ysical apathy. The
truth was, that while his person had been numbed by the shock, his
susceptibility to apprehension kept his agitated mind in unrelieved
distress. When he found himself in the open air, he looked about him,
in order to gather, if possible, some evidences of his future fate, from
the countenances of those gathered round. Seeing every where grave but
composed features, and meeting in no eye any expression that threatened
immediate violence, the miserable man began to revive; and, by the time
he was seated in the wagon, his artful faculties were beginning to plot
the expedients of parrying the just resentment of his kinsmen, or, if
these should fail him, the means of escaping from a punishment that his
forebodings told him would be terrible.

Throughout the whole of these preparations Ishmael rarely spoke. A
gesture, or a glance of the eye, served to indicate his pleasure to
his sons, and with these simple methods of communication, all parties
appeared content. When the signal was made to proceed, the squatter
threw his rifle into the hollow of his arm, and his axe across his
shoulder, taking the lead as usual. Esther buried herself in the wagon
which contained her daughters; the young men took their customary places
among the cattle, or nigh the teams, and the whole proceeded, at their
ordinary, dull, but unremitted gait.

For the first time, in many a day, the squatter turned his back towards
the setting sun. The route he held was in the direction of the settled
country, and the manner in which he moved sufficed to tell his children,
who had learned to read their father's determinations in his mien, that
their journey on the prairie was shortly to have an end. Still nothing
else transpired for hours, that might denote the existence of any
sudden, or violent, revolution in the purposes or feelings of Ishmael.
During all that time he marched alone, keeping a few hundred rods in
front of his teams, seldom giving any sign of extraordinary excitement.
Once or twice, indeed, his huge figure was seen standing on the summit
of some distant swell, with the head bent towards the earth, as he
leaned on his rifle; but then these moments of intense thought were
rare, and of short continuance. The train had long thrown its shadows
towards the east, before any material alteration was made in the
disposition of their march. Water-courses were waded, plains were
passed, and rolling ascents risen and descended, without p