e gossips, marveling much what this might mean,
Whispered that they at midnight had been seen
Far from the village, wrapped in secret talk.
They seemed in truth an ill-assorted brace,
But Nature oft in Siamese bond unites,
By some strange tie, the farthest opposites.
Gray Cloud was oily, plausible, and vain,
A conjurer with subtle scheming brain;
Too corpulent and clumsy for the chase,
His lodge was still provided with the best,
And though sometimes but a half welcome guest,
He took his dish and spoon to every feast.[5]

Priestcraft and leechcraft were combined in him,
Two trades occult upon which knaves have thriven,
Almost since man from Paradise was driven;
Padding with pompous phrases worn and old
Their scanty esoteric science dim,
And gravely selling, at their weight in gold,
Placebos colored to their patients' whim.
Man's noblest mission here too oft is made,
In heathen as in Christian lands, a trade.
Holy the task to comfort and console
The tortured body and the sin-sick soul,
But pain and sorrow, even prayer and creed,
Are turned too oft to instruments of greed.
The conjurer claimed to bear a mission high:
Mysterious omens of the earth and sky
He knew to read; his medicine could find
In time of need the buffalo, and bind
In sleep the senses of the enemy.
Perhaps not wholly a deliberate cheat,
And yet dissimulation and deceit
Oozed from his form obese at every pore.
Skilled by long practice in the priestly art,
To chill with superstitious fear the heart,
And versed in all the legendary lore,
He knew each herb and root that healing bore;
But lest his flock might grow as wise as he,
Disguised their use with solemn mummery.
When all the village wrapped in slumber lay,
His midnight incantations often fell,
His chant now weirdly rose, now sank away,
As o'er some dying child he cast his spell.
And sometimes through his frame strange tremors ran--
Magnetic waves, swept from the unknown pole
Linking the body to the wavering soul;
And swifter came his breath, as if to fan
The feeble life spark, and his finger tips
Were to the brow of pain like angel lips.
No wonder if in moments such as these
He half believed in his own deities,
And thought his sacred rattle could compel
The swarming powers unseen to serve him well.
The Raven lay one evening in his tent
With his accustomed crony at his side;
Around their heads a graceful aureole
Of smoke curled upward from the scarlet bowl
Of Gray Cloud's pipe with wi