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Show 242 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. pering among the feet of the horses. The young btaves, gaudy with paint and feathers, were riding in groups among the crowd, and often galloping, two or three at once along the line, to try the speed of their horses. Here and there you might see a rank of sturdy pedestrians stalking along in their white buffalo-robes. These were the dignitaries of the village, the old men and warriors, to whose age and experience that wan. dering democracy yielded a silent deference. With the rough prairie and the broken hills for its back-ground, the restless scene was· striking and picturesque beyond description. Days and weeks made me familiar with it, but never impaired its effect upon my fancy. As we moved on, the broken column grew yet more scat. tered and disorderly, until, as we approached the foot of a hill, I saw the old men before mentioned seatina themselves in a 0 line upon the ground, in advance of the whole. They lighted a pipe and sat smoking, laughing, and telling stories, while the people, stopping as they succ~ssively came up, were soon gathered in a crowd behind them. Then the old men rose, drew their buffalo-robes over their shoulders, and strode on as before. Gaining the top of the _hill, we found a very steep declivity before us. There was not a minute's pause. The whole descended in a mass, amid dust and confusion. The horses braced their feet as they slid down, women and children were screaming, dogs yelping as they were trodd en upon, while stones and earth went rolling to the bottom. In a few moments I could see the village ft'om the summit, spreading again far and wide over the plain below. At our encampment that afternoon'! was attacked anew by my old disorder. In half an hour the strength that I had been 'HE OGILLALLAH VILLAGE. 243 gaining for a week past had vanished again, and I became like a man in a dream. But at sunset I lay down in the Big Crow's lodge and slept, totally unconscious till the morning. The first thing that awakened me was a hoarse flapping over my head, and a sudden light that poured in upon me. The camp was breaking up, and the squaws were moving the covering from the lodge. I arose and shook off my blanket with the feeling of perfect health ; but scarcely had I gained my feet when a sense of my helpless condition was once more forced upon me, and I found myself scarcely able to stand. Raymond had brought up Pauline and the mule, and I stooped to raise my saddle from the gronnd. My strength was quite inadequate to the task. 'You must saddle her,' said I to Ray. mond, as I sat down again on a pile of buffalo-robes : " Et hrec etiam fortasse meminissc j u vabit," • . I thought, while with a painful effort I raised myself into the saddle. Half an hour after, even the expectation that Virgil's line expressed seemed destined to disappointment. As we were passing over a great plain, surrounded by long broken l'idges, I rode slowly in advance of the Indians. with thouahts I 0 that wandered far from the time and from the place. Suddenly the sky darkened, and thunder began to mutter. Clouds were rising over the hills, as dreary and dull as the first forebodings of an approaching calamity; and in a moment all around was wrap pe d l·l 1 s1 1 a do w. I looked behind. The Indians had stopped to prepare for the approaching storm, and the dark, dense mass of savages stretched far to the right and left. Since the first attack of my disorder the effects of rain upon me had usually be en l·n J· un·o us 1· n the extreme. I l1ad no strength to |