THE INVALID. 193 
hunter, having alone shot with her rifle fifteen deer in a 
morning’s hunt. She was a fine looking woman, an Amazon 
in size and haughty bearing, rode astride, and dressed in 
deep black.. 
There was an invalid in the party, a chief, crippled with 
rheumatism and disease of the spine, drawn into a sitting 
posture by his ailments, emaciated to a skeleton, and a most 
pitiable sight, particularly distressing to us from our know- 
ledge of the hardships and privations suffered by them in — 
their wandering life. 
The poor creature was perched upon a rude contrivance 
of sticks lashed on a horse, and bolstered with bags of grass, 
with a blanket and circingle passed over and around the 
whole to keep him steady, and having the feeble use of his 
hands, he guided the horse without assistance. A rude 
litter accompanied him, upon which he could ride during 
heat and.exhaiistion. This was constructed by lashing long 
poles to either side of a mule, leaving the ends trailing upon 
the grouad.- Créss sticks were lashed upon the trailing ends, 
and skins sJnng to these made the bed, and by the addition 
of two poles bent in semicircles and fastened diagonally over 
the bed, a shelter from the sun was made by covering them 
with green branches. 
He had a slave to lead or drive the mule and lift him back 
and forth, This was a boy about sixteen, a Mexican, taken 
prisoner in some foray, dressed and painted like an Indian, 
| and apparently quite reconciled to his degraded life, the 
Be ha 
‘ioe 
; 
oon 
