“At times, the singing and dancing were interrupted; adorned with flying hair and skins, a warrior walked into the circle, raised his tomahawk, and struck the post a smart blow, as a signal that he was going to describe his hero deeds. Then he began to narrate in a loud voice, and very fluently, some horrible story in which he had played the chief part. He swung the tomahawk, and pointed to the scars and wounds on his naked body in confirmation of his story, giving the post a heavy blow now and then. Many had painted their scars a blood-red colour, and their gesticulations were most striking when they described the glorious moment of scalping. Although surrounded by many kind interpreters, who translated all that was said at once into English or French, I fear it would lead me too far were I to write down all that was said. Here is a specimen, however:-- “Many speeches were begun in a humorous fashion. One little fellow bounded into the circle, and after striking the post, went on, ‘My friends, that I am little you can all see, and I require no witnesses to that. But to believe that I, little as I am, once killed a giant of a Sioux, you will need witnesses.’ And then he plucked two witnesses out of the circle. ‘You and you were present;’ and then he told the story just as it had occurred. Another with a long rattlesnake’s skin round his head, and leaning on his lance, told his story objectively, just as a picture would be described: “‘Once we Ojibbeways set out against the Sioux. We were one hundred. One of ours, a courageous man, a man of the right stamp, impatient for distinction, separated from the others, and crept onward into the enemy’s country. The man discovered a party of the foe, two men, two women, and three children. He crept round them like a wolf, he crawled up to them like a snake, he fell upon them like lightning, cut down the two men and scalped them. The screaming women and children he seized by the arm and threw them as prisoners to his friends who had hastened up at his war yell; and this lightning, this snake, this wolf, this man, my friends, that was I. I have spoken.’ [Illustration: North American Weapons.] “In most of the stories told us, however, I could trace very little that was heroic. Many of them, in fact, appeared a description of the way in which a cunning wolf attacked and murdered a lamb.