but
no one having once recognized the pungent odor, combined of smoke,
skins, furs, freshly peeled bark, dried grasses, and decayed animal
matter, that lingers about the rude dwellings of all savage races,
could ever mistake it for anything else. A single faint whiff of this,
borne to Donald, on a puff of the night wind, gave him the very
knowledge he wanted, and he at once began to move with the same caution
that he had observed on the previous evening while creeping up to the
fire-lighted circles of the victorious Wyandots.

It was perilous business, this venturing into a camp of hostile Indians
through the darkness, but Donald reflected that it would be even worse
by daylight. He also argued, that while success in his proposed
thieving would mean everything to him, he could not be worse off than
he was a few hours since, even if he failed and was captured. So he
crept forward with the noiseless motions of a serpent, until the
conical lodges were plainly in view by the dim light of smoldering
camp-fires.

There was one feature of this camp that greatly puzzled our young
woodsman, and that was its silence. Surely the night was too young for
all the inmates of those lodges to have retired, and yet there was no
sound of voices. Not even the wail of a child was to be heard nor the
barking of a dog. It was unaccountable, and gave Donald a creepy
feeling that he tried in vain to shake off. He moved with an even
greater caution than if he had been guided by the usual sounds of such
a place and spent a full hour in examining the camp from all points
before daring to enter it.

At length he detected a faint muttering in one of the lodges and a
reply to it; but both voices were those of querulous age. A moment
later the tottering figure of an old man emerged from the lodge, and
crouching beside a dying fire threw on a few sticks with shaking hands
and drew his blanket more closely about his shrunken form.

In an instant a full meaning of the situation flashed into Donald's
mind. The camp was deserted of all except the infirm and very aged.
All the others--men, women, children, and even the very dogs--had gone
to participate in the festivities of the up-river camps to which so
many white prisoners had that day been taken. He shuddered to
contemplate the nature of these festivities,--the tortures, the
anguish, and the fearful tragedies that would furnish their
entertainment; but he no longer hesitated to enter thi