THE PROFESSOR IX A DILEMMA. 169 



the Indian mode of smoking. The chief took a few 

 quick whiffs, emitting the fumes with a hoarse blow- 

 ing like a miniature steam-engine. He then passed 

 it, mouth-piece down so that the saliva might escape, 

 and it commenced a slow journey around the circle. 

 When it reached our worthy professor he found him 

 self in a sore dilemma. 'No smoke had ever curled 

 along the roof of his mouth, or made a chimney of 

 his geological nose. For an instant the philosophei 

 hesitated ; then, reflecting that passing the pipe would 

 be worse than choking over it, the excellent man 

 put the stem to his mouth and gave a pull which 

 must have filled the remotest corner of his luno-s 

 with Killikinnick. Gasping amid the stifling cloud, 

 it poured from both mouth and nose, and called on 

 the way at his stomach, which gave unmistakable 

 symptoms of distress. We feared that he would be 

 forced to forsake the council, but, with an effort worthy 



7 7 ^ 



of the occasion and himself, he kept his seat, and 

 opening wide his mouth, waited patiently until the 

 fiend of smoke had withdrawn from his interior its 

 trailing garments. 



The council disappointed us. In White Wolf we 

 had found as fine-looking an Indian as ever murdered 

 and stole upon his native continent. His people were 

 first in war, first to break peace, and the last to keep 

 it, their excuse being that the white man trespassed 

 on their hunting grounds. We had rather expected 

 that burly form to rise from his seat, and, with flash- 

 ing eyes, utter then and there a flood of aboriginal 

 eloquence : " White man, your people live where the 



sun rises, ours where it sets. When did vou ever 

 9 



