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Show .. 278 THE CALIFORNIA AND OREGON TRAIL. lodge. He mounted and rode round the village, singing his war-song in a loud hoarse voice amid the shrill acclamations of the women. Then dismounting, he remained for some minutes prostrate upon the ground, as if in an act of supplication. On the following morning I looked in vain for the departure of the warriors. All was quiet in the village until late in the fore. noon, when the White Shield issuing from his lodge, came and seated himself in his old place before us. Reynal asked him why he had not gone out to find the enemy 1 'I cannot go,' answered the White Shield in a dejected voice. 'I have given my war-arrows to the Meneaska.' 'You have only given him two of your arrows,' said Rey. nal. 'If you ask him, he will give them back again.' For some time the vVhite Shield said nothing. At last he spoke in a gloomy tone: ' One of my young men has had bad dreams. The spirits of the dead came and threw stones at him in his sleep.' If such a dream had actually taken place it might have broken up this or any other war-party, but both Reynal and I were convinced at the time that it was a mere fabrication to excuse his remaining at home. The White Shield was a 'Yarrior of noted prowess. Very probably, he would have received a mortal wound without the show of pain, and endured without flinching the worst tortures that an enemy c.ould inflict upon him. The whole power of an Indian's nature would be summoned to encounter such a trial ; every influence of his education from childhood would have prepared him for it ; the cause of his suffering would have been visibly and palpably before him, and his spirit would rise to set his enemy at defiance, and gain the highest gloxy of THE HUNTING CAMP. 279 a warrior by meeting death with fortitude. But when he feels himself attacked by a mysterious evil, before whose insidious assaults his manhood is wasted, and his strength drained away, when he can see no enemy to resist and defy, the boldest war. rior falls prostrate at once. He believes that a bad spirit has taken possession of him, or that he is the victim of some charm. When suffering from a protracted disorder, an Indian will often abandon himself to his supposed destiny, pine away and die, the victim of his own imagination. The same effect will often follow from a series of calamities, or a long run of illsuccess, and the sufferer has been known to ride into the midst of an enemy's camp, or attack a grizzly bear single-handed, to get rid of a life which he supposed to lie under the doom of misfortune. Thus after all his fasting, dreaming, and calling upon the Great Spirit, the White Shield's war-party was pitifully broken up. I I |