These marvels shook his previous opinion touching the
other matters; and, altogether, the effect was to elevate the bee-
hunter to a height, that it really appeared dangerous to assail.
While Peter was thus shaken with doubts--and that, too, on a point
on which he had hitherto stood as firm as a rock--there was another
in the crowd, who noted the growing favor of le Bourdon with deep
disgust. This man could hardly be termed a chief, though he
possessed a malignant power that was often wielded to the
discomfiture of those who were. He went by the significant
appellation of "The Weasel," a sobriquet that had been bestowed on
him for some supposed resemblance to the little pilfering, prowling
quadruped after which he was thus named. In person, and in physical
qualities generally, this individual was mean and ill-favored; and
squalid habits contributed to render him even less attractive than
he might otherwise have been. He was, moreover, particularly
addicted to intemperance; lying, wallowing like a hog, for days at a
time, whenever his tribe received any of the ample contribution of
fire-water, which it was then more the custom than it is to-day, to
send among the aborigines.
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