceived hobgoblin or witch more ugly than she. You could count all her ribs through the wrinkles of the leathery skin that covered them. .Her withered face more resembled an old skull than the countenance of a livino- being b ' even to the hollow, darkened sockets, at the bottom of which glittered her little black eyes. Her arms had dwindled away into nothing but whip-cord and wire. Her hair, half black, half gray, hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole garment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalorobe tied round her waist with a string of hide. Yet the old squaw's meagre anatomy was wonderfully strong. She pitched the lodge, packed the horses, and did the hardest labor of the camp. From morning till night she bustled about the lodge, screaming like a screech-owl when any thing displeased her. Then there was her brother, a ' medicine-man,' or magician, equally gaunt and sinewy with herself. I-Iis mouth spread from ear to ear, and his appetite, as we had full occasion to learn, was ravenous in proportion. The other inmates of the lodge were a young bride and bridegroom ; the latter one of those idle, good-for-nothing fellows who infest an Indian village as well as more civilized communities. He was fit neither for llunting nor for war; and one miaht infer as ·much from the stolid unmeaning expression of his ~ace. The happy pair had SCENES AT THE CAMP. 173 just entered upon the honeymoon. They would stretch a buffalo-robe upon poles, so as to protect them frop1 the fierce rays of the sun, and spreading beneath this rouah canopy a luxuriant couch of furs, would sit affectionately side by side for half the day, though I could not discover that much conversation passed between them. Probably they had nothing to say; for an Indian's supply of topics for conversation is far from being copious. There were half a dozen children, too, playing and whooping about the camp, shooting birds with little bows and arrows, or making miniature lodges of sticks, as children of a different complexion build houses of blocks. A day passed, and Indians began rapidly to come in. Parties of two or three or more would ride up and silently seat themselves on the grass. The fourth day came at last, when about noon horsemen suddenly appeared into view on the summit of the neighboring ridge. They descended, and behind them followed a wild procession, hurrying in haste and disorder down the hill and over the plain below ; horses, mules, and dogs, heavily-burdened travaux, rnounted warriors, squaws walking amid the throng, and a host of children. For a full half-hour they continued to pour down ; and keeping directly to the bend of the stream, within a furlong of us, they soon assembled there, a dark and confused throng, until, as if by magic, a hundred and fifty tall lodges sprung up. On a sudden the lonely plain was transformed into the site of a miniature city· Countless horses were soon grazing over the meadows around us, and the whole prairie was animated by restless figures careering on horseback, or sedately stalking in their long white robes. The '\iVhirlwind was come at last ! One question yet remained to be answered: ' Will he go to |