Here She-wee-she
took a sudden notion to visit his people, and show off the state of
worldly prosperity to which he had so suddenly attained. He accordingly
departed in the morning, arrayed in hunter's style, and well appointed
with everything benefitting his vocation. The buoyancy of his gait, the
elasticity of his step, and the hilarity of his countenance, showed that
he anticipated, with chuckling satisfaction, the surprise he was about
to give those who had ejected him from their society in rags. But what
a change was there in his whole appearance when he rejoined the party in
the evening! He came skulking into camp like a beaten cur, with his tail
between his legs. All his finery was gone; he was naked as when he was
born, with the exception of a scanty flap that answered the purpose of a
fig leaf. His fellow-travellers at first did not know him, but supposed
it to be some vagrant Root Digger sneaking into the camp; but when they
recognized in this forlorn object their prime wag, She-wee-she, whom
they had seen depart in the morning in such high glee and high feather,
they could not contain their merriment, but hailed him with loud and
repeated peals of laughter.
She-wee-she was not of a spirit to be easily cast down; he soon joined
in the merriment as heartily as any one, and seemed to consider his
reverse of fortune an excellent joke. Captain Bonneville, however,
thought proper to check his good-humor, and demanded, with some degree
of sternness, the cause of his altered condition.
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