ul than the mystery man that I am going to describe. The
wounded warriors were in extremity, and I thought that one of them was
dying before the mystery man made his appearance; but you shall hear.
The wounded men lay groaning on the ground, with Indians around them,
who kept moaning even louder than they did; when, all at once, a
scuffle of feet and a noise like that of a low rattle were heard.

_Austin._ The mystery man was coming, I suppose.

_Hunter._ He was; and a death-like silence was instantly preserved by
all the attendant Indians. In came the mystery man, covered over with
the shaggy hide of a yellow bear, so that, had it not been that his
mocassins, leggings and hands were visible, you might have supposed a
real bear was walking upright, with a spear in one paw, and a rattle,
formed like a tambourine, in the other.

_Basil._ He could never cure the dying man with his tambourine.

_Hunter._ From the yellow bear-skin hung a profusion of smaller skins,
such as those of different kinds of snakes, toads, frogs and bats;
with hoofs of animals, beaks and tails of birds, and scraps and
fragments of other things; a complete bundle of odds and ends. The
medicine man came into the circle, bending his knees, crouching,
sliding one foot after the other along the ground, and now and then
leaping and grunting. You could not see his face, for the yellow
bear-head skin covered it, and the paws dangled before him. He
shuffled round and round the wounded men, shaking his rattle and
making all kinds of odd noises; he then stopped to turn them over.

_Austin._ He had need of all his medicine.

_Hunter._ Hardly had he been present a minute, before one of the men
died; and, in ten minutes more, his companion breathed his last. The
medicine man turned them over, shook his rattle over them, howled,
groaned and grunted; but it would not do; the men were dead, and all
his mummery would not bring them back to life again; so, after a few
antics of various kinds, he shuffled off with himself, shaking his
rattle, and howling and groaning louder than ever. You may remember,
that I told you of the death of Oseola, the Seminole chief: he who
struck his dagger through the treaty that was to sign away the
hunting-grounds of his tribe, in exchange for distant lands.

_Austin._ Yes. You said that he dashed his dagger not only through the
contract, but also through the table on which it lay.

_Brian._ And you told us that he was taken pris