The pipe of friendship having been smoked in due form, the Crow chief whispered a few words in the ear of a youth beside him, who disappeared immediately, and the party sat in silence until he returned, accompanied by an individual whose appearance was singular in the extreme: his head was of an enormous size, and covered with black shaggy hair; his features were coarse and forbidding, nor was their expression improved by a patch of leather plastered over the cavity which had once been occupied by his left eye; his shoulders were broad, and his arms of unusual length; his stature was scarcely five feet, and his legs were bandy, with clumsy knees, like those of a buffalo–bull: this unsightly ogre rejoiced in the name of Besha–ro–Kata, signifying, in the Crow language, “the little bison,” but he was commonly called “Besha,” or the “Bison,” the diminutive termination being omitted.
His origin was involved in a mystery that neither he nor any one else could satisfactorily explain, for he had been born in that wild region watered by the Arkansas, and his mother, a Comanche woman, was said to have divided her favours, previous to the birth of Besha, between a half–bred trader to Santa Fé, and a runaway negro from one of the southern slave–states; she died while he was yet an infant; and as he had never been owned or claimed by either of his reputed fathers, it was a miracle that he ever lived to manhood.
In his early years he hovered about the hunting parties of Osages, Comanches, Pani–picas, and other tribes, who frequented the region where he had been left to shift for himself, and at other seasons none knew whether he lived upon roots, berries, and honey, or wandered to tribes yet more remote from his birth–place. He was never known, either in summer or winter, to wear any other dress than a bison–skin with the hair outwards, in the centre of which he cut a hole, and passing his head through the aperture, wore this uncouth skin like the Poncha of the Mexicans. From these early rambling habits, he had picked up a smattering of many Indian dialects, and of these the Osage was one with which he was the most familiar; he enjoyed a high reputation among the Crows, not only from his being often useful as an interpreter, but because he was, without exception, the most skilful horse–stealer in the whole region between the Arkansas and the mountains. He was also deeply versed in the knowledge of all the properties of plants, roots, and herbs, so much so, that, unless fame wronged him, more than one of his enemies had died by the agency of subtle poison. Such was the personage who, fixing his single cunning eye upon Mahéga, inquired, on the part of the Crows, his object in paying them a visit. The conversation, rendered into English, was in substance as follows:—
Besha. “Has the Washashee come to hunt and trap among the Stony Mountains?”
Mahéga. “He has not; he has come towards the setting sun, because the enemies on his path were too many for him—he wished for peace.”
B. “Has the Washashee a name in his tribe?”
M. “He has a name; when the war–post is struck, Mahéga is not silent,” said the chief, haughtily.
B. “Mahéga!” repeated the horse–stealer, to whom the name was evidently not unknown. “Mahéga, the Red–hand!—does he wander so far from his village?”
M. “He wanders, but there is Great Medicine in his lodge; blood has been on his path, and his enemies do not laugh.”