y; who, as he approached Algernon, burst into a loud
laugh, saying, in a jocular manner:

"Well, my fine bird, so you are caught again, eh? I was most infernally
afraid you had got away in earnest; I was, by ----! But we'll soon fix
you now, so that you won't run away again in a hurry."

Then turning to the savages around him, the renegade continued his
remarks in the Indian tongue, occasionally laughing boisterously, in
which they not unfrequently joined. In this manner, the whole party
returned in triumph to the village--being met on their way thither by
the women and children, who set up yells of delight, sung and danced
around their prisoner, whom they beat with their fists and with sticks,
until he became sore from head to heel.

The gauntlet was soon again made ready, and Algernon started upon the
race; but fatigued in body and mind, from the late events--weak and
faint from the bleeding of his wound and bruises--he scarcely reached
twenty paces down the lines, ere he sunk overpowered to the earth; from
which he was immediately raised, and borne forward to the council-house,
where, according to the Indian custom, the chiefs and warriors were to
decide upon his fate.

[Footnote 12: Lest there should seem to the reader an inconsistency
in one tribe yielding the fate of their prisoners to the decision of
another, we would remark here, that at the period of which we write, the
Six Nations were allied and fought for one common interest against the
Americans, on the British side, and therefore not unfrequently shared
each others dangers and partook of each others spoils.]

[Footnote 13: A practice sometimes, but not always, followed.]

CHAPTER XIII.

THE TRIAL, SENTENCE, AND EXECUTION.

The council-house in question, was a building of good size, of
larger dimensions than its neighbors, stood on a slight elevation, and,
as we before remarked, near the center of the village. Into this the
warriors and head men of the Piqua tribe now speedily gathered, and
proceeded at once to business. An old chief--whose wrinkled features and
slightly-tremulous limbs, denoted extreme age--was allowed, by common
consent, to act as chairman; and taking his position near the center of
the apartment, with a knife and a small stick in his hand, the warriors
and chief men of the nation formed a circle around him.

Among these latter--conspicuous above all for his beautiful and graceful
form, his dignified manner, and look o