MOUSEY] 



VISIT TO THE MESSIAH 76!) 



feet in height. He was well dressed in white man's clothes, with the 

 broad-brimmed white felt hat common in the west, secured on his head 

 by means of a beaded ribbon under the chin. This, with a blanket or a 

 robe of rabbit skins, is now the ordinary Paiute dress. He wore a good 

 pair of boots. His hair was cut oft' square on a line below the base of 

 the ears, after the manner of his tribe. His countenance was open and 

 expressive of firmness and decision, but witli no marked intellectuality. 

 The features were broad and heavy, very different from the thin, clear- 

 cut features of the prairie tribes. 



As he came up lie took my hand with a strong, hearty grasp, and 

 inquired what was wanted. His uncle explained matters, adding that 

 1 was well acquainted with some of his Indian friends who had visited 

 him a short time before, and was going back to the same people. After 

 some deliberation he said that the whites had lied about him and he 

 did not like to talk to them; some of the Indians had disobeyed his 

 instructions and trouble had come of it, but as I was sent by Washing- 

 ton and was a friend of his friends, he would talk with me. He was 

 hunting now, but if we would come to his camp that night he would 

 tell us about his mission. 



With another hand-shake he left us, and we drove on to the nearest 

 ranch, arriving about dark. After supper we got ready and started 

 across country through the sagebrush for the Paiute camp, some miles 

 away, guided by our Indian. It was already night, with nothing to be 

 seen but the clumps of snow-covered sagebrush stretching away in 

 every direction, and after traveling an hour or more without reach- 

 ing the camp, our guide had to confess that he had lost the trail. 

 It was two years since he had been there, his sight was failing, and, 

 with the snow and the darkness, he was utterly at a loss to know his 

 whereabouts. 



To be lost on a sage plain on a freezing night in January is not a 

 pleasant experience. There was no road, and no house but the one we 

 had left some miles behind, and it would be almost impossible to find 

 our way back to that through the darkness. Excepting for a lantern 

 there was no light but what came from the glare of the snow and a few 

 stars in the frosty sky overhead. To add to our difficulty, the snow was 

 cut in every direction by cattle trails, which seemed to be Indian trails, 

 and kept us doubling and circling to no purpose, while in the uncertain 

 gloom every large clump of sagebrush took on the appearance of a 

 wikiup, only to disappoint us on a nearer approach. With it all, the 

 night was bitterly cold and we were half frozen. After vainly following 

 a dozen false trails and shouting repeatedly in hope of hearing an 

 answering cry, we hit on the expedient of leaving the Indian with 

 the wagon, he being the oldest man of the party, while the rest of us 

 each took a different direction from the central point, following the 

 cattle tracks in the snow and calling to each other at short intervals, 

 in order that we might not become lost from one another. After going 



