ed at once where he was, and he felt a
great sense of comfort. It was very warm and pleasant on the buffalo
robe, with his blanket wrapped about his body, and sitting up he looked
out through a narrow crevice between the poles.

He saw a cold morning, with a skim of snow on the ground, already
melting fast before the sun, and destined to be gone in a half hour,
fires that had been built anew until they burned brightly, and squaws
cooking before them, while warriors, with blankets drawn about their
shoulders, sat near and ate. Children ran about, also eating or doing
errands. It was a homely wilderness scene, and Henry knew at once that
these people had nothing to do with the great hunt for him that was
being conducted by Red Eagle and Yellow Panther, though they would seize
him quickly enough if they knew of his presence.

They were neither Miamis nor Shawnees, nor any other tribe he knew. They
might be a detached fragment of some northwestern tribe with which he
had never come in contact, or they might be a tiny tribe in themselves.
In the vast American wilderness old tribes were continually
perishing, and new tribes were continually being formed from the pieces
of the old. The people of this village seemed to Henry a fine Indian
race, much like the great warrior nation, the Wyandots. The men were
well built and powerful, and the women were taller than usual.

[Illustration: "Red Eagle rose to address his hosts"]

He saw that it was a village of plenty. It was usually a feast or a
famine with the Indians, but now it was unquestionably a period of
feast. The squaws were broiling buffalo, deer, wild turkey, smaller game
and fish over the coals. They were also cooking corn cakes, and Henry
looked at these hungrily. It had been many days since he had eaten
bread, and, craving it with a fierce craving, he resolved to pilfer some
of the cakes if a chance offered.

The odors, so pleasant in his nostrils and yet so tantalizing, reminded
him that he had with him the haunch of venison, of which a large portion
was yet left. He ate, but it was cold. There was no water to drink with
it, and he was not satisfied. His resolve to become an uninvited guest
at their table, as well as under their roof, grew stronger.

Yet he liked these Indians and he became convinced that they were in
truth a little tribe of their own or a fragment split off from a larger
tribe, buried here in the woods, to be the germ of bigger things. He was
se