THE GEORGE CATLIN INDIAN GALLERY. 517 



11 * Oh, Ba'tiste, for Heaven's sake stop your laughing and go to sleep ; we'll talk and 

 laugh about this all day to-morrow.' 



" 'Pard6n, Monsieur Cataline (excusez), have you got some slips f ' 



u ' No, Ba'tiste, I have not been asleep. Bogard has been entertaining me these two 

 hours, whilst you was asleep, with a description of a buffalo hunt which took place 

 at the mouth of Yellowstone about a year ago. It must have been altogether a most 

 splendid and thrilling scene, and I have been paying the strictest attention to it, for 

 I intend to write it down and send it to New York for the cits to read.' 



" ' I likee dat much, Monsieur Cataline, and I shall take much plaisir pour voua 

 donner to give de"script of someting, provide you will write him down, ha V 



11 ' Well Ba'tiste, go on ; I am endeavoring to learn everything that's curious and en- 

 tertaining belonging to this country/ 



" ' Well Monsieur Cataline, I shall tell you someting very much entertain, mais, 

 but, you will nevare tell somebody how we have been fix to night, ha ? ' 



" 'No, Ba'tiste, most assuredly I shall never mention it nor make painting of it.' 



" ' Well, je commence — diable, Bogard ! you shall keep your back straight, you must 

 sit up, ou il n'est pas possible for to keep de robe ovare all. Je commence, Monsieur 

 Cataline, to describe some dog feast, which I attend among de dam Pieds noirs. I 

 shall describe some grande, magnifique ceremonay, and you will write him down ? ' 



" * Yes, I'll put it on paper.' 



" ' Pard6n, pard6n, I am get most to slip ; I shall tell him to-morrow, perhaps I 

 shall eh bien, but you will nevare tell how we look, ha! Monsieur Cataline?' 



" ' No Ba'tiste, I'll never mention it.' 



" 'Eh bien bon nuit.' 



11 In this condition we sat, and in this manner we nodded away the night, as far as 

 I recollect of it, catching the broken bits of sleep (that were even painful to us when 

 we got them), until the morning's rays at length gave us a view of the scene that was 

 around us. Oh, all ye brick-makers, ye plasterers, and soft-soap manufacturers, put 

 all your imaginations in a ferment together and see if ye can invent a scene like this ! 

 Here was a fix to be sure. The sun arose in splendor and in full upon this everlast- 

 ing and boundless scene of saft soap and grease, which admitted us not to move. The 

 whole hill was constituted entirely of tough clay, and on each side and above us 

 there was no possibility of escape ; and one single step over the brink of the place 

 where we had ascended would inevitably have launched us into the river below, the 

 distance of a hundred feet ! Here, looking like hogs just risen from a mud puddle, 

 or a buffalo bull in his wallow, we sat (and had to sit) admiring the widespread and 

 beautiful landscape that lay sleeping and smoking before us, and our little boat, that 

 looked like a nutshell beneath us, hanging at the shore ; telling stories and filling up. 

 the while with nonsensical garrulity, until the sun's warming rays had licked up the 

 mud, and its dried surface, about eleven o'clock, gave us foothold, when we cautiously 

 but safely descended to the bottom ; and then, at the last jump, which brought his 

 feet to terra firma, Ba'tiste exclaimed, 'Well, we have cheatee de dam muskeet, ha !' " 



And this, reader, is not the story, but one of the little incidents which stood ex- 

 actly in the way, and could not well be got over without a slight notice, being abso- 

 lutely necessary as a key or kind of glossary for the proper understanding of the 

 tale that is to be told. There is blood and butchery in the story that is now to be 

 related; and it should be read by every one who would form a correct notion of the 

 force of Indian superstitions. 



Three mighty warriors, proud and valiant, licked the dust, and all in consequence 

 of one of the portraits I painted ; and as my brush was the prime mover of all these 

 misfortunes, and my life was sought to heal the wound, I must be supposed to be 

 knowing to and familiar with the whole circumstances, which were as — I was going 

 to say — as follow, but my want of time and your want of patience compel me to break 

 off here, and I promise to go right on with the story of the Dog in my next letter, and 

 I advise the reader not to neglect or overlook it. 



