_Hunter._ He had a costly shield of the hide of a buffalo, stiffened with glue and fringed round with eagle quills and antelope hoofs; and a quiver of panther skin, well filled with deadly shafts. Some of their points were flint, and some were steel, and most of them were stained with blood. He carried a pipe, a tobacco sack, a belt, and a medicine bag; and in his right hand he held a war club like a sling, being made of a round stone wrapped up in a raw hide and fastened to a tough stick handle. _Austin._ What sort of a pipe was it? _Basil._ What was in his tobacco sack? _Brian._ You did not say what his belt was made of. _Hunter._ His pipe was made of red pipe-stone, and it had a stem of young ash, full three feet long, braided with porcupine quills in the shape of animals and men. It was also ornamented with the beaks of woodpeckers, and hairs from the tail of the white buffalo. One thing I ought not to omit; on the lower half of the pipe, which was painted red, were notched the snows, or years of his life. By this simple record of their lives, the red men of the forest and the prairie may be led to something like reflection. _Basil._ What was in his tobacco sack? _Hunter._ His flint and steel, for striking a light, and his tobacco, which was nothing more than the bark of the red willow. His medicine bag was beaver skin, adorned with ermine and hawks' bills; and his belt, in which he carried his tomahawk and scalping-knife, was formed of tough buckskin, firmly fastened round his loins. _Austin._ Please to tell us about the scalping knife. It must be a fearful instrument. _Hunter._ All instruments of cruelty, vengeance and destruction are fearful, whether in savage or civilized life. What are we, that wrath and revenge and covetousness should be fostered in our hearts! What is man, that he should shed the blood of his brother! Before the Indians had dealing with the whites, they made their own weapons: their bows were strung with the sinews of deer; their arrows were headed with flint; their knives were sharpened bone; their war-clubs were formed of wood, cut into different shapes, and armed with sharp stones; and their tomahawks, or hatchets, were of the same materials: but now, many of their weapons, such as hatchets, spear-heads, and knives, are made of iron, being procured from the whites, in exchange for the skins they obtain in the chase. A scalping-knife is oftentimes no more than a rudely formed butcher's knife, with one edge, and the Indians wear them in beautiful scabbards under their belts. _Austin._ How does an Indian scalp his enemy? _Hunter._ The hair on the crown of the head is seized with the left hand; the knife makes a circle round it through the skin, and then the hair and skin together, sometimes with the hand, and sometimes with the teeth, are forcibly torn off! The scalp may be, perhaps, as broad as my hand. _Brian._ Terrible! Scalping would be sure to kill a man, I suppose.