unting-grounds of the
Comanches, but Tokeah does not accompany them. He has had a dream,
enjoining him to disinter his father's bones, which lie buried several
hundred miles within the limits of the United States, in a district
formerly possessed by the Oconees. He wishes Rosa to accompany the tribe
to their new residence; but the young girl, mindful of her promise to
Canondah, insists upon encountering with him the perils of the long and
wearisome journey he is about to undertake. Whilst the main body of the
Indians set off in a westerly direction, Rosa, a young Indian girl,
Tokeah, El Sol, and four warriors, turn their steps towards the country
of the white men. Thither we will now precede them.

It was a bright cool December morning, and the sunbeams had just
sufficient power to disperse the fog and mist which at that season
frequently hang for a week together over the rivers and lakes of
Louisiana. In the county town of Opelousas there was a great and unusual
crowd. It seemed astonishing how so many people could have been got
together in that thinly populated neighbourhood, and a person who had
suddenly arrived in the midst of the concourse would have been sorely
puzzled to conjecture its occasion. To judge from the drinking, dancing,
fighting, and pranks of all sorts that went on, a sort of festival was
celebrating; but weapons were also to be seen; men were formed up by
companies and nearly every body had something more or less military in
his equipment. Some wore uniforms that had served in the revolutionary
war, and were consequently more than thirty years old; others, armed
with rifles, ranged themselves in rank and file, and, by a lieutenant of
their own election, were manoeuvred into a corner, out of which no
word of command that he was acquainted with was sufficient to bring
them. Another corps had got a band of music, consisting of one fiddler,
who marched along at the side of the captain, sawing his catgut with
might and main. Those individuals who had not yet attached themselves to
any particular corps, shouldered rifles, fowling-pieces, or, in some
instances, an old horse-pistol, with nothing wanting but the lock; and
the few who had no fire-arms, had provided themselves with stout
bludgeons.

These, however, were merely the outposts. In the centre of the town the
flower of the citizens was assembled, divided into two groups. One of
them, consisting of the younger men, had fixed its headquarters in fron