FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62  
63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>   >|  
. CHAPTER V. THE HOME OF THE HURON. Tis nature's worship--felt--confessed, Far as the life which warms the breast! The sturdy savage midst his clan, The rudest portraiture of man, In trackless woods and boundless plains, Where everlasting wildness reigns, Owns the still throb--the secret start-- The hidden impulse of the heart.--BYRON. The Huron, after his escape from the Shawnees, quickened his pace, as we have stated, and went many a mile before he changed his long, sidling trot into the less rapid walk. When he did this, it was upon the shore of a large creek, which ran through one of the wildest and most desolate regions of Ohio. In some portions the banks were nothing more than a continuous swamp, the creek spreading out like a lake among the reeds and undergrowth, through which glided the enormous water-snake, frightened at the apparition of a man in this lonely spot. The bright fish darted hither and thither, their sides flashing up in the sunlight like burnished silver. The agile Indian sprung lightly from one turf of earth to another, now balancing himself on a rotten stump or root, now walking the length of some fallen tree, so decayed and water-eaten that it mashed to a pulp beneath his feet, and then leaping to some other precarious foothold, progressing rapidly all the time and with such skill that he hardly wetted his moccasin. While treading a log thus, which gave back a hollow sound, the head of an immense rattlesnake protruded from a hole in the tree, its tail giving the deadly alarm, as it continued issuing forth, as if determined to dispute the passage of man in this desolate place. The fearless Huron scarcely halted. While picking his way through the swamp he had carried his rifle lightly balanced in his left hand, and he now simply changed it to his right, grasping it by the muzzle, so that the stock was before him. He saw the cavernous mouth of the snake opened to an amazing width; the thin tongue, that resembled a tiny stream of blood; the small, glittering eyes; the horn-like fangs, at the roots of which he well knew were the sacks filled almost to bursting with the most deadly of all poisons; the thin neck, swelling out until the scaly belly of the loathsome reptile was visible. The Huron continued steadily approaching the revolting thing. He was scarcely a yard distant when the neck of the snake arched like a swan's, and the head was drawn far
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   38   39   40   41   42   43   44   45   46   47   48   49   50   51   52   53   54   55   56   57   58   59   60   61   62  
63   64   65   66   67   68   69   70   71   72   73   74   75   76   77   78   79   80   81   82   83   84   85   86   87   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

changed

 

deadly

 

scarcely

 
desolate
 

continued

 
lightly
 

determined

 
giving
 

passage

 

dispute


issuing

 

foothold

 

precarious

 

progressing

 
rapidly
 
leaping
 
mashed
 

beneath

 

immense

 

rattlesnake


protruded
 

hollow

 

moccasin

 
wetted
 

treading

 

carried

 

bursting

 

poisons

 
swelling
 
filled

loathsome
 

distant

 
arched
 

visible

 
reptile
 

steadily

 

approaching

 

revolting

 

glittering

 

balanced


simply

 

grasping

 

halted

 

fearless

 

picking

 

muzzle

 

tongue

 
resembled
 

stream

 

amazing