A FAVOURITE PLUNDER-GROUND. 57 



they feed upon fruits, roots, and vegetables, or upon any- 

 thing else which can satisfy their raging hunger. 



The cayeute ignores every sentiment of sympathy, and 

 for this very reason inspires none. I subjoin, however, 

 an anecdote which proves that the thieving robber of the 

 woods is capable of a certain sensibility ; of the nerves, 

 at all events, if not of the heart. It was told to me in 

 my tent one evening, while I sojourned among the 

 Pawnee Indians. 



During the first epoch of the colonization of Kentucky, 

 the cayeutes were so numerous in the prairie south of 

 that State that the settlers durst not quit their dwellings 

 unless armed to the ' teeth. The children and women 

 were kept strictly shut up within the house. The 

 cayeutes which infested the country belonged to the race 

 with a dark gray skin ; a species very abundant in the 

 districts of the north, in the centre of the dense forests 

 and unexplored mountains of the Green Elver. 



The village of Henderson, situated on the left bank of 

 the Ohio, near its point of confluence with the Green 

 River, was the cantonment most frequented by these four- 

 footed plunderers. 



The pigs, calves, and sheep of the planters paid a 

 heavy tribute to them. In the heart of winter, when 

 the snow lay thick on the ground, and the cattle were 

 confined to their stalls, the famished cayeutes would 

 even attack men ; and more than one belated farmer, 

 as he returned to his home in the evening, was sur- 

 rounded by a furious pack, from whom he escaped with 

 difficulty. 



Among the horrible adventures of this kind which I 

 have heard related around the camp-fire, I do not know 



