Chapter 5 - Page 2

visage of his keeper, and,
for a moment, a gleam of honest and powerful disgust shot from their
deep cells; but it instantly passed away, leaving in its place an
expression of commiseration, if not of sorrow.

"Why should one made in the real image of God suffer his natur' to be
provoked by a mere effigy of reason?" he said in English, and in tones
much louder than those in which Weucha had chosen to pitch the
conversation. The latter profited by the unintentional offence of his
captive, and, seizing him by the thin, grey locks, that fell from
beneath his cap, was on the point of passing the blade of his knife in
malignant triumph around their roots, when a long, shrill yell rent
the air, and was instantly echoed from the surrounding waste, as if a
thousand demons opened their throats in common at the summons. Weucha
relinquished his grasp, and uttered a cry of exultation.

"Now!" shouted Paul, unable to control his impatience any longer,
"now, old Ishmael, is the time to show the native blood of Kentucky!
Fire low, boys--level into the swales, for the red skins are settling
to the very earth!"

His voice was, however, lost, or rather unheeded, in the midst of the
shrieks, shouts, and yells that were, by this time, bursting from
fifty mouths on every side of him. The guards still maintained their
posts at the side of the captives, but it was with that sort of
difficulty with which steeds are restrained at the starting-post, when
expecting the signal to commence the trial of speed. They tossed their
arms wildly in the air, leaping up and down more like exulting
children than sober men, and continued to utter the most frantic
cries.

In the midst of this tumultuous disorder a rushing sound was heard,
similar to that which might be expected to precede the passage of a
flight of buffaloes, and then came the flocks and cattle of Ishmael in
one confused and frightened drove.

"They have robbed the squatter of his beasts!" said the attentive
trapper. "The reptiles have left him as hoofless as a beaver!" He was
yet speaking, when the whole body of the terrified animals rose the
little acclivity, and swept by the place where he stood, followed by a
band of dusky and demon-like looking figures, who pressed madly on
their rear.

The impulse was communicated to the Teton horses, long accustomed to
sympathise in the untutored passions of their owners, and it was with
difficulty that the keepers were enabled to restrain their impatience.
At this moment, when all eyes were directed to the passing whirlwind
of men and beasts, the trapper caught the knife from the hands of his
inattentive keeper, with a power that his age would have seemed to