life. A band of Pawnees
are outlying for these very Siouxes, as you see the buzzards looking
down for their food, and it behoves us, as Christian men who have so
much at stake, to look down upon them both. Ha! what brings yonder two
skirting reptiles to a stand? As you live, they have found the place
where the miserable son of the squatter met his death!"

The old man was not mistaken. Weucha, and a savage who accompanied him,
had reached that spot, which has already been mentioned as furnishing
the frightful evidences of violence and bloodshed. There they sat on
their horses, examining the well-known signs, with the intelligence
that distinguishes the habits of Indians. Their scrutiny was long, and
apparently not without distrust. At length they raised a cry, that
was scarcely less piteous and startling than that which the hounds had
before made over the same fatal signs, and which did not fail to draw
the whole band immediately around them, as the fell bark of the jackal
is said to gather his comrades to the chase.

CHAPTER XX

Welcome, ancient Pistol.
--Shakspeare.

It was not long before the trapper pointed out the commanding person of
Mahtoree, as the leader of the Siouxes. This chief, who had been among
the last to obey the vociferous summons of Weucha, no sooner reached the
spot where his whole party was now gathered, than he threw himself
from his horse, and proceeded to examine the marks of the extraordinary
trail, with that degree of dignity and attention which became his high
and responsible station. The warriors, for it was but too evident that
they were to a man of that fearless and ruthless class, awaited the
result of his investigation with patient reserve; none but a few of the
principal braves, presuming even to speak, while their leader was
thus gravely occupied. It was several minutes before Mahtoree seemed
satisfied. He then directed his eyes along the ground to those several
places where Ishmael had found the same revolting evidences of the
passage of some bloody struggle, and motioned to his people to follow.

The whole band advanced in a body towards the thicket, until they came
to a halt, within a few yards of the precise spot, where Esther had
stimulated her sluggish sons to break into the cover. The reader will
readily imagine that the trapper and his companions were not indifferent
observers of so threatening