"Forwards!" Natah Otann said, taking the head of the column again with the Count and his companions.
The whole troop set out at a gallop in the direction of the American camp, taking the cattle in their midst.
[CHAPTER VIII.]
THE EXILE.
We are compelled, for the proper comprehension of the facts that will follow, to break off our story for a moment, in order to describe a strange adventure which happened on the Western Prairies some thirty odd years before our story opens.
The Indians, whom people insist so wrongly, in our opinion, in regarding as savages, have certain customs which display a thorough knowledge of the human heart. The Comanches, who appear to remember that in old times they enjoyed a far advanced civilization, have retained the largest amount of those customs which are, certainly, stamped with originality.
One day in the month of February, which they call the Moon of the Arriving Eagles, and in the year 1795 or 1796, a village of the Red Cow tribe was in a state of extraordinary agitation. The hachesto, or public speaker, mounted on the roof of a lodge, summoned the warriors for the seventh hour of the day to the village square, near the ark of the first man, where a grand council would be held. The warriors asked each other in vain the purport of this unforeseen meeting, but no one could tell them: the hachesto himself was ignorant, and they were obliged to await the hour of assembling, although the comments and suppositions still went on to a great extent.
The Redskins, whom badly-informed authors represent to us as cold, silent men, are, on the contrary, very gay, and remarkable gossips when together. What has caused the contrary supposition is, that in their relations with white men the Indians are, in the first place, checked by the difficulties of the language—equally insurmountable, by the way, for both parties—and next by the distrust which every American native feels towards Europeans, whoever they may be, owing to the inveterate hatred that separates the two races.
During our lengthened residence among Indian tribes we often had opportunities for noticing what mistakes are made with respect to the Redskins. During their long evening gossips in the villages, or the hunting expeditions, there was a rolling fire of jokes and witticisms, often lasting whole hours, to the great delight of the audience, who laughed that hearty Indian laugh, without care or afterthought, which cleaves the mouth to the ears, and draws tears of delight,—a laugh which, for metallic resonance, can only be compared with that of negroes, though the former is far more spiritual than the latter, whose notes have ever something bestial about them.