p from the log, continuing to
mutter: "I must hide, or they'll be for havin' a parley. That 'ud never
do, for I guess _she_ can't be far off by this. Hang the crooked luck!"

With this elegant finish, the speaker glides rapidly round the end of
the fallen tree, and makes for the nearest underwood--evidently with the
design of screening himself from sight. He is too late--as the "Ugh"
uttered on the opposite side of the glade convinces him--and changing
his intention, he fronts round, and quietly returns to his former
position upon the log.

The hunter's conjecture has proved correct. Bronzed faces show
themselves over the tops of the bushes on the opposite edge of the
glade; and, the moment after, three Indians emerge into the open ground.
That they are Indians, their tatterdemalion dress of coloured blankets,
leggings, and mocassins would indicate; but their race is even
recognisable in their mode of march. Though there are but three of
them, and the path runs no longer among trees, they follow one another
in single file, and in the true typical "trot" of the red aboriginal.

The presence of Indians in these woods requires explanation--for their
tribe has long before this time been transported to their new lands west
of the Mississippi. It only needs to be said that a few families have
preferred to remain--some from attachment to the scenes of their youth,
not to be severed by the prospect of a far happier home; some from
associations formed with the whites; and some from more trivial causes--
perhaps from being the degraded outcasts of their tribes. Throughout
the whole region of the backwoods, there still exists a sparse
population of the indigenous race: dwelling, as their ancestors did,
under tents or in the open air; trafficking in small articles of their
own manufacture; in short, performing very much the same _metier_ as the
Gitanos in Europe. There are other points of resemblance between these
two races--amounting almost to family likeness--and which fairly
entitles the Indians to an appellation sometimes bestowed upon
them--_the Gipsies of the New World_.

The three Indians who have entered the glade are manifestly what is
termed an "Indian family" or part of one. They are father, and mother,
and daughter--the last a girl just grown to womanhood. The man is in
the lead, the woman follows, and the young girl brings up the rear.
They are bent upon a journey, and its object is also manifest. The
pa