Austin. What a desperate fellow! Bold as a lion, I will be bound for it. Had he no weapons about him?
Hunter. Oh, yes! He held in his left hand a two-edged spear of polished steel, with a shaft of tough ash, and ornamented with tufts of war-eagle quills. His bow, beautifully white, was formed of bone, strengthened with the sinews of deer, drawn tight over the back of it; the bow-string was a three-fold twist of sinews. Seldom had its twang been heard, without an enemy or a buffalo falling to the earth; and rarely had that lance been urged home, without finding its way to some victim’s heart.
Austin. Yes; I thought he was a bold fellow.
Hunter. He had a costly shield of the hide of a buffalo, stiffened with glue and fringed round with eagle quills and antelope hoofs; and a quiver of panther skin, well filled with deadly shafts. Some of their points were flint, and some were steel, and most of them were stained with blood. He carried a pipe, a tobacco sack, a belt, and a medicine bag; and in his right hand he held a war club like a sling, being made of a round stone wrapped up in a raw hide and fastened to a tough stick handle.
Austin. What sort of a pipe was it?
Basil. What was in his tobacco sack?
Brian. You did not say what his belt was made of.
Hunter. His pipe was made of red pipe-stone, and it had a stem of young ash, full three feet long, braided with porcupine quills in the shape of animals and men. It was also ornamented with the beaks of woodpeckers, and hairs from the tail of the white buffalo. One thing I ought not to omit; on the lower half of the pipe, which was painted red, were notched the snows, or years of his life. By this simple record of their lives, the red men of the forest and the prairie may be led to something like reflection.
Basil. What was in his tobacco sack?
Hunter. His flint and steel, for striking a light, and his tobacco, which was nothing more than the bark of the red willow. His medicine bag was beaver skin, adorned with ermine and hawks’ bills; and his belt, in which he carried his tomahawk and scalping-knife, was formed of tough buckskin, firmly fastened round his loins.