Wearing their wild and primitive
costume, they stalk amid the hunters, squatters, trappers, and
trampers that frequent the neighbourhood of Fort Gibson, overtopping
them in general by a head, but still more surpassing them in the
essential virtue of sobriety and temperance--a failure in the
exercise of which would doubtless soon remove them from the
pre-eminence they now enjoy.
In a secluded valley, through which a stream that fell into the
Neosho wound its way, lay some time back one of the villages of this
nomadic tribe. The wigwams were about a hundred in number, scattered
over the narrow plain, near the mouth of the valley, and surrounded
by a rude picket. Built of bark and reeds, they were evidently
constructed simply for the necessities of the summer season, during
which the warriors chased the deer and buffalo for immediate
consumption, and to lay up in store for winter. Overlooking the
village was a grassy mound, that narrowed the mouth of the valley,
and caused the rippling stream that flowed at its feet to turn
abruptly from its course.
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