“Now this Sunbright ain’t over-enamoured of Black Cloud; he’s only a half-blood Injun for one thing, his father bein’ a buffalo-man (negro) who’s j’ined the Osages, an’ Sunbright don’t take kindly to his nose which is some flatter than the best rools of Osage beauty demands; an’ likewise thar’s kinks in his ha’r.  Still, Sunbright sort o’ keeps her aversions to herse’f, an’ if it ain’t for what follows she most likely would have travelled to her death-blankets an’ been given a seat on a hill with a house of rocks built ‘round her—­the same bein’ the usual burial play of a Osage—­without Black Cloud ever saveyin’ that so far from interestin’ Sunbright, he only makes her tired.

“Over south from Black Cloud’s Greyhoss camp an’ across the Arkansaw an’ some’ers between the Polecat an’ the Cimmaron thar’s livin’ a young Creek buck called the Lance.  He’s straight an’ slim an’ strong as the weepon he’s named for; an’ he like Black Cloud is a medicine sharp of cel’bration an’ stands way up in the papers.  The Creeks is never weary of talkin’ about the Lance an’ what a marvel as a medicine man he is; also, by way of insultin’ the Osages, they declar’s onhesitatin’ that the Lance lays over Black Cloud like four tens, an’ offers to bet hosses an’ blankets an’ go as far as the Osages likes that this is troo.

“By what Strike Axe informs me,—­an’ he ain’t none likely to overplay in his statements—­by what Strike Axe tells me, I says, the Lance must shore have been the high kyard as a medicine man.  Let it get dark with the night an’ no moon in the skies, an’ the Lance could take you-all into his medicine lodge, an’ you’d hear the sperits flappin’ their pinions like some one flappin’ a blanket, an’ thar’d be whisperin’s an’ goin’s on outside the lodge an’ in, while fire-eyes would show an’ burn an’ glower up in the peak of the teepee; an’ all plenty skeary an’ mystifiyin’.  Besides these yere accomplishments the Lance is one of them mesmerism sports who can set anamiles to dreamin’.  He could call a coyote or a fox, or even so fitful an’ nervous a prop’sition as a antelope; an’ little by little, snuffin’ an’ snortin’, or if it’s a coyote, whinin’, them beasts would approach the Lance ontil they’re that clost he’d tickle their heads with his fingers while they stands shiverin’ an’ sweatin’ with apprehensions.  You can put a bet on it, son, that accordin’ to this onbiassed buck, Strike Axe, the Lance is ondoubted the big medicine throughout the Injun range.

“As might be assoomed, the Black Cloud is some heated ag’in the Lance an’ looks on him with baleful eye as a rival.  Still, Black Cloud has his nerve with him constant, an’ tharfore one day when the Osages an’ Creeks has been dispootin’ touchin’ the reespective powers of him an’ the Lance, an’ this latter Injun offers to come over to Greyhoss an’ make medicine ag’in him, Black Cloud never hesitates or hangs back like a dog tied onder a waggon, but calls the bluff a heap prompt an’ tells the Lance to come.