skirting reptiles to a stand! As you live, they have found the
place where the miserable son of the squatter met his death!«
    The old man was not mistaken. Weucha and a savage who accompanied him, had
reached that spot which has already been mentioned as furnishing the frightful
evidences of violence and bloodshed. There they sat on their horses, examining
the well known signs, with the intelligence that distinguishes the habits of
Indians. Their scrutiny was long, and apparently not without distrust. At length
they raised a cry, that was scarcely less hideous and startling than that which
the hounds had before made over the same fatal signs, and which did not fail to
draw the whole band immediately around them, as the fell bark of the jackall is
said to gather his comrades to the chase.
 

                                   Chapter XX

 »Welcome, ancient Pistol.«
                                                          2 Henry IV, II.iv.111.
 
It was not long, before the trapper pointed out the commanding person of
Mahtoree as the leader of the Siouxes. This chief who had been among the last to
obey the vociferous summons of Weucha, no sooner reach'd the spot where his
whole party was now gathered than he threw himself from his horse and proceeded
to examine the marks of the extraordinary trail, with that degree of dignity and
attention which became his high and responsible station. The warriors, for it
was but too evident that they were to a man of that fearless and ruthless class,
awaited the result of his investigation with patient reserve; none, but a few of
the principal braves, presuming even to speak while their leader was thus
gravely occupied. It was several minutes before Mahtoree seem'd satisfied. He,
then, directed his eyes along the ground to those several places where Ishmael
had found the same revolting evidences of the passage of some bloody struggle,
and motioned to his people to follow.
    The whole band advanced in a body towards the thicket until they came to a
halt, within a few yards of the precise spot, where Esther had stimulated her
sluggish sons to break into the cover. The reader will readily imagine that the
trapper and his companions were not indifferent observers of so threatening a
movement. The old man summoned all who were capable of bearing arms to his side,
and demanded in very unequivocal terms, though in a voice that was suitably
lowered in order to escape the ears of their dangerous neighbors, whether they
were disposed to make battle for their liberty or whether they should try the
milder expedient of conciliation. As it was a subject in which all had an equal
interest he put the question as