in his robe, with his face painted jet-black, in token that he had lately taken a Pawnee scalp.  Passing these, the tall dark lodges rose between us and the red western sky.  We repaired at once to the lodge of Old Smoke himself.  It was by no means better than the others; indeed, it was rather shabby; for in this democratic community, the chief never assumes superior state.  Smoke sat cross-legged on a buffalo robe, and his grunt of salutation as we entered was unusually cordial, out of respect no doubt to Shaw’s medical character.  Seated around the lodge were several squaws, and an abundance of children.  The complaint of Shaw’s patients was, for the most part, a severe inflammation of the eyes, occasioned by exposure to the sun, a species of disorder which he treated with some success.  He had brought with him a homeopathic medicine chest, and was, I presume, the first who introduced that harmless system of treatment among the Ogallalla.  No sooner had a robe been spread at the head of the lodge for our accommodation, and we had seated ourselves upon it, than a patient made her appearance; the chief’s daughter herself, who, to do her justice, was the best-looking girl in the village.  Being on excellent terms with the physician, she placed herself readily under his hands, and submitted with a good grace to his applications, laughing in his face during the whole process, for a squaw hardly knows how to smile.  This case dispatched, another of a different kind succeeded.  A hideous, emaciated old woman sat in the darkest corner of the lodge rocking to and fro with pain and hiding her eyes from the light by pressing the palms of both hands against her face.  At Smoke’s command, she came forward, very unwillingly, and exhibited a pair of eyes that had nearly disappeared from excess of inflammation.  No sooner had the doctor fastened his grips upon her than she set up a dismal moaning, and writhed so in his grasp that he lost all patience, but being resolved to carry his point, he succeeded at last in applying his favorite remedies.

“It is strange,” he said, when the operation was finished, “that I forgot to bring any Spanish flies with me; we must have something here to answer for a counter-irritant!”

So, in the absence of better, he seized upon a red-hot brand from the fire, and clapped it against the temple of the old squaw, who set up an unearthly howl, at which the rest of the family broke out into a laugh.

During these medical operations Smoke’s eldest squaw entered the lodge, with a sort of stone mallet in her hand.  I had observed some time before a litter of well-grown black puppies, comfortably nestled among some buffalo robes at one side; but this newcomer speedily disturbed their enjoyment; for seizing one of them by the hind paw, she dragged him out, and carrying him to the entrance of the lodge, hammered him on the head till she killed him.  Being quite conscious to what this preparation tended, I looked