and day after day, when swarms of savages of
every age, sex, and degree beset our camp, he would lie in our tent, his
lynx eye ever open to guard our property from pillage.

The Whirlwind invited us one day to his lodge. The feast was finished,
and the pipe began to circulate. It was a remarkably large and fine one,
and I expressed my admiration of its form and dimensions.

"If the Meneaska likes the pipe," asked The Whirlwind, "why does he not
keep it?"

Such a pipe among the Ogallalla is valued at the price of a horse.
A princely gift, thinks the reader, and worthy of a chieftain and a
warrior. The Whirlwind's generosity rose to no such pitch. He gave
me the pipe, confidently expecting that I in return should make him a
present of equal or superior value. This is the implied condition of
every gift among the Indians as among the Orientals, and should it not
be complied with the present is usually reclaimed by the giver. So I
arranged upon a gaudy calico handkerchief, an assortment of vermilion,
tobacco, knives, and gunpowder, and summoning the chief to camp, assured
him of my friendship and begged his acceptance of a slight token of it.
Ejaculating HOW! HOW! he folded up the offerings and withdrew to his
lodge.

Several days passed and we and the Indians remained encamped side by
side. They could not decide whether or not to go to war. Toward evening,
scores of them would surround our tent, a picturesque group. Late one
afternoon a party of them mounted on horseback came suddenly in sight
from behind some clumps of bushes that lined the bank of the stream,
leading with them a mule, on whose back was a wretched negro, only
sustained in his seat by the high pommel and cantle of the Indian
saddle. His cheeks were withered and shrunken in the hollow of his jaws;
his eyes were unnaturally dilated, and his lips seemed shriveled and
drawn back from his teeth like those of a corpse. When they brought him
up before our tent, and lifted him from the saddle, he could not walk or
stand, but he crawled a short distance, and with a look of utter misery
sat down on the grass. All the children and women came pouring out of
the lodges round us, and with screams and cries made a close circle
about him, while he sat supporting himself with his hands, and looking
from side to side with a vacant stare. The wretch was starving to death!
For thirty-three days he had wandered alone on the prairie, without
weapon of any kind; without shoe