"He is very old:
has he made a journey to the far country; and has he been at the
trouble to come back, to tell the young men what he has seen?"
"Teton," returned the trapper, throwing the breach of his rifle to the
earth with startling vehemence, and regarding his companion with
steady serenity, "I have heard that there are men, among my people,
who study their great medicines until they believe themselves to be
gods, and who laugh at all faith except in their own vanities. It may
be true. It is true; for I have seen them. When man is shut up in
towns and schools, with his own follies, it may be easy to believe
himself greater than the Master of Life; but a warrior, who lives in a
house with the clouds for its roof, where he can at any moment look
both at the heavens and at the earth, and who daily sees the power of
the Great Spirit, should be more humble. A Dahcotah chieftain ought to
be too wise to laugh at justice."
The crafty Mahtoree, who saw that his free-thinking was not likely to
produce a favourable impression on the old man, instantly changed his
ground, by alluding to the more immediate subject of their interview.
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