in the morning in such high glee and high feather,
they could not contain their merriment, but hailed him with loud and
repeated peals of laughter.

She-wee-she was not of a spirit to be easily cast down; he soon joined
in the merriment as heartily as any one, and seemed to consider his
reverse of fortune an excellent joke. Captain Bonneville, however,
thought proper to check his good-humor, and demanded, with some degree
of sternness, the cause of his altered condition. He replied in the most
natural and self-complacent style imaginable, "that he had been among
his cousins, who were very poor; they had been delighted to see him;
still more delighted with his good fortune; they had taken him to their
arms; admired his equipments; one had begged for this; another for
that"--in fine, what with the poor devil's inherent heedlessness, and
the real generosity of his disposition, his needy cousins had succeeded
in stripping him of all his clothes and accoutrements, excepting the fig
leaf with which he had returned to camp.

Seeing his total want of care and forethought, Captain Bonneville
determined to let him suffer a little, in hopes it might prove a
salutary lesson; and, at any rate, to make him no more presents while in
the neighborhood of his needy cousins. He was left, therefore, to shift
for himself in his naked condition; which, however, did not seem to give
him any concern, or to abate one jot of his good-humor. In the course of
his lounging about the camp, however, he got possession of a deer skin;
whereupon, cutting a slit in the middle, he thrust his head through it,
so that the two ends hung down before and behind, something like a South
American poncho, or the tabard of a herald. These ends he tied together,
under the armpits; and thus arrayed, presented himself once more before
the captain, with an air of perfect self-satisfaction, as though he
thought it impossible for any fault to be found with his toilet.

A little further journeying brought the travellers to the petty village
of Nez Perces, governed by the worthy and affectionate old patriarch who
had made Captain Bonneville the costly present of the very fine horse.
The old man welcomed them once more to his village with his usual
cordiality, and his respectable squaw and hopeful son, cherishing
grateful recollections of the hatchet and ear-bobs, joined in a chorus
of friendly gratulation.

As the much-vaunted steed, once the joy and pride of this inter