nts. Thus, there was near the fire a huge heap
of dried corn-husks and prairie-grass, designed for a couch,--a kind of,
luxury which Nathan supposed the villagers would have scarce taken the
trouble to provide, unless for guests whose warlike pride and sense of
honour would not permit them to sleep under cover until they had struck
the enemy in his own country, and were returning victorious to their own;
and as a proof that they had shared as guests in all the excesses of
their hosts, but few of them were seen huddled together on the couch, the
majority lying about in such confusion and postures as could only have
been produced by the grossest indulgence.

Pausing awhile, but not deterred by the discovery of such undesirable
neighbours, Nathan easily avoided them by making the circuit of the
square; creeping along from tree to tree, and bush to bush, until he had
left the whole group on the rear, and arrived in the vicinity of a cabin,
which, from its appearance, might with propriety be supposed the dwelling
of the most distinguished demagogue of the tribe. It was a cottage of
logs very similar to those of the renegades, who had themselves, perhaps,
built it for the chief, whose favour it was so necessary to purchase by
every means in their power; but as it consisted of only a single room,
and that by no means spacious, the barbarian had seen fit to eke it out
by a brace of summer apartments, being tents of skins, which were pitched
at its ends like wings, and, perhaps, communicated directly with the
interior, though each had its own particular door of mats looking out
upon the square.

All these appearances Nathan could easily note, in occasional gleams from
the fire, which, falling upon the rude and misshapen lodge, revealed its
features obscurely to the eye. It bore an air of solitude that became the
dwelling of a chief. The soil around it, as if too sacred to be invaded
by the profane feet of the multitude, was left overgrown with weeds and
starveling bushes; and an ancient elm, rising among them, and flinging
its shadowy branches wide around, stood like a giant watchman, to repel
the gaze of the curious.

This solitude, these bushes through which he could crawl unobserved, and
the shadows of the tree, offering a concealment equally effectual and
inviting, were all circumstances in Nathan's favour; and giving one
backward glance to the fire on the square, and then fixing his eye on one
of the tents, in which, as t