of the whole, marched the individual who,
by his position and air, appeared to be the leader of the band. He was a tall,
sun-burnt man, past the middle age, of a dull countenance and listless manner.
His frame appeared loose and flexible; but it was vast, and in reality of
prodigious power. It was only at moments, however, as some slight impediment
opposed itself to his loitering progress, that his person, which, in its
ordinary gait seemed so lounging and nerveless, displayed any of those energies
which lay latent in his system, like the slumbering and unwieldy, but terrible,
strength of the elephant. The inferior lineaments of his countenance were
coarse, extended and vacant; while the superior, or those nobler parts which are
thought to affect the intellectual being, were low, receding and mean.
    The dress of this individual was a mixture of the coarsest vestments of a
husbandman, with the leathern garments, that fashion as well as use had in some
degree rendered necessary to one engaged in his present pursuits. There was,
however, a singular and wild display of prodigal and ill-judged ornaments
blended with his motley attire. In place of the usual deer-skin belt, he wore
around his body a tarnished silken sash of the most gaudy colours; the buck-horn
haft of his knife was profusely decorated with plates of silver; the marten's
fur of his cap was of a fineness and shadowing that a queen might covet; the
buttons of his rude and soiled blanket-coat were of the glittering coinage of
Mexico; the stock of his rifle was of beautiful mahogany, riveted and banded
with the same precious metal, and the trinkets of no less than three worthless
watches dangled from different parts of his person. In addition to the pack and
the rifle which were slung at his back, together with the well-filled, and
carefully guarded pouch and horn, he had carelessly cast a keen and bright
wood-axe across his shoulder, sustaining the weight of the whole with as much as
apparent ease as if he moved, unfettered in limb, and free from incumbrance.
    A short distance in the rear of this man, came a groupe of youths very
similarly attired, and bearing sufficient resemblance to each other, and to
their leader, to distinguish them as the children of one family. Though the
youngest of their number could not much have passed the period, that, in the
nicer judgment of the law, is called the age of discretion, he had proved
himself so far worthy of his progenitors as to have