AN INDIAN HAG. 19 



Grerman Yankees ; i.e., emigrants, out-Heroding Herod 

 in Yankeeism, yet betraying their origin plainly 

 enough. These heroes, slovenly and unsoldier-like, 

 yet full of swagger and braggadocio now, when the 

 Sioux advanced to the attack on Tort Abercrombie, a 

 few weeks afterwards, took refuge under beds, and 

 hid in holes and corners, from whence they had 

 to be dragged by their officers, who drew them out 

 to face the enemy by putting revolvers to their 

 heads. 



On the day of our arrival two half-breeds came 

 in from a hunting expedition in which they had been 

 very successful. They had found a band of twenty 

 elk, out of which they killed four, desisting, accord- 

 ing to their own account, from shooting more from 

 a reluctance to waste life and provision ! — a piece of 

 consideration perfectly incomprehensible in a half- 

 breed or Indian. "We went down to their camp by 

 the river, where they were living in an Indian 

 "lodge," or tent of skins stretched over a cone of 

 poles. Squatted in front of it, engaged in cutting 

 the meat for drying, was the most hideous old hag 

 ever seen. Lean, dried-up, and withered, her parch- 

 ment skin was seamed and wrinkled into folds and 

 deep furrows, her eyes were bleared and blinking, 

 and her long, iron-grey hair, matted and unkempt, 

 hung over her shoulders. She kept constantly 

 muttering, and showing her toothless gums, as she 

 clawed the flesh before her with long, bony, unwashed 

 fingers, breaking out occasionally into wild, angry 

 exclamations, as she struck at the skeleton dogs which 



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