Battius. In common
with the rest of the band, and in conformity with the universal
practice of the Indians, this warrior, while he had suffered no gaze
of idle curiosity to disgrace his manhood, had not permitted a single
distinctive mark, which might characterise any one of the strangers,
to escape his vigilance. He knew the air, the stature, the dress, and
the features, even to the colour of the eyes and of the hair, of every
one of the Big-knives, whom he had thus strangely encountered, and
deeply had he ruminated on the causes, which could have led a party,
so singularly constituted, into the haunts of the rude inhabitants of
his native wastes. He had already considered the several physical
powers of the whole party, and had duly compared their abilities with
what he supposed might have been their intentions. Warriors they were
not, for the Big-knives, like the Siouxes, left their women in their
villages when they went out on the bloody path. The same objections
applied to them as hunters, and even as traders, the two characters
under which the white men commonly appeared in their villages.
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