Francis Parkman 243 



erable Red Water, who was the custodian of an 

 immense fund of folk lore, but was apt to be super- 

 stitiously afraid of imparting any of it to strangers ; 

 how war parties were projected and abandoned; 

 how buffalo and antelope were hunted, and how 

 life was carried on in the dull intervals between 

 such occupations. If one were to keep on quoting 

 what is of especial interest in the book, one would 

 have to quote the whole of it. But one character- 

 istic portrait contains so much insight into Indian 

 life that I cannot forbear giving it. It is the 

 sketch of a young fellow called the Hail-Storm, 

 as Parkman found him one evening on his return 

 from the chase : "his light graceful figure reclining 

 on the ground in an easy attitude, while . . . near 

 him lay the fresh skin of a female elk which he 

 had just killed among the mountains, only a mile 

 or two from camp. No doubt the boy's heart was 

 elated with triumph, but he betrayed no sign of 

 it. He even seemed totally unconscious of our 

 approach, and his handsome face had all the tran- 

 quillity of Indian self-control, a self-control which 

 prevents the exhibition of emotion without restrain- 

 ing the emotion itself. It was about two months 

 since I had known the Hail-Storm, and within 

 that time his character had remarkably developed. 

 When I first saw him, he was just emerging from 



