And the worst feature of the case was that the Lone Wolf could not make a new "medicine." Since the Great Spirit invented the institution of "medicine" and placed it upon earth, all men have known that one may create his "medicine" but once. Any second attempt serves only to introduce one to a covey of malevolent spirits, whose power will be exercised to wet one's bowstring, blunt one's arrow, lame one's pony, and break one's lance. No, the Lone Wolf could not make another "medicine."
About an even century before the Lone Wolf slumped into that quicksand crossing of the Beaver, and was robbed by the waters of his otter-skin "medicine," Mr. Goldsmith wrote a three act oratorio, called it "The Captivity" and sold it to Dodsley for ten guineas. Among other tuneful commodities in said oratorio contained, Mr. Goldsmith penned the following:
The wretch condemned with life to part, Still, still on hope relies; And every pang that rends the heart Bids expectation rise.
Hope, like the gleaming taper's light, Adorns and cheers our way; And still as darker grows the night, Emits a brighter ray.
Since he knew neither the one nor the other, it is fair to assume that when Mr. Goldsmith wrote the above he was thinking as deeply on the Lone Wolf as on you. Certainly the habit of hope therein set forth is as prevalently sweeping among savages as among civilised folk. The Indian does not hope for the same things, but to what extent and in what direction his anticipations stray he hopes as industriously as ever hoped any white man of you all. And so it was with the unhappy Lone Wolf. In this, his darkest hour, there remained the glimmer of a hope.
When the Great Spirit fixed his commands against making a second "medicine," a fiat necessary lest a "medicine" easily replaced degenerate to be a trivial gewgaw creature of small moment, he left open, should one lose one's "medicine," a single gateway of relief. One might conquer, in such pinch, an enemy, strip him of his personal "medicine," and thus redeem one's self. The "medicine" of that dead foe would take the place of the lost "medicine," and by its virtues rehabilitate the victor and restore him unto what tribal place was his before his own original "medicine" had disappeared.