om which
they had pushed off their canoes, in the haste of their departure.

The Chippeway was not easily diverted from his purpose. With the speed
of a chamois, he climbed a tall cliff, which, jutting boldly out into
the lake, concealed its great eastern basin from his view. Arrived at
the summit, he discerned, dimly relieved in the distant horizon, a
number of moving specks, which he knew to be the canoes of the
retreating foe. In the double hope of avenging the dead, and recovering
the living from captivity, he continued his course along the shores of
the lake, and, early the next morning, fell once more upon the trail of
his enemy. Pursuing it a short distance into the forest, it suddenly
divided, one part continuing on to the east, and one striking off toward
the south. In neither of them could he discover the track of his sister.
Her captors had placed her, with their own women, in the middle of the
march, so that the large and heavy track of the warriors who came after,
should cover and obliterate the lighter traces of her foot.

Taking the eastern track, and moving on with accelerated speed, he
overtook the flying party in the act of encamping for the night.
Concealing himself carefully from view, and watching his opportunity
when all were busily engaged in pitching their tents, he raised the
terrible war-whoop, with a volley of well directed arrows, and rushed,
with his whole band, upon his unarmed victims. Not one of them escaped;
and, so sudden and complete was the retribution, that not one remained
to tell where the captive Tula had been carried. The real murderers had
escaped with their captives, and the vengeance intended for _them_ had
fallen upon the heads of their innocent comrades.

* * * * *

Tula was treated with kindness by the Athapuscow chief, who claimed her
as his own. Every means was tried to reconcile her to her new lot, and
to make her content to be the wife of her enemy. But her heart was bound
up with the memories of the dead. Her parents, her husband, her child,
filled all her thoughts. And the idea of being for ever bound to those
whose hands were stained with the blood of these precious lost ones, was
not to be endured for a moment. She was inconsolable, and her captors,
for a time, respected her grief. Day after day, they travelled on, with
long and weary marches, till the face of the country was changed, and
the green forest gave way to the barren and