e good and substantial, but certainly not very beautiful
dwelling, "here we are, and we now may determine on what is next to be
done. Shall we march down to the village, which is four miles distant,
you will remember, and get our breakfasts there?--shall we try one of
your tenants?--or shall we plunge at once _in medias res_, and ask
hospitality of my mother and your sister?"

"The last might excite suspicion, I fear, sir. Tar and feathers would be
our mildest fate did we fall into the hands of the Injins."

"Injins! Why not go at once to the wigwam of Susquesus, and get out of
him and Yop the history of the state of things. I heard them speaking of
the Onondago at our tavern last night, and while they said he was
generally thought to be much more than a hundred, that he was still like
a man of eighty. That Indian is full of observation, and may let us into
some of the secrets of his brethren."

"They can at least give us the news from the family; and though it might
seem in the course of things for pedlars to visit the Nest House, it
will be just as much so for them to halt at the wigwam."

This consideration decided the matter, and away we went towards the
ravine or glen, on the side of which stood the primitive-looking hut
that went by the name of the "wigwam." The house was a small cabin of
logs, neat and warm, or cool, as the season demanded. As it was kept up,
and was whitewashed, and occasionally furnished anew by the
landlord--the odious creature! he who paid for so many similar things
in the neighbourhood--it was never unfit to be seen, though never of a
very alluring, cottage-like character. There was a garden, and it had
been properly made that very season, the negro picking and pecking about
it, during the summer, in a way to coax the vegetables and fruits on a
little, though I well knew that the regular weedings came from an
assistant at the Nest, who was ordered to give it an eye and an
occasional half-day. On one side of the hut there was a hog-pen and a
small stable for a cow; but on the other the trees of the virgin forest,
which had never been disturbed in that glen, overshadowed the roof. This
somewhat poetical arrangement was actually the consequence of a
compromise between the tenants of the cabin, the negro insisting on the
accessories of his rude civilization, while the Indian required the
shades of the woods to reconcile him to his position. Here had these two
singularly associated beings--the