Page:Early western travels, 1748-1846 (1907 Volume 8).djvu/74

 shirt, and that very bloody, looking as though he had been engaged in some severe conflict. When he came up he seized me by the shoulder and held me fast, and kept his continual whooping and yelling, which almost stunned me. He was very drunk, and kept reeling backward and forward, which occasioned me to do the same, as his nervous arm made such a grip on my shoulder it was impossible for me to extricate myself. Sometimes he would bear me to the ground, and most of his weight would be upon me. Trying to give signs that I was sick, he laughed; I then called him bobashela, which is their word for brother; this pleased him, and having a bottle of whiskey in his other hand, he put it to my mouth saying good. I opened my mouth, and he thrust the neck of the bottle seemingly down my throat, the whiskey ran out, and strangled me badly, and {42} when I sat to coughing and choking, he burst out into a loud laugh and let go of my shoulders. He was a stout, tall man, had a long knife by his side, and put his hand several times on it, but exhibited no appearance of injuring me; yet, from his drunken situation, I thought I had considerable to fear. I repeated the word brother several times, when he looked sharp at me a few moments, and uttering a loud scream, left me to pursue my way, happy that the word bobashela had been my protection. About half an hour after this, coming round a large bend in the road, I saw twenty or thirty Indians, men, squaws and papooses, all formed in a circle. On coming up with them, I endeavored to pass, but one caught me by my pack and pulled me partly into the ring; another pulled, and another, seemingly half a dozen pulling different ways, talking, laughing, whooping, and hallooing, and I in the midst, without means of defence or chance of escape. I endeavored to make signs of sickness, but to no effect; soon a tall, old Indian stepped up and spoke