第93章

We now turned toward the distant encampment.As we rode along, antelope in considerable numbers were flying lightly in all directions over the plain, but not one of them would stand and be shot at.When we reached the foot of the mountain ridge that lay between us and the village, we were too impatient to take the smooth and circuitous route; so turning short to the left, we drove our wearied animals directly upward among the rocks.Still more antelope were leaping about among these flinty hillsides.Each of us shot at one, though from a great distance, and each missed his mark.At length we reached the summit of the last ridge.Looking down, we saw the bustling camp in the valley at our feet, and ingloriously descended to it.As we rode among the lodges, the Indians looked in vain for the fresh meat that should have hung behind our saddles, and the squaws uttered various suppressed ejaculations, to the great indignation of Reynal.Our mortification was increased when we rode up to his lodge.Here we saw his young Indian relative, the Hail-Storm, his light graceful figure on the ground in an easy attitude, while with his friend the Rabbit, who sat by his side, he was making an abundant meal from a wooden bowl of wasna, which the squaw had placed between them.Near him lay the fresh skin of a female elk, which he had just killed among the mountains, only a mile or two from the camp.No doubt the boy's heart was elated with triumph, but he betrayed no sign of it.He even seemed totally unconscious of our approach, and his handsome face had all the tranquillity of Indian self-control; a self-control which prevents the exhibition of emotion, without restraining the emotion itself.It was about two months since I had known the Hail-Storm, and within that time his character had remarkably developed.When I first saw him, he was just emerging from the habits and feelings of the boy into the ambition of the hunter and warrior.He had lately killed his first deer, and this had excited his aspirations after distinction.Since that time he had been continually in search of game, and no young hunter in the village had been so active or so fortunate as he.It will perhaps be remembered how fearlessly he attacked the buffalo bull, as we were moving toward our camp at the Medicine-Bow Mountain.

All this success had produced a marked change in his character.As Ifirst remembered him he always shunned the society of the young squaws, and was extremely bashful and sheepish in their presence; but now, in the confidence of his own reputation, he began to assume the airs and the arts of a man of gallantry.He wore his red blanket dashingly over his left shoulder, painted his cheeks every day with vermilion, and hung pendants of shells in his ears.If I observed aright, he met with very good success in his new pursuits; still the Hail-Storm had much to accomplish before he attained the full standing of a warrior.Gallantly as he began to bear himself among the women and girls, he still was timid and abashed in the presence of the chiefs and old men; for he had never yet killed a man, or stricken the dead body of an enemy in battle.I have no doubt that the handsome smooth-faced boy burned with keen desire to flash his maiden scalping-knife, and I would not have encamped alone with him without watching his movements with a distrustful eye.

His elder brother, the Horse, was of a different character.He was nothing but a lazy dandy.He knew very well how to hunt, but preferred to live by the hunting of others.He had no appetite for distinction, and the Hail-Storm, though a few years younger than he, already surpassed him in reputation.He had a dark and ugly face, and he passed a great part of his time in adorning it with vermilion, and contemplating it by means of a little pocket looking-glass which I gave him.As for the rest of the day, he divided it between eating and sleeping, and sitting in the sun on the outside of a lodge.Here he would remain for hour after hour, arrayed in all his finery, with an old dragoon's sword in his hand, and evidently flattering himself that he was the center of attraction to the eyes of the surrounding squaws.Yet he sat looking straight forward with a face of the utmost gravity, as if wrapped in profound meditation, and it was only by the occasional sidelong glances which he shot at his supposed admirers that one could detect the true course of his thoughts.

Both he and his brother may represent a class in the Indian community; neither should the Hail-Storm's friend, the Rabbit, be passed by without notice.The Hail-Storm and he were inseparable;they ate, slept, and hunted together, and shared with one another almost all that they possessed.If there be anything that deserves to be called romantic in the Indian character, it is to be sought for in friendships such as this, which are quite common among many of the prairie tribes.

Slowly, hour after hour, that weary afternoon dragged away.I lay in Reynal's lodge, overcome by the listless torpor that pervaded the whole encampment.The day's work was finished, or if it were not, the inhabitants had resolved not to finish it at all, and all were dozing quietly within the shelter of the lodges.A profound lethargy, the very spirit of indolence, seemed to have sunk upon the village.Now and then I could hear the low laughter of some girl from within a neighboring lodge, or the small shrill voices of a few restless children, who alone were moving in the deserted area.The spirit of the place infected me; I could not even think consecutively; I was fit only for musing and reverie, when at last, like the rest, I fell asleep.