and their increasing wants, particularly
their insatiable greed after the precious fire-water, had reduced them
to be, _de facto_, little better than slaves to fur-dealers and
storekeepers, for whom they hunted, and who paid the poor wretches in
whisky scarcely the tenth part of the value of their skins.

In the present instance the two backwoodsmen had no evil intention
against the Indian; all they wanted was to give him a glass of
Monongahela, and to amuse themselves a little at his expense. So at
least it appeared from the words of the one who had been knocked down,
and who, without taking his tumble at all in ill part, now roared out,
that "he must drink a half-pint of whisky with him, or he would put him
in his pocket."

"Come, young Redskin," cried the other; "come along. You shall help us
to fight the cussed Britishers, and drink, ay, drink like a fish."

By this time the little group was surrounded by deserters from the
parade-ground, examining the Indian with a rude and unceremonious, but
not an ill-natured, curiosity. Without permission or apology they
inspected his wardrobe, tried the edge of his scalping-knife, examined
his mocassins, and one of them even made an attempt to remove the cap
from his head. By these various investigations the stranger seemed more
surprised than gratified. His exterior was, it must be confessed,
somewhat singular. A foxskin cap covered his head and extended down over
his ears, concealing his light brown hair, an attempt at disguise which
the long fair down upon his upper lip rendered tolerably unsuccessful.
His deerskin doublet denoted the Indian, but his trousers were those of
a white man. One of his mocassins--the other he had left in some
swamp--was of Indian workmanship; one of his cheeks was still daubed
with the red and black war-paint, which had been nearly rubbed off the
other; his hands, although burnt brown by the sun, were those of a white
man. If any doubt could have remained, his features would have settled
it; the bold blue eye could no more have belonged to an Indian than
could the full rosy cheek and the well-formed mouth. The crowd stared at
him with the same sort of stupefaction which they might have shown had
they entered a thicket expecting to find a fat deer, and encountered in
its stead a growling bear.

"I should think you've looked at me enough," said the stranger at last,
in good English, and in a sort of half-humorous, half-petulant tone; at
the same