but her own voice, and
consequently nothing was heard, but her mandates to depart.
    The squatter had collected his beasts and loaded his wagons as a measure of
precaution, before proceeding to the extremity he contemplated. Esther,
consequently found every thing favorable to her wishes. The young men stared at
each other, as they witnessed the extraordinary excitement of their mother, but
took little interest in an event, which in the course of their experience had
found so many parallels. By command of their father, the tents were thrown into
the vehicles, as a sort of reprisal for the want of faith in their late ally,
and then the train left the spot, in its usual, listless and sluggish order.
    As a formidable division of well-armed borderers protected the rear of the
retiring party, the Siouxes saw it depart without manifesting the smallest
evidence of surprise, or resentment. The savage, like the tiger, rarely makes
his attack on an enemy who expects him, and if the warriors of the Tetons
meditated any hostility, it was in the still and patient manner with which the
feline beasts watch for the incautious moment, in order to ensure the blow. The
Councils of Mahtoree, however, on whom so much of the policy of his people
depended, lay deep in the depository of his own thoughts. Perhaps he rejoiced at
so easy a manner of getting rid of claims so troublesome, perhaps he awaited a
fitting time to exhibit his power, or it even might be that matters of so much
greater importance were pressing on his mind, that it had not leisure to devote
any of its faculties to an event of so much indifference.
    But it would seem, that while Ishmael made such a concession to the awakened
feelings of Esther, he was far from abandoning his original intentions. His
train followed the course of the river for a mile, and then it came to a halt,
on the brow of the elevated land, and in a place which afforded the necessary
facilities. Here he, again, pitch'd his tents, unharnessed his teams, sent his
cattle on the bottom, and in short made all the customary preparations to pass
the night with the same coolness and deliberation, as if he had not hurled an
irritating defiance into the teeth of his dangerous neighbors.
    In the mean time the Tetons proceeded to the more regular business of the
hour. A fierce and savage joy had existed in the camp from the instant when it
had been announced that their own Chief was returning with the long dreaded and
hated Partizan of their enemies. For many hours the crones of the