It soon replaced the buffalo robe upon mine; my boots were cast aside, and my legs encased in the scalp-fringed leggings; my hips were swathed in the leathern “breech-clout;” and my feet thrust into the foot-gear of the Comanche, which, by good fortune, fitted to a hair.
There was yet much required to make me an Indian. Comanches upon the war-trail go naked from the waist upward—the tunic-shirt is only worn by them, when hunting, or on ordinary occasions. How was I to counterfeit the copper skin—the bronzed arms and shoulders?—the mottled breast—the face of red, and white, and black? Paint only could aid me; and where was paint to be procured? The black we could imitate with gunpowder, but—
“Wagh!” ejaculated Rube, who was seen holding in his hands a wolf-skin, prettily trimmed and garnished with quills and beads—the medicine-bag of the Indian. “Wagh! I thort we’d find the mateeruls in the niggur’s possible-sack—hyur they be!”
Rube had dived his hand to the bottom of the embroidered bag; and, while speaking, drew it triumphantly forth. Several little leathern packets appeared between his fingers, which, from their stained outsides, evidently contained pigments of various colours; whilst a small shining object in their midst proved, on closer inspection, to be a looking-glass!
Neither the trappers nor myself were astonished at finding these odd “notions” in such a place; on the contrary, it was natural we should have looked for them there. Seldom in peace, but never in time of war, does the Indian ride abroad without his rouge and his mirror!
The colours were of the right sort, and corresponded exactly with those that glittered upon the skin of the captive warrior.
Under the keen edge of a bowie, my moustaches came off in a twinkling: a little grease was procured; the paints were mixed; and placing myself side by side with the Indian, I stood for his portrait. Rube was the painter—a piece of soft buckskin his brush—the broad palm of Garey his palette.
The operation did not last a great while. In twenty minutes it was all over; and the Indian brave and I appeared the exact counterparts of each other. Streak by streak, and spot by spot, had the old trapper imitated those hideous hieroglyphics—even to the red hand upon the breast, and the cross upon the brow. In horrid aspect, the copy quite equalled the original.
One thing was still lacking—an important element in the metamorphosis of disguise: I wanted the long snaky black tresses that adorned the head of the Comanche.
The want was soon supplied. Again the bowie blade was called upon to serve as scissors; and with Garey to perform the tonsorial feat, the chevelure of the Indian was shorn of its flowing glories.