a battle. It might
be deemed the omen of defeat. In this dilemma he motioned to a
superannuated warrior, to whom he had confided the charge of the
non-combatants, and leading him apart, he placed a finger significantly
on his shoulder, as he said, in a tone, in which authority was tempered
by confidence--

"When my young men are striking the Pawnees, give the women knives.
Enough; my father is very old; he does not want to hear wisdom from a
boy."

The grim old savage returned a look of ferocious assent, and then the
mind of the chief appeared to be at rest on this important subject. From
that moment he bestowed all his care on the achievement of his revenge,
and the maintenance of his martial character. Throwing himself on his
horse, he made a sign, with the air of a prince to his followers, to
imitate his example, interrupting, without ceremony, the war songs and
solemn rites by which many among them were stimulating their spirits
to deeds of daring. When all were in order, the whole moved with great
steadiness and silence towards the margin of the river.

The hostile bands were now separated by the water. The width of
the stream was too great to admit of the use of the ordinary Indian
missiles, but a few useless shots were exchanged from the fusees of the
chiefs, more in bravado than with any expectation of doing execution.
As some time was suffered to elapse, in demonstrations and abortive
efforts, we shall leave them, for that period, to return to such of our
characters as remained in the hands of the savages.

We have shed much ink in vain, and wasted quires, that might possibly
have been better employed, if it be necessary now to tell the reader
that few of the foregoing movements escaped the observation of the
experienced trapper. He had been, in common with the rest, astonished
at the sudden act of Hard-Heart; and there was a single moment when a
feeling of regret and mortification got the better of his longings to
save the life of the youth. The simple and well-intentioned old man
would have felt, at witnessing any failure of firmness on the part of a
warrior, who had so strongly excited his sympathies, the same species
of sorrow that a Christian parent would suffer in hanging over the
dying moments of an impious child. But when, instead of an impotent and
unmanly struggle for existence, he found that his friend had forborne,
with the customary and dignified submission of an Indian warrior, until
an oppor