retired to their huts, but had been delayed by their preparations, which
included lodging as well as food. A large fire had been made, as much to answer
the purpose of torches, as for the uses of their simple cookery, and at this
precise moment it was blazing high and bright, having recently received a large
supply of dried brush. The effect was to illuminate the arches of the forest,
and to render the whole area occupied by the camp as light as if hundreds of
tapers were burning. Most of the toil had ceased and even the hungriest child
had satisfied its appetite. In a word, the time was that moment of relaxation,
and general indolence which is apt to succeed a hearty meal, and when the labors
of the day have ended. The hunters and the fishermen had been equally
successful, and food, that one great requisite of savage life, being abundant,
every other care appeared to have subsided in the sense of enjoyment dependant
on this all important fact.
    Deerslayer saw at a glance that many of the warriors were absent. His
acquaintance Rivenoak, however, was present, being seated in the foreground of a
picture that Salvator Rosa would have delighted to draw, his swarthy features
illuminated as much by pleasure, as by the torch-like flame, while he showed
another of the tribe, one of the elephants that had caused so much sensation
among his people. A boy was looking over his shoulder, in dull curiosity,
completing the group. More in the back-ground eight or ten warriors lay half
recumbent on the ground, or sat with their backs inclining against trees, so
many types of indolent repose. Their arms were near them, sometimes leaning
against the same trees as themselves, or were lying across their bodies in
careless preparation. But the group that most attracted the attention of
Deerslayer was that composed of the women and children. All the females appeared
to be collected together, and, almost as a matter of course, their young were
near them. The former laughed and chatted, in their rebuked and quiet manner,
though one who knew the habits of the people might have detected that every
thing was not going on in its usual train. Most of the young women seemed to be
light hearted enough; but one old hag was seated apart, with a watchful, soured
aspect, which the hunter at once knew betokened that some duty of an unpleasant
character had been assigned her by the chiefs. What that duty was he had no
means of knowing, but he felt satisfied it must be, in some measure, connected
with her own