."

Although the eldest of the group, he was still young,--twenty-five,
perhaps. He was tall, strong, alert, with a narrow, long face; dark,
slow eyes, that had a serious, steadfast expression; dark brown hair,
braided in the queue often discarded by the hunters of this day. A
certain staid, cautious sobriety of manner hardly assorted with the
rough-and-ready import of his garb and the adventurous place and time.
Both he and the younger man, who was in fact a mere boy not yet
seventeen, but tall, muscular, sinewy,--stringy, one might say,--of
build, were dressed alike in loose hunting-shirts of buckskin, heavily
fringed, less for the sake of ornament than the handiness of a selection
of thongs always ready to be detached for use; for the same reason the
deerskin leggings, reaching to the thighs over the knee-breeches and
long stockings of that day, were also furnished with these substantial
fringes; shot-pouch and powder-horn were suspended from a leather belt,
and on the other side a knife-hilt gleamed close to the body. Both wore
coonskin caps, but that of the younger preserved the tail to hang down
like a plume among his glossy brown tangles of curls, which, but for a
bit of restraining ribbon, resisted all semblance to the gentility of a
queue. The boy was like his brother in the clear complexion and the
color of the dark eyes and hair, but the expression of his eyes was
wild, alert, and although fired with the earnest ardor of first youth,
they had certain roguish intimations, subdued now since they were still
and seriously expectant, but which gave token how acceptably he could
play that cherished _role_, to a secluded and isolated fireside, of
family buffoon, and make gay mirth for the applause of the
chimney-corner. The brothers were both shod with deerskin buskins, but
the other two of the party wore the shoe of civilization,--one a
brodequin, that despite its rough and substantial materials could but
reflect a grace from the dainty foot within it; the other showed the
stubby shapes deemed meet for the early stages of the long tramp of
life. The little girl's shoes were hardly more in evidence than the
mother's, for the skirts of children were worn long, and only now and
then was betrayed a facetious skip of some active toes in the blunt
foot-gear. Their dresses were of the same material, a heavy gray serge,
which fact gave the little one much satisfaction, for she considered
that it made them resemble the cow