companions to
penetrate still deeper into a forest that contained such treacherous
inmates, we must use an author's privilege, and shift the scene a few
miles to the westward of the place where we have last seen them.

On that day, two men were lingering on the banks of a small but rapid
stream, within an hour's journey of the encampment of Webb, like those
who awaited the appearance of an absent person, or the approach of some
expected event. The vast canopy of woods spread itself to the margin of
the river overhanging the water, and shadowing its dark current with a
deeper hue. The rays of the sun were beginning to grow less fierce, and
the intense heat of the day was lessened, as the cooler vapors of the
springs and fountains rose above their leafy beds, and rested in the
atmosphere. Still that breathing silence, which marks the drowsy
sultriness of an American landscape in July, pervaded the secluded spot,
interrupted only by the low voices of the men, the occasional and lazy
tap of a woodpecker, the discordant cry of some gaudy jay, or a swelling
on the ear, from the dull roar of a distant waterfall.

These feeble and broken sounds were, however, too familiar to the
foresters, to draw their attention from the more interesting matter of
their dialogue. While one of these loiterers showed the red skin and
wild accoutrements of a native of the woods, the other exhibited,
through the mask of his rude and nearly savage equipments, the brighter,
though sunburnt and long-faded complexion of one who might claim descent
from a European parentage. The former was seated on the end of a mossy
log, in a posture that permitted him to heighten the effect of his
earnest language, by the calm but expressive gestures of an Indian
engaged in debate. His body, which was nearly naked, presented a
terrific emblem of death, drawn in intermingled colors of white and
black. His closely shaved head, on which no other hair than the well
known and chivalrous scalping tuft[5] was preserved, was without
ornament of any kind, with the exception of a solitary eagle's plume,
that crossed his crown, and depended over the left shoulder. A tomahawk
and scalping-knife, of English manufacture, were in his girdle; while a
short military rifle, of that sort with which the policy of the whites
armed their savage allies, lay carelessly across his bare and sinewy
knee. The expanded chest, full formed limbs, and grave countenance of
this warrior, would deno