r own number, or at least
would think so long enough for him to escape with his new and precious
supplies.

He was correct in his calculations, as he was not able to detect any
trace of immediate pursuit, and, building a low fire between two hills,
he cooked and ate a tender piece of the deer meat.

That night he saw a faint light on the horizon, and believing that it
came from an Indian camp, he decided to stalk it. Placing all his
supplies inside the blankets and the painted robe, he fastened the whole
pack to the high bough of a tree in such a manner that no roving wild
animal could get them, and then advanced toward the light, which grew
larger as he approached. It also became evident very soon that it was a
camp, as he had inferred, but a much larger one than his original
supposition. It had been pitched in a valley for the sake of shelter
from cold winds, and on the western side was a dense thicket, through
which Henry advanced.

The Indians were keeping no watch, as they had nothing to guard against,
and he was able to come so near that he could see into the whole bowl,
where fully two hundred warriors sat about a great fire, eating all
kinds of game and enjoying to the full the warmth and food of savage
life. Henry, although they were his natural foes, felt a certain
sympathy with them. He understood their feelings. They had gone long in
their villages, half starved, while the great snow and the great cold
lasted, but now they were in the midst of plenty that they had obtained
by their skill and tenacity in hunting. So they rejoiced as they
supplied the wants of the primeval man.

The scene was wild and savage to the last degree. Most of the warriors,
in the heat of the fires, had thrown off their blankets, and they were
bare to the waist, their brown bodies heavily painted and gleaming in
the firelight. Every man roasted or broiled for himself huge pieces of
buffalo, deer or wild turkey over the coals, and then sat down on the
ground, Turkish fashion, and ate.

At intervals a warrior would spring to his feet and, waving aloft a
great buffalo bone, would dance back and forth, chanting meanwhile some
fierce song of war or the chase. Others would join him, and a dozen,
perhaps twenty, would be leaping and contorting their bodies and singing
as if they had been seized by a madness. The remainder went on with the
feast, which seemed to have no ending.

The wind rose a little and blew, chill, through the fores