To me, the dressing-up was a joke; to her, a sacred rite, the putting on of manliness and honor. With each new garment, she recited prayers: as I put on the buckskin leggings and war-shirt, with their delicious perfume of wood smoke, the parfleche-soled moccasins, from which the Blackfoot nation takes its name, and the broad belt studded with brass carpet tacks. Then she gave me a painted robe of buffalo cow-skin, and showed me how to carry myself with the medicine-iron, a .45-70 Winchester.
Perhaps I should mention that Rich Mixed flew at and bit this Indian, before he realized that the person inside was me. But I had never been so pleased.
Let me confess most humbly to an unusual strength and grace of body, the carriage of a gentleman, and a most lamentable face: the pinched forehead and strong features of an Indian, the pointed ears, the devilish eyes and brows, and wide flexible mouth of a faun. In civilized clothing, I had been grotesque; but there was mystery in the Indian dress, which made me for the first time real and natural. I had always a passionate sick craving for all things beautiful, a fierce delight in color, line, proportion, harmony, and now with the change of dress was no longer hideous. I had come to my own, and while Rain struck camp, ran yelling with delight to round up her herd of ponies.
At this point, I should pause to be sententious with sentimental comment on all the blessings I had left behind me:
Item. My worthy aunt, damp with many tears, but much relieved. She had hopefully predicted my untimely end.
Item. My pernicious uncle, who in due time appeared before a judge in Chambers asking leave to presume my brother's death and mine, so that his wife might have our heritage.
Item. My prospects. Mine was the only kind of education which can be guaranteed to turn out drunken wasters.
Item. Winnipeg. This city was supported at the time by the single industry of cheating in real estate. I had been offered employment as a cheat.
Item. The House of the Red Lamp, where my guests of the night before awaited me.
II