ersonal comfort or safety
had occurred. His ever-moving, vigilant eyes, watched the smallest
change, with the composure of one too long inured to scenes of danger
to be easily moved, and with an expression of cool determination
which denoted the intention he actually harboured, of profiting by the
smallest oversight on the part of the captors.

In the mean time the Teton warriors had not been idle. Profiting by the
high fog which grew in the bottoms, they had wormed their way through
the matted grass, like so many treacherous serpents stealing on their
prey, until the point was gained, where an extraordinary caution became
necessary to their further advance. Mahtoree, alone, had occasionally
elevated his dark, grim countenance above the herbage, straining his
eye-balls to penetrate the gloom which skirted the border of the brake.
In these momentary glances he gained sufficient knowledge, added to that
he had obtained in his former search, to be the perfect master of
the position of his intended victims, though he was still profoundly
ignorant of their numbers, and of their means of defence.

His efforts to possess himself of the requisite knowledge concerning
these two latter and essential points were, however, completely baffled
by the stillness of the camp, which lay in a quiet as deep as if it
were literally a place of the dead. Too wary and distrustful to rely, in
circumstances of so much doubt, on the discretion of any less firm and
crafty than himself, the Dahcotah bade his companions remain where they
lay, and pursued the adventure alone.

The progress of Mahtoree was now slow, and to one less accustomed to
such a species of exercise, it would have proved painfully laborious.
But the advance of the wily snake itself is not more certain or
noiseless than was his approach. He drew his form, foot by foot, through
the bending grass, pausing at each movement to catch the smallest sound
that might betray any knowledge, on the part of the travellers, of
his proximity. He succeeded, at length, in dragging himself out of the
sickly light of the moon, into the shadows of the brake, where not
only his own dark person was much less liable to be seen, but where
the surrounding objects became more distinctly visible to his keen and
active glances.

Here the Teton paused long and warily to make his observations, before
he ventured further. His position enabled him to bring the whole
encampment, with its tent, wagons, and lo