an believed the active and
courageous young stranger was lost.

Nothing could be distinguished but a dark mass of human forms tossed
and involved in inexplicable confusion. Arms, gleaming knives, and
formidable clubs appeared, above them, but the blows were evidently
given at random. The awful effect was heightened by the piercing
shrieks of the women and the fierce yells of the warriors. Now and
then Duncan caught a glimpse of a light form cleaving the air in some
desperate bound, and he rather hoped than believed that the captive
yet retained the command of his astonishing powers of activity.
Suddenly the multitude rolled backward, and approached the spot where
he himself stood. The heavy body in the rear prest upon the women and
children in front, and bore them to the earth. The stranger reappeared
in the confusion. Human power could not, however, much longer endure
so severe a trial....

There was no term of abuse known to the Huron vocabulary that the
disappointed women did not lavishly expend on the successful stranger.
They flouted at his efforts, and told him with bitter scoffs that his
feet were better than his hands, and that he merited wings, while he
knew not the use of an arrow or a knife. To all this the captive made
no reply, but was content to preserve an attitude in which dignity was
singularly blended with disdain. Exasperated as much by his composure
as by his good fortune, their words became unintelligible, and were
succeeded by shrill piercing yells. Just then the crafty squaw who had
taken the necessary precautions to fire the piles made her way through
the throng, and cleared a place for herself in front of the captive.
The squalid and withered person of this hag might well have obtained
for her the character of possessing more than human cunning. Throwing
back her light vestment, she Stretched forth her long skinny arm in
derision, and using the language of the Lenape, as more intelligible
to the subject of her gibes, she commenced aloud:

"Look you, Delaware," she said, snapping her fingers in his face,
"your nation is a race of women, and the hoe is better fitted to your
hands than the gun. Your squaws are the mothers of deer; but if a bear
or a wild cat or a serpent were born among you, ye would flee. The
Huron girls shall make you petticoats, and we will find you a
husband."

A burst of savage laughter succeeded this attack, during which the
soft and musical merriment of the younger fema