As an Indian was straying through a village on the Kennebec, he passed a
gentleman standing at his store door, and begged a piece of tobacco. The
person stepped back, and selected a generous piece, for which he received
a gruff "tank you," and thought no more of the affair. Three or four
months afterwards, he was surprised at an Indian's coming into the store
and presenting him with a beautiful miniature birch canoe, painted and
furnished with paddles to correspond. On asking the meaning of it, he was
told, "Indian no forget; you give me tobacco; me make this for you." This
man's gratitude for a trifling favor had led him to bestow more labor on
his present than would have purchased him many pounds of his favorite
weed.
[Illustration: Indian Chief.]
INDIAN OBSERVATION.
On his return home to his hut one day, an Indian discovered that his
venison, which had been hung up to dry, had been stolen. After going
some distance, he met some persons, of whom he inquired if they had seen a
_little, old, white_ man, with a short gun, and accompanied by a small dog
with a bob-tail. They replied in the affirmative; and upon the Indian's
assuring them that the man thus described had stolen his venison, they
desired to be informed how he was able to give such a minute description
of a person whom he had not seen. The Indian answered thus:
"The thief I know is a _little_ man, by his having made a pile of stones
in order to reach the venison from the height I hung it standing on the
ground; that he is an _old_ man, I know by his short steps, which I have
traced over the dead leaves in the woods; that he is a _white_ man, I know
by his turning out his toes when he walks, which an Indian never does; his
gun I know to be short by the mark which the muzzle made by rubbing the
bark of the tree on which it leaned; that his dog is small, I know by his
tracks; and that he has a bob-tail I discovered by the mark of it in the
dust where he was sitting at the time his master was taking down the
meat."
INDIAN STRATAGEM.
In one of the frequent wars among the different tribes of Indians, a
Pequot was pursued by a Narraganset Indian. The Pequot skulked behind a
rock, and raising his hat on his gun, held it up just above the rock, so
that the hat alone was visible on the other side.
The Narraganset, who was at some distance, perceiving the hat, and
supposing of course that the head of the Pequot was in it, crept softly up
within a few feet and fired. But directly he had the mortification to find
that he had thrown away his powder. The Pequot's gun was still loaded, and
he discharged it to effect upon the poor Narraganset.
[Illustration: Oregon Indians.]
RED JACKET.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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