It were difficult to describe the shape or colours of this extraordinary substance, except to say, in general terms, that it was nearly spherical, and exhibited all the hues of the rainbow, intermingled without reference to harmony, and without any very ostensible design.

The predominant hues were a black and a bright vermilion.

With these, however, the several tints of white, yellow, and crimson, were strangely and wildly blended.

Had this been all, it would have been difficult to have pronounced that the object was possessed of life, for it lay motionless as any stone; but a pair of dark, glaring, and moving eyeballs which watched with jealousy the smallest movement of the trapper and his companion, sufficiently established the important fact of its possessing vitality.
"Your reptile is a scouter, or I'm no judge of Indian paints and Indian deviltries!" muttered the old man, dropping the butt of his weapon to the ground, and gazing with a steady eye at the frightful object, as he leaned on its barrel, in an attitude of great composure.

"He wants to face us out of sight and reason, and make us think the head of a red-skin is a stone covered with the autumn leaf; or he has some other devilish artifice in his mind!" "Is the animal human ?" demanded the Doctor, "of the genus homo?
I had fancied it a non-descript." "It's as human, and as mortal too, as a warrior of these prairies is ever known to be.