“I go to fight white man. He take away land, and chase game away; then he take away our squaws. He take away my best squaw.” Here his voice choked, and he displayed much emotion. Pitying his misery, I endeavored to aid him, and rendered him all the assistance in my power, but death was then upon him. The medicine man was with him also, practicing his incantations. We were so constantly traveling, it wearied me beyond expression. The day after the Indian’s burial we were again on the move. CHAPTER XV. PREPARING THE CHI-CHA-CHA, OR KILLIKINNICK—ATTACK ON CAPTAIN FISK’S EMIGRANT TRAIN—FOURTEEN WHITES KILLED—A BIG HAUL OF WHISKY—A DRUNKEN DEBAUCH—I WRITE A LETTER TO CAPTAIN FISK UNDER DICTATION—POISONED INDIANS—THE TRAIN SAVED BY MY CLERICAL STRATEGY. One of the occupations given me, while resting in the villages between war times, was to prepare the bark of a red willow called killikinnick, for smoking instead of tobacco. They discovered that I could sing, and groups of idle warriors would gather around me before the tent, urging me to sing as I worked. A dreary, dreary task! chanting to please my savage companions while I rubbed and prepared the bark of willow, my heart ready to burst with grief. On the 5th of September they went to battle, and surprised a portion of Captain Fisk’s men passing in escorting an emigrant train—fourteen of whom they killed, and captured two wagons loaded with whisky, wines, and valuable articles. There was a quantity of silver-ware and stationery also taken by them. Among the articles captured and brought into camp were a number of pickles in glass jars, which the Indians tasted. The result was comical in the extreme, for there is nothing that an Indian abhors more than a strong acid. The faces they made can be imagined but not described. Thinking they might be improved by cooking, they placed the jars in the fire, when of course they exploded, very much to their disgust for the “white man’s kettles.” I could hear the firing plainly, and when they returned that night in triumph, bringing with them the plundered stores, they committed every description of extravagant demonstration. In the wild orgies which followed, they mocked and groaned in imitation of the dying, and went through a horrid mimicry of the butchery they had perpetrated. They determined to go out again, and capture a quantity of horses corralled in the neighborhood, and sweep the train and soldiers with wholesale massacre; but they feared the white man’s cannon, and deliberated on means of surprising by ambush, which is their only idea of warfare. Indians are not truly brave, though they are vain of the name of courage. Cunning, stealth, strategy, and deceit are the weapons they use in attack. They endure pain, because they are taught from infancy that it is cowardly to flinch, but they will never stand to fight if they can strike secretly and escape.