
call the tents of the Philistines.
 

                                 Chapter XXIII

 - »But though the beast of game
 The privilege of chase may claim;
 Though space and law the stag we lend,
 Ere hound we slip, or bow we bend;
 Whoever recked, where, how, or when,
 The prowling fox was trapped or slain.«
                                                    Scott, The Lady of the Lake,
                                                            Canto IV, xxx.14-19.
 
It is unusual to find an encampment of the natives, like those of the more
instructed whites, guarded by the presence of armed men. Well informed of the
approach of every danger, while it is yet at a distance, the Indian generally
rests secure under his knowledge of the signs of the forest, and the long and
difficult paths that separate him from those he has most reason to dread. But
the enemy who, by any lucky concurrence of accidents, has found means to elude
the vigilance of the scouts, will seldom meet with sentinels nearer home to
sound the alarm. In addition to this general usage, the tribes friendly to the
French knew too well the weight of the blow that had just been struck, to
apprehend any immediate danger from the hostile nations that were tributary to
the crown of Britain.
    When Duncan and David, therefore, found themselves in the centre of the
children, who played the antics already mentioned, it was without the least
previous intimation of their approach. But so soon as they were observed, the
whole of the juvenile pack raised, by common consent, a shrill and warning
whoop; and then sunk, as it were, by magic, from before the sight of their
visiters. The naked, tawny bodies of the crouching urchins, blended so nicely,
at that hour, with the withered herbage, that at first it seemed as if the earth
had, in truth, swallowed up their forms; though when surprise had permitted
Duncan to bend his look more curiously about the spot, he found it every where
met by dark, quick, and rolling eye-balls.
    Gathering no encouragement from this startling presage, of the nature of the
scrutiny he was likely to undergo from the more mature judgments of the men,
there was an instant when the young soldier would have retreated. It was,
however, too late to appear to hesitate. The cry of the children had drawn a
dozen warriors to the door of the nearest lodge, where they stood, clustered in
a dark and savage groupe, gravely awaiting the nearer approach of those who had
unexpectedly come among them.
    David, in some measure familiarized to the scene, led the way,
