ntral part of the village; where the presence of several
cabins of logs, humble enough in themselves, but far superior to the
ordinary hovels of an Indian village, indicated the abiding place of the
superiors of the clan, or of those apostate white men, renegades from the
States, traitors to their country and to civilisation, who were, at that
day, in so many instances, found uniting their fortunes with the Indians,
following, and even leading them, in their bloody incursions upon the
frontiers. To one of those cabins Nathan made his way with stealthy step;
and peeping through a chink in the logs, beheld a proof that here a
renegade had cast his lot, in the appearance of some half a dozen naked
children, of fairer hue than the savages, yet not so pale as those of his
own race, sleeping on mats round a fire, at which sat, nodding and
dozing, the dark-eyed Indian mother.

One brief, earnest look Nathan gave to this spectacle; then, stealing
away, he bent his steps towards a neighbouring cabin, which he approached
with even greater precautions than before. This was a hovel of logs, like
the other, but of still better construction, having the uncommon
convenience of a chimney, built of sticks and mud, through whose low wide
top ascended volumes of smoke, made ruddy by the glare of the flames
below. A cranny here also afforded the means of spying into the doings
within; and Nathan, who approached it with the precision of one not
unfamiliar with the premises, was not tardy to avail himself of its
advantages. Bare naked walls of logs, the interstices rudely stuffed with
moss and clay,--a few uncouth wooden stools,--a rough table,--a bed of
skins,--and implements of war and the chase hung in various places about
the room, all illuminated more brilliantly by the fire on the hearth than
by the miserable tallow candle, stuck in a lamp of humid clay, that
glimmered on the table,--were not the only objects to attract the
wanderer's eye. Sitting by the fire were two men, both white; though the
blanket and calico shirt of one, and the red shawl which he was just in
the act of removing from his brows, as Nathan peeped through the chink,
with an uncommon darkness of skin and hair, might have well made him pass
for an Indian. His figure was very tall, well proportioned, and athletic;
his visage manly, and even handsome; though the wrinkles of forty winters
furrowed deeply in his brows, and perhaps a certain repelling gleam, the
light of s