plain, he summoned his companions from their warm lairs, and pointed
out the necessity of their being once more on the alert. While Middleton
attended to the arrangements necessary to the comforts of Inez and
Ellen, in the long and painful journey which lay before them, the old
man and Paul prepared the meal, which the former had advised them to
take before they proceeded to horse. These several dispositions were
not long in making, and the little group was soon seated about a
repast which, though it might want the elegancies to which the bride of
Middleton had been accustomed, was not deficient in the more important
requisites of savour and nutriment.

"When we get lower into the hunting-grounds of the Pawnees," said the
trapper, laying a morsel of delicate venison before Inez, on a little
trencher neatly made of horn, and expressly for his own use, "we shall
find the buffaloes fatter and sweeter, the deer in more abundance, and
all the gifts of the Lord abounding to satisfy our wants. Perhaps we may
even strike a beaver, and get a morsel from his tail[*] by way of a rare
mouthful."

[*] The American hunters consider the tail of the beaver the most
nourishing of all food.

"What course do you mean to pursue, when you have once thrown these
bloodhounds from the chase?" demanded Middleton.

"If I might advise," said Paul, "it would be to strike a water-course,
and get upon its downward current, as soon as may be. Give me a
cotton-wood, and I will turn you out a canoe that shall carry us all,
the jackass excepted, in perhaps the work of a day and a night. Ellen,
here, is a lively girl enough, but then she is no great race-rider; and
it would be far more comfortable to boat six or eight hundred miles,
than to go loping along like so many elks measuring the prairies;
besides, water leaves no trail."

"I will not swear to that," returned the trapper; "I have often thought
the eyes of a Red-skin would find a trail in air."

"See, Middleton," exclaimed Inez, in a sudden burst of youthful
pleasure, that caused her for a moment to forget her situation, "how
lovely is that sky; surely it contains a promise of happier times!"

"It is glorious!" returned her husband. "Glorious and heavenly is that
streak of vivid red, and here is a still brighter crimson; rarely have I
seen a richer rising of the sun.

"Rising of the sun!" slowly repeated the old man, lifting his tall
person from its seat with a deliberate and abs