Two couples were thus formed, who were separated by the space of six or
eight feet, while a rod beyond burned the camp-fire against the shaggy
trunk of the oak. The intervening area and some distance away was
lighted by the flames which had eaten into the bark, until the solid
wood beneath was charred and blackened by the heat. Ogallah, the chief,
strode to a point midway between the fire and the couples, flung his
blanket on the ground, and, pointing down to it, motioned to Jack
Carleton to come forward and use it for his couch.

This was not the most agreeable order to receive, but it might have been
much worse, and he obeyed with a readiness that looked genuine, though
it could not have been entirely so. Jack nodded to the chief, as he took
his seat and gathered the heavy folds around him, lay down on his right
side, with his face toward the fire. Ogallah looked at the lad, whose
knees almost touched his chin, and muttering to himself, walked back to
the oak and sat with his back against it, his feet close to his body and
his arms folded in front.

The chief was about one-fourth of the way around the oak from the
camp-fire, so that the light revealed his entire left side, and his not
very attractive profile, the whole being thrown against the blank
darkness beyond, which shut the rest of his body from view. This
proceeding indicated that Ogallah meant to act the part of sentinel
while his warriors slept. He did not require the blanket, as would have
been the case had he lain down to slumber, and he was magnanimous
enough, therefore, to turn it over the captive, who would have been as
well pleased never to touch it.

It cannot be supposed that the sachem and his warriors were in any fear
of disturbance during the darkness, for they were in a country with
which they were familiar, and they knew no dangerous enemies were within
many miles of them. Had they met a party belonging to another tribe,
more than likely the two, as a matter of principle, would have fallen
upon each other like so many tigers; but none of their own race was
hunting for them, and the white settlers were altogether out of the
question. But the possibility of peril--remote though it might
be--always hangs over the hunter, as indeed it does over us all, and the
red men had no thought of trusting themselves to slumber without one of
their number standing guard over the rest.

Sleep is so insidious in its approach that the sentry, as a usual thing