less credulous perhaps than the others, eyed Tchatka with stern and threatening looks every time that he appeared in public. But as he lived retired, rarely quitting his lodge, their disdain and aversion for him were not much remarked. Besides, as I have already observed, he had a numerous band of relatives; the members of his family, on whom he could rely, with his partisans, formed a fourth part of all the camps, or about eighty lodges.
Tchatka was well persuaded that a politic stroke was still necessary to gain the undecided, the discontented, and the incredulous. Circumstances seemed to favor this measure; he resolved to have recourse to it while the prodigy of the stone was still fresh in their memory. It has occasionally happened, too, that on the death of a chief, a numerous camp divides into different companies, above all if there had existed any anterior discord. Tchatka, therefore, shut himself in his lodge during several days, without communicating openly with any one. The camp expected something marvelous. The causes of this long retreat were discussed; they lost themselves in conjectures; all, however, were fully persuaded that some new manifestation, either good or evil, would be the result. On the fifth day of Tchatka's retreat, a general uneasiness was manifested among the savages, and they spoke of dividing.
What was the famous Tchatka, the Great Medicine-the hope of some, and the terror of others -- doing? Nothing else than making a drum, or tchant-cheega-kabo, of dimensions that never any Indian had imagined. Some time beforehand, in the premeditation of his exploit, he had secretly sawed a piece of an enormous hollow tree, very
suitable to his design. Its height three feet, and its breadth two, his drum resembled a churn. One end was covered with goat skin, and the other only with wood. He employed several days in cutting and scraping the interior of this