secret wishes. A led horse, one that had been long trained in the hunts,
had been brought to receive his master, with but little hope that his
services would ever be needed again in this life. With a delicacy and
consideration, that proved how much the generous qualities of the youth
had touched the feelings of his people, a bow, a lance, and a quiver,
were thrown across the animal, which it had been intended to immolate
on the grave of the young brave; a species of care that would have
superseded the necessity for the pious duty that the trapper had pledged
himself to perform.

Though Hard-Heart was sensible of the kindness of his warriors, and
believed that a chief, furnished with such appointments, might depart
with credit for the distant hunting-grounds of the Master of Life, he
seemed equally disposed to think that they might be rendered quite as
useful, in the actual state of things. His countenance lighted with
stern pleasure, as he tried the elasticity of the bow, and poised the
well-balanced spear. The glance he bestowed on the shield was more
cursory and indifferent; but the exultation with which he threw himself
on the back of his favoured war-horse was so great, as to break through
the forms of Indian reserve. He rode to and fro among his scarcely less
delighted warriors, managing the animal with a grace and address that no
artificial rules can ever supply; at times flourishing his lance, as if
to assure himself of his seat, and at others examining critically into
the condition of the fusee, with which he had also been furnished, with
the fondness of one, who was miraculously restored to the possession of
treasures, that constituted his pride and his happiness.

At this particular moment Mahtoree, having completed the necessary
arrangements, prepared to make a more decisive movement. The Teton had
found no little embarrassment in disposing of his captives. The tents of
the squatter were still in sight, and his wary cunning did not fail to
apprise him, that it was quite as necessary to guard against an attack
from that quarter as to watch the motions of his more open and more
active foes. His first impulse had been to make the tomahawk suffice for
the men, and to trust the females under the same protection as the women
of his band; but the manner, in which many of his braves continued to
regard the imaginary medicine of the Long-knives, forewarned him of the
danger of so hazardous an experiment on the eve of