hink I ought to tell you of Floyd's grave.

_Austin._ Where was it? Who was Floyd.

_Hunter._ You shall hear. In the celebrated expedition of Clark and
Lewis to the Rocky Mountains, they were accompanied by Serjeant Floyd,
who died on the way. His body was carried to the top of a high
green-carpeted bluff, on the Missouri river, and there buried, and a
cedar post was erected to his memory. As I sat on his grave, and
looked around me, the stillness and the extreme beauty of the scene
much affected me. I had endured much toil, both in hunting and rowing;
sometimes being in danger from the grizzly bears, and, at others, with
difficulty escaping the war-parties of the Indians. My rifle had been
busy, and the swan and the pelican, the antelope and the elk, had
supplied me with food; and as I sat on a grave, in that beautiful
bluff in the wilderness--the enamelled prairie, the thousand grassy
hills that were visible, with their golden heads and long deep
shadows, (for the sun was setting,) and the Missouri winding in its
serpentine course, the whole scene was of the most beautiful and
tranquil kind. The soft whispering of the evening breeze, and the
distant, subdued and melancholy howl of the wolf, were the only sounds
that reached my ears. It was a very solitary, and yet a very
delightful hour.

_Basil._ I should not like to be by myself in such a place as that.

_Hunter._ There is another high bluff, not many miles from the cedar
post of poor Floyd, that is well known as the burial-place of
Blackbird, a famous chief of the O-ma-haw tribe; the manner of his
burial was extremely strange. As I was pulling up the river, a
traveller told me the story; and, when I had heard it, we pushed our
canoe into a small creek, that I might visit the spot. Climbing up the
velvet sides of the bluff, I sat me down by the cedar post on the
grave of Blackbird.

_Austin._ But what was the story? What was there strange in the burial
of the chief?

_Hunter._ Blackbird on his way home from the city of Washington, where
he had been, died with the small-pox. Before his death, he desired his
warriors to bury him on the bluff, sitting on the back of his
favourite war-horse, that he might see, as he said, the Frenchmen
boating up and down the river. His beautiful white steed was led up to
the top of the bluff, and there the body of Blackbird was placed
astride upon him.

_Brian._ What a strange thing!

_Hunter._ Blackbird had his bow in his h