f his active frame, while she leaned dependently on his arm
for support.

The shallow honesty, as well as the besetting infirmity of Weucha, have
already been exhibited. The reader, therefore, will not be surprised
to learn that he was the first to forget the regulations he had himself
imposed. It was at the precise moment when we left Mahtoree yielding to
his nearly ungovernable delight, as he surveyed the number and quality
of Ishmael's beasts of burden, that the man he had selected to watch his
captives chose to indulge in the malignant pleasure of tormenting
those it was his duty to protect. Bending his head nigh the ear of the
trapper, the savage rather muttered than whispered--

"If the Tetons lose their great chief by the hands of the
Long-knives[*], old shall die as well as young!"

[*] The whites are so called by the Indians, from their swords.

"Life is the gift of the Wahcondah," was the unmoved reply. "The
burnt-wood warrior must submit to his laws, as well as his other
children. Men only die when he chooses; and no Dahcotah can change the
hour."

"Look!" returned the savage, thrusting the blade of his knife before the
face of his captive. "Weucha is the Wahcondah of a dog."

The old man raised his eyes to the fierce visage of his keeper, and, for
a moment, a gleam of honest and powerful disgust shot from their deep
cells; but it instantly passed away, leaving in its place an expression
of commiseration, if not of sorrow.

"Why should one made in the real image of God suffer his natur' to be
provoked by a mere effigy of reason?" he said in English, and in
tones much louder than those in which Weucha had chosen to pitch the
conversation. The latter profited by the unintentional offence of
his captive, and, seizing him by the thin, grey locks, that fell from
beneath his cap, was on the point of passing the blade of his knife in
malignant triumph around their roots, when a long, shrill yell rent
the air, and was instantly echoed from the surrounding waste, as if a
thousand demons opened their throats in common at the summons. Weucha
relinquished his grasp, and uttered a cry of exultation.

"Now!" shouted Paul, unable to control his impatience any longer, "now,
old Ishmael, is the time to show the native blood of Kentucky! Fire low,
boys--level into the swales, for the red skins are settling to the very
earth!"

His voice was, however, lost, or rather unheeded, in the midst of the
shrieks, shouts,