The trapper was not ignorant, that while asses and mules were beginning to be known to those tribes who dwelt nearest the Mexicos, they were not usually encountered so far north as the waters of La Platte.

He therefore managed to read the mute astonishment, that lay so deeply concealed in the tawny visage of the savage, and took his measures accordingly.
"Does my brother think that the rider is a warrior of the Pale-faces ?" he demanded, when he believed that sufficient time had elapsed, for a full examination of the pacific mien of the naturalist.
The flash of scorn, which shot across the features of the Teton, was visible, even by the dim light of the stars.
"Is a Dahcotah a fool ?" was the answer.
"They are a wise nation, whose eyes are never shut; much do I wonder, that they have not seen the great medicine of the Big-knives!" "Wagh!" exclaimed his companion, suffering the whole of his amazement to burst out of his dark rigid countenance at the surprise, like a flash of lightning illuminating the gloom of midnight.
"The Dahcotah knows that my tongue is not forked.

Let him open his eyes wider.

Does he not see a very great medicine ?" The light was not necessary to recall to the savage each feature in the really remarkable costume and equipage of Dr.Battius.In common with the rest of the band, and in conformity with the universal practice of the Indians, this warrior, while he had suffered no gaze of idle curiosity to disgrace his manhood, had not permitted a single distinctive mark, which might characterise any one of the strangers, to escape his vigilance.

He knew the air, the stature, the dress, and the features, even to the colour of the eyes and of the hair, of every one of the Big-knives, whom he had thus strangely encountered, and deeply had he ruminated on the causes, which could have led a party, so singularly constituted, into the haunts of the rude inhabitants of his native wastes.