n of the encampment.

Three or four hundred Indians were dancing wildly around a huge fire,
while half as many more were feasting, preparing their own food by cutting
it from the carcasses of two oxen which lay near at hand, and broiling it
on the live coals.

I knew sufficient of savage customs to understand that, if there had been
any torturing of prisoners during the evening, such fiendish work was at
an end, and that which we were witnessing was but the ending of the
barbarous sport.

Now it was that I mentally thanked Sergeant Corney for having delayed so
long before starting, for it would have been agony indeed had we been
forced to witness the horrible spectacle of a white man suffering under
the knives and by the fire of these wolves in human form.

We remained there stretched out at full length on the ground, with no
possibility of gaining information which might be of service to us in the
future, ten minutes or more, and then, suddenly, I was forced to exert all
my will-power to prevent a scream of fear from escaping my lips, for what
was unmistakably a human foot had been planted directly upon my leg.

Like a flash, after I succeeded in restraining myself from giving an
alarm, came the knowledge, I know not how, that he who had stumbled upon
me was no less frightened than I, and, clutching Sergeant Corney's leg
nervously to attract his attention, I sprang upon the newcomer, believing
him to be some Indian straggler whom it was absolutely necessary we should
silence in order to save our own lives.

So quick had been my motions that the fellow had no opportunity to get
away, save at the cost of betraying himself to us, and by what seemed to
be the most fortunate chance, I succeeded, when leaping blindly forward,
in gripping him by the throat.

We went down together, I on top striving most earnestly to strangle him to
death, and he fighting quite as strenuously to throw off my hold.

Before one could have counted ten I began to realize that this stranger
who was at my mercy appeared quite as much afraid of making a noise as did
I, and involuntarily my grasp was loosened ever so slightly, for I
understood that had it been an Indian he would have done his best to
attract the attention of those near the camp-fire.

With this thought came the knowledge that I had beneath me one clad much
like myself, and not the half-naked body of such villains as marched in
Thayendanega's train.

Then it was, and just as