An old, theatrical-looking Indian stood with arms folded, looking up to the heavens, from which the rain clashed and the thunder reverberated; his air was French-Roman; that is, more Romanesque than Roman.

The Indian ponies, much excited, kept careering through the wood, around the encampment, and now and then, halting suddenly, would thrust in their intelligent, though amazed faces, as if to ask their masters when this awful pother would cease, and then, after a moment, rush and trample off again.
At last we got away, well wetted, but with a picturesque scene for memory.

At a house where we stopped to get dry, they told us that this wandering band (of Pottawattamies), who had returned, on a visit, either from homesickness, or need of relief, were extremely destitute.
The women had been there to see if they could barter for food their head-bands, with which they club their hair behind into a form not unlike a Grecian knot.

They seemed, indeed, to have neither food, utensils, clothes, nor bedding; nothing but the ground, the sky, and their own strength.

Little wonder if they drove off the game! Part of the same band I had seen in Milwaukee, on a begging dance.
The effect of this was wild and grotesque.