Red Plume — page 71: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A GHOST. | to him, and he barked no more. I counted the Jodges, as many as I could, and saw what chiefs were there. Some war- riors were talking, and [I listened, and heard them speak of a great war-party. I left the village, and went to the river- side, among the bushes. Then I‘came-back to mect you, and tell you what I had seen and heard.’ Iwas just beyond the lodges, and was walking fast, when there suddenly rose out’ of | the ground a great, tall form, all covered with ‘a scarlet blanket. I raised my knife, for I thought I had met a Black- foot warrior, when the blanket fell off, and T saw before me the spirit of the man I slew—TI saw Nip-muck-we !” Here the renegade shuddered, and covered his eyes with his hands, as if the fearful object was again before him, and the trapper and the Delaware looked at each other, as if they were more than halfready to share his terrer. “T shut my eyes for a moment,” continued Red Plime, “because I was so afraid, for I had never seen a spirit before, . and this was the spirit of the man I had killed. It makes me ~afraid now, when I think of his eyes, that were like balls of fire, and the hand that pointed at me, that’ shone like the fire we see in rotten wood. I opened my eyes, but he was gone ~—hé had sunk into the ground again.~ I looked no more, but ran, and hardly knew what I did, until I met you here.” It must be confessed that Bush and the Delaware did not entirely disbelieve this tale of the supernatural; in fact, they were strongly inclined to credit it. .Their‘opinions on ‘that point, though not then expressed to” each other, were quite Similar. They did not doubt the current report among the Blackfeet, that the Fat Bear had been raised. to life by Eben Gookin ; but they thought it highly probable that the Indians, by somé “ Yankee trick,” had been imposed upon. If Eben had really cured him, it was not likely that the chief would have been out at night, beyond the lodges, and would have appeared and disappeared in such a mysterious manner. The great terror of Red Plume, and their own supernatural im- pulses, persuaded them that the chief cither had not been resuscitated, or had afterward died “again ;’ and what was more probable than that his spirit. should visit his murderer ? This view of the case, however, was not the proper one to present to the renegade, whose services were necessary to “= connicloooks.con