I am a wild man of the prairies; my body is
naked; my hands empty; my skin red. I have struck the Pawnees, the
Konzas, the Omahaws, the Osages, and even the Long-knives. I am a man
amid warriors, but a woman among the conjurors. Let my father speak:
the ears of the Teton are open. He listens like a deer to the step of
the cougar."
"Such are the wise and uns'archable ways of One who alone knows good
from evil!" exclaimed the trapper, in English. "To some He grants
cunning, and on others He bestows the gift of manhood! It is humbling,
and it is afflicting to see so noble a creatur' as this, who has fou't
in many a bloody fray, truckling before his superstition like a beggar
asking for the bones you would throw to the dogs. The Lord will
forgive me for playing with the ignorance of the savage, for He knows
I do it in no mockery of his state, or in idle vaunting of my own; but
in order to save mortal life, and to give justice to the wronged,
while I defeat the deviltries of the wicked! Teton," speaking again in
the language of the listener, "I ask you, is not that a wonderful
medicine? If the Dahcotahs are wise, they will not breathe the air he
breathes, nor touch his robes.
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