During the payment a good many kegs of whiskey find their way into the lodges of the Indians, notwithstanding the watchfulness of both officers and Agent.  Where there is a demand there will always be a supply, let the legal prohibitions be what they may.  The last day of the payment is, invariably, one of general carousing.

When the men begin their frolic, the women carefully gather all the guns, knives, tomahawks, and weapons of every description, and secrete them, that as little mischief as possible may be done in the absence of all restraint and reason.  I am sorry to record that our little friend, Pawnee Blanc, was greatly addicted to the pleasures of the bottle.

Among the presents for the chiefs, which Shaw-nee-aw-kee had brought from the East, was a trunk of blue cloth coats, trimmed with broad gold lace, and a box of round black hats, ornamented in a similar manner.  All who are familiar with Indians, of whatever tribe, will have observed that their first step towards civilization, whether in man or woman, is mounting a man’s hat, decorated with tinsel; ribbons, or feathers.  Pawnee was among the happy number remembered in the distribution; so, donning at once his new costume, and tying a few additional bunches of gay-colored ribbons to a long spear, that was always his baton of ceremony, he came at once, followed by an admiring train, chiefly of women, to pay me a visit of state.

The solemn gravity of his countenance, as he motioned away those who would approach too near and finger his newly-received finery—­the dignity with which he strutted along, edging this way and that to avoid any possible contact from homely, every-day wardrobes—­augured well for a continuance of propriety and self-respect, and a due consideration of the good opinion of all around.  But, alas for Pawnee! late in the day we saw him assisted towards his lodge by two stout young Indians, who had pulled him out of a ditch, his fine coat covered with mud, his hat battered and bruised, his spear shorn of its gay streamers, and poor Pawnee himself weeping and uttering all the doleful lamentations of a tipsy Indian.

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Among the women with whom I early made acquaintance was the wife of Wau-kaun-zee-kah, the Yellow Thunder.  She had accompanied her husband, who was one of the deputation to visit the President, and from that time forth she had been known as “the Washington woman.”  She had a pleasant, old-acquaintance sort of air in greeting me, as much as to say, “You and I have seen something of the world.”  No expression of surprise or admiration escaped her lips, as her companions, with childlike, laughing simplicity, exclaimed and clapped their hands at the different wonderful objects I showed them.  Her deportment said plainly, “Yes, yes, my children, I have seen all these things before.”  It was not until I put to her ear a tropical shell, of which I had a little cabinet, and she heard its murmuring sound, that she laid aside her apathy of manner.  She poked her finger into the opening to get at the animal within, shook it violently, then raised it to her ear again, and finally burst into a hearty laugh, and laid it down, acknowledging, by her looks, that this was beyond her comprehension.