We never went anywhere without a race; and on this particular morning Herbert, who was the first to swing himself into the saddle, leaped his horse over the bars, and tore down the road as if all the wolves in Warren County were close at his heels.
I was the last one out of the yard, but I passed every one of our fellows before I had gone half a mile, and when I reached the outskirts of the Indian camp, they were a long way behind.
The camp, as I saw it that afternoon, did not look much like the illustrations of Indian villages which you have seen in your geographies. Instead of the clean skin-lodges, and the neatly-dressed, imposing savages which you will find in pictures, I saw before me a score of wretched brush shanties, which could afford their inmates but poor protection in stormy weather, and a hundred or more half-starved men and women, some of whom were jumping around in the mud and yelling as if they were greatly excited about something.
There were plenty of these people in Warren County at the time of which I write. They were Choctaws—the remnant of a once powerful tribe, who gained a precarious living by hunting, fishing, stealing and cotton-picking. This band had been encamped on our plantation during the last two weeks. The women had been employed by father to pick cotton, and their lords and masters were now having a glorious time over the money they had earned.
The warriors—lazy dogs, who thought it a disgrace to perform any manual labor—had remained in their wigwams, passing the days very pleasantly with their pipes, while their wives were at work in the cotton-field; but now that the crop had been gathered and the money paid, they had thrown away their pipes and picked up their bottles. In plainer language, we rode into the camp just in time to witness the beginning of a drunken Indian jubilee.
The men were dancing, shouting, fighting, wrestling, going half-hammond (a Northern boy would have called it a “hop, skip and a jump”), and trying to run races; while the women stood around in little groups, chattering like so many blackbirds, and watching all that was going on with apparently a great deal of interest.
I do not suppose that the Indian boys drank any thing stronger than the muddy water that flowed in the bayou, on the banks of which the camp was located; but, at any rate, they seemed to be animated by the same spirit that possessed their fathers, for we saw them engage in no end of fights, foot-races and wrestling matches.
Presently a smart, lively young savage, the son of the principal chief of the band, who had easily thrown every one of his companions whom he could induce to wrestle with him, stepped up to us, and fastening his eyes upon Mark, asked him if he would like to come out and try his strength. Now, if Mark had been in good health, the challenge would have been promptly accepted; and if I am any judge of boys, that young Indian would have found himself flat on the ground before he could have winked twice; but he was just recovering from an attack of his old enemy, the chills and fever, and for that reason was obliged, much to his regret, to turn a deaf ear to the Indian’s entreaties.
“Oh, yes, you come,” said the young wrestler, after Mark had told him, perhaps for the twentieth time, that he was out of condition; “I show you what Indian boy can do. I put you down as quick as lightning. Eh! You come?”
As he spoke he stepped back and spread out his sinewy arms, as if waiting for Mark to jump into them.