Days And Weeks Made Me Familiar With It, But Never
Impaired Its Effect Upon My Fancy.
As we moved on the broken column grew yet more scattered and
disorderly, until, as we approached the foot of a hill, I saw the old
men before mentioned seating themselves in a line upon the ground, in
advance of the whole.
They lighted a pipe and sat smoking, laughing,
and telling stories, while the people, stopping as they successively
came up, were soon gathered in a crowd behind them. Then the old men
rose, drew their buffalo robes over their shoulders, and strode on as
before. Gaining the top of the hill, we found a very steep declivity
before us. There was not a minute's pause. The whole descended in a
mass, amid dust and confusion. The horses braced their feet as they
slid down, women and children were screaming, dogs yelping as they
were trodden upon, while stones and earth went rolling to the bottom.
In a few moments I could see the village from the summit, spreading
again far and wide over the plain below.
At our encampment that afternoon I was attacked anew by my old
disorder. In half an hour the strength that I had been gaining for a
week past had vanished again, and I became like a man in a dream.
But at sunset I lay down in the Big Crow's lodge and slept, totally
unconscious till the morning. The first thing that awakened me was a
hoarse flapping over my head, and a sudden light that poured in upon
me.
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