280 MULE-HUNTING EXPEDITION. 
alternate stripes of vermilion and white, arranged 
in all sorts of directions, and extending from his 
waist to his hair. We smoked together; the 
pipe passing round the circle of ‘ braves’ (that 
might have been more justly styled ‘ragged 
ruffians,’ if they had worn clothes), the chief’s 
bodyguard. 
The chief of course wanted everything he saw, 
as a present; but this, at all hazards, I sternly 
refused. Finding nothing more was to be obtained 
by fair means, on receiving the promised payment, 
he left for the village. 
The lake near which I am camped is a magni- 
ficent sheet of water, forty miles in length, with 
an average breadth of fifteen, shut in by steep 
hills not very heavily timbered, between which 
are fine open grassy valleys. Wildfowl in swarms 
dot its surface, and it abounds with fish—so the 
Indians tell me. 
May 2\st.—Another sleepless night, morning 
dark ; a cold icy wind nearly freezes one’s blood; 
start as soon as we can see. The chief tells me I 
can ford the stream near his lodge, but, doubtful 
of its truth, canter on ahead of the mules, and try 
it. Just as I thought, deep water; aruse to get 
my mules swimming, and when scattered, to 
pounce upon and steal them. 
