from the moment one of them trod on a dry stick; and in
an incredibly short space of time the coyote cries began. Every foot of
ground between the spot where Hook had landed his forces and the
home under the trees was stealthily examined by braves wearing their
mocassins with the heels in front. They found only one hillock with a
stream at its base, so that Hook had no choice; here he must establish
himself and wait for just before the dawn. Everything being thus mapped
out with almost diabolical cunning, the main body of the redskins folded
their blankets around them, and in the phlegmatic manner that is to
them, the pearl of manhood squatted above the children's home, awaiting
the cold moment when they should deal pale death.

Here dreaming, though wide-awake, of the exquisite tortures to which
they were to put him at break of day, those confiding savages were found
by the treacherous Hook. From the accounts afterwards supplied by such
of the scouts as escaped the carnage, he does not seem even to have
paused at the rising ground, though it is certain that in that grey
light he must have seen it: no thought of waiting to be attacked appears
from first to last to have visited his subtle mind; he would not even
hold off till the night was nearly spent; on he pounded with no policy
but to fall to [get into combat]. What could the bewildered scouts do,
masters as they were of every war-like artifice save this one, but trot
helplessly after him, exposing themselves fatally to view, while they
gave pathetic utterance to the coyote cry.

Around the brave Tiger Lily were a dozen of her stoutest warriors, and
they suddenly saw the perfidious pirates bearing down upon them. Fell
from their eyes then the film through which they had looked at
victory. No more would they torture at the stake. For them the happy
hunting-grounds was now. They knew it; but as their father's sons they
acquitted themselves. Even then they had time to gather in a phalanx
[dense formation] that would have been hard to break had they risen
quickly, but this they were forbidden to do by the traditions of their
race. It is written that the noble savage must never express surprise in
the presence of the white. Thus terrible as the sudden appearance of the
pirates must have been to them, they remained stationary for a moment,
not a muscle moving; as if the foe had come by invitation. Then, indeed,
the tradition gallantly upheld, they seized their weapons, and