whoop. Kongra-Tonga's squaw snatched up her youngest child, and ran
out of the lodge. I followed, and found the whole village in confusion,
resounding with cries and yells. The circle of old men in the center had
vanished. The warriors with glittering eyes came darting, their weapons
in their hands, out of the low opening of the lodges, and running with
wild yells toward the farther end of the village. Advancing a few rods
in that direction, I saw a crowd in furious agitation, while others ran
up on every side to add to the confusion. Just then I distinguished
the voices of Raymond and Reynal, shouting to me from a distance, and
looking back, I saw the latter with his rifle in his hand, standing on
the farther bank of a little stream that ran along the outskirts of the
camp. He was calling to Raymond and myself to come over and join him,
and Raymond, with his usual deliberate gait and stolid countenance, was
already moving in that direction.

This was clearly the wisest course, unless we wished to involve
ourselves in the fray; so I turned to go, but just then a pair of eyes,
gleaming like a snake's, and an aged familiar countenance was thrust
from the opening of a neighboring lodge, and out bolted old Mene-Seela,
full of fight, clutching his bow and arrows in one hand and his knife
in the other. At that instant he tripped and fell sprawling on his face,
while his weapons flew scattering away in every direction. The women
with loud screams were hurrying with their children in their arms to
place them out of danger, and I observed some hastening to prevent
mischief, by carrying away all the weapons they could lay hands on. On
a rising ground close to the camp stood a line of old women singing a
medicine song to allay the tumult. As I approached the side of the brook
I heard gun-shots behind me, and turning back, I saw that the crowd had
separated into two lines of naked warriors confronting each other at a
respectful distance, and yelling and jumping about to dodge the shot of
their adversaries, while they discharged bullets and arrows against each
other. At the same time certain sharp, humming sounds in the air over my
head, like the flight of beetles on a summer evening, warned me that the
danger was not wholly confined to the immediate scene of the fray. So
wading through the brook, I joined Reynal and Raymond, and we sat
down on the grass, in the posture of an armed neutrality, to watch the
result.

Happily it may b