Moran, like Reynal, had not allied himself to an aristocratic circle.  His relatives occupied but a contemptible position in Ogallalla society; for among those wild democrats of the prairie, as among us, there are virtual distinctions of rank and place; though this great advantage they have over us, that wealth has no part in determining such distinctions.  Moran’s partner was not the most beautiful of her sex, and he had the exceedingly bad taste to array her in an old calico gown bought from an emigrant woman, instead of the neat and graceful tunic of whitened deerskin worn ordinarily by the squaws.  The moving spirit of the establishment, in more senses than one, was a hideous old hag of eighty.  Human imagination never conceived hobgoblin or witch more ugly than she.  You could count all her ribs through the wrinkles of the leathery skin that covered them.  Her withered face more resembled an old skull than the countenance of a living being, even to the hollow, darkened sockets, at the bottom of which glittered her little black eyes.  Her arms had dwindled away into nothing but whipcord and wire.  Her hair, half black, half gray, hung in total neglect nearly to the ground, and her sole garment consisted of the remnant of a discarded buffalo robe tied round her waist with a string of hide.  Yet the old squaw’s meager anatomy was wonderfully strong.  She pitched the lodge, packed the horses, and did the hardest labor of the camp.  From morning till night she bustled about the lodge, screaming like a screech-owl when anything displeased her.  Then there was her brother, a “medicine-man,” or magician, equally gaunt and sinewy with herself.  His mouth spread from ear to ear, and his appetite, as we had full occasion to learn, was ravenous in proportion.  The other inmates of the lodge were a young bride and bridegroom; the latter one of those idle, good-for nothing fellows who infest an Indian village as well as more civilized communities.  He was fit neither for hunting nor for war; and one might infer as much from the stolid unmeaning expression of his face.  The happy pair had just entered upon the honeymoon.  They would stretch a buffalo robe upon poles, so as to protect them from the fierce rays of the sun, and spreading beneath this rough canopy a luxuriant couch of furs, would sit affectionately side by side for half the day, though I could not discover that much conversation passed between them.  Probably they had nothing to say; for an Indian’s supply of topics for conversation is far from being copious.  There were half a dozen children, too, playing and whooping about the camp, shooting birds with little bows and arrows, or making miniature lodges of sticks, as children of a different complexion build houses of blocks.