the water, and, seizing him in her
mouth, brought him ashore in a half-drowned condition. She afterwards
brought the others ashore one by one, but the poor little things were
dead.

And now we come to the harrowing part of our tale, for the proper
understanding of which the foregoing dissertation was needful.

One beautiful afternoon, in that charming season of the American year
called the Indian summer, there came a family of Sioux Indians to the
Mustang Valley, and pitched their tent close to the block-house. A
young hunter stood leaning against the gate-post of the palisades,
watching the movements of the Indians, who, having just finished
a long "palaver" or talk with Major Hope, were now in the act of
preparing supper. A fire had been kindled on the greensward in front
of the tent, and above it stood a tripod, from which depended a large
tin camp-kettle. Over this hung an ill-favoured Indian woman, or
squaw, who, besides attending to the contents of the pot, bestowed
sundry cuffs and kicks upon her little child, which sat near to her
playing with several Indian curs that gambolled round the fire. The
master of the family and his two sons reclined on buffalo robes,
smoking their stone pipes or calumets in silence. There was nothing
peculiar in their appearance. Their faces were neither dignified nor
coarse in expression, but wore an aspect of stupid apathy, which
formed a striking contrast to the countenance of the young hunter, who
seemed an amused spectator of their proceedings.

The youth referred to was very unlike, in many respects, to what we
are accustomed to suppose a backwoods hunter should be. He did
not possess that quiet gravity and staid demeanour which often
characterize these men. True, he was tall and strongly made, but no
one would have called him stalwart, and his frame indicated grace and
agility rather than strength. But the point about him which rendered
him different from his companions was his bounding, irrepressible
flow of spirits, strangely coupled with an intense love of solitary
wandering in the woods. None seemed so well fitted for social
enjoyment as he; none laughed so heartily, or expressed such glee in
his mischief-loving eye; yet for days together he went off alone into
the forest, and wandered where his fancy led him, as grave and silent
as an Indian warrior.

After all, there was nothing mysterious in this. The boy followed
implicitly the dictates of nature within him. He wa