“How! how! how!”

Here I was assailed by sharp twinges of conscience, for I fancied I could perceive a fragrance of perfumery in the air, and a vision rose before me of white kid gloves and silken mustaches with the mild and gentle countenances of numerous fair-haired young men.  But I recovered myself and began again.

“While I was living in the Meneaska lodges, I had heard of the Ogallalla, how great and brave a nation they were, how they loved the whites, and how well they could hunt the buffalo and strike their enemies.  I resolved to come and see if all that I heard was true.”

“How! how! how! how!”

“As I had come on horseback through the mountains, I had been able to bring them only a very few presents.”

“How!”

“But I had enough tobacco to give them all a small piece.  They might smoke it, and see how much better it was than the tobacco which they got from the traders.”

“How! how! how!”

“I had plenty of powder, lead, knives, and tobacco at Fort Laramie.  These I was anxious to give them, and if any of them should come to the fort before I went away, I would make them handsome presents.”

“How! howo how! how!”

Raymond then cut up and distributed among them two or three pounds of tobacco, and old Mene-Seela began to make a reply.  It was quite long, but the following was the pith of it: 

“He had always loved the whites.  They were the wisest people on earth.  He believed they could do everything, and he was always glad when any of them came to live in the Ogallalla lodges.  It was true I had not made them many presents, but the reason of it was plain.  It was clear that I liked them, or I never should have come so far to find their village.”

Several other speeches of similar import followed, and then this more serious matter being disposed of, there was an interval of smoking, laughing, and conversation; but old Mene-Seela suddenly interrupted it with a loud voice: 

“Now is a good time,” he said, “when all the old men and chiefs are here together, to decide what the people shall do.  We came over the mountain to make our lodges for next year.  Our old ones are good for nothing; they are rotten and worn out.  But we have been disappointed.  We have killed buffalo bulls enough, but we have found no herds of cows, and the skins of bulls are too thick and heavy for our squaws to make lodges of.  There must be plenty of cows about the Medicine-Bow Mountain.  We ought to go there.  To be sure it is farther westward than we have ever been before, and perhaps the Snakes will attack us, for those hunting-grounds belong to them.  But we must have new lodges at any rate; our old ones will not serve for another year.  We ought not to be afraid of the Snakes.  Our warriors are brave, and they are all ready for war.  Besides, we have three white men with their rifles to help us.”