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Show 438 MATO-TOPE AND PEHRISKA-RUIIFA RECONCILED. friend Sih-Chida immediately ran out, and discoverd the instrument concealed by a woman under her robe, and, to my great joy, brought it back to me. Bidda-Chohki (generally called La Chevelure levee, the scalped man), visited as, and gave me some words of the Manitari language, but he was not in a very good humour, because he could not get any brandy. The next day this man dressed himself very handsomely in order to have his portrait taken, but the mercury was again 20° below zero, and it was too cold in our room to paint, for colours and pencils were frozen, though standing close to the fire, and had to be thawed in hot water. We calculated that we should burn in our chimney at least six cords of wood in a month, if this cold continued. Mato-Tope had become reconciled to Pehriska-Ruhpa, and purchased a green blanket, which he showed to us, as a present for him. We heard that a wolf had attacked three Indian women in the forest, who had been obliged to defend themselves with their hatchets. On the 14th of January, the cold was only 8° below 0, but there was such a high, piercing wind, that our woodcutters complained more than when the cold was more severe. In these prairies it is, for the most part, the wind which makes the cold intolerable ; and though persons who ventured out wore woollen caps which left only the eyes exposed, yet their faces were frostbitten. Our provisions were very bad, for Picotte had sent us only tough, hard, stale meat, besides which we had nothing but maize and beans, and the water of the river. Mato-Tope, in his finest dress, accompanied by many Indians, visited us. He wore a large hood of red cloth, adorned with forty long eagles' feathers, and was going to Ruhptare, where a medicine son was to be adopted. In the night of the 14th, the wind blew with such violence, that it scattered the heap of ashes from the fire-place all over the room, so that our beds, benches, and clothes were completely covered with them. Mato-Tope returned on this day from Ruhptare, and told us, with great satisfaction and self-complacency, that he had enumerated all his exploits, and that no one had been able to surpass him. Old Garreau, who was constantly with our engages in the fort, complained to me, that, for a long time, he had lived on nothing but maize boiled in water; and this was really the case with many persons at this place, as game became more and more scarce. When Garreau first came to these parts, game abounded, and beavers were heard in all the streams, striking with their tails; now, however, even the Indians are often reduced to want of food. On the 21st of January, while the Indians passed the night without fire, in the prairie, in order to hunt, the thermometer was at 30° below 0 (27t° Reaumur); the wind was easterly, and pretty high. The land and the river were covered by a dense mist, through which the sun penetrated when just above the horizon; on either side was a large crescent, which rose as high as the upper surface of the mist, the eastern one extending to the frozen surface of the river. They were at some distance from the sun, |