﻿LIFE AMONG THE INDIANS. 327 



least noise upon the banks of the river aroused and terrified me 

 exceedingly. However, I managed to keep my fears to myself, and by 

 and by, not hearing any guns, I began to suspect that Jollie was mak- 

 ing fun of me. So I became, all at once, remarkably courageous, and 

 once actually suggested a plan to entrap and kill any offensive sav- 

 age which we might fall in with. My readers may naturally think 

 that, considering my fears, the "offensive savages" were not in 

 much danger. At any rate, I thought so. 



The afternoon now began to warn us to be looking on shore foi 

 the usual signal, the red flag. We searched until the sun had 

 nearly set, but could not obtain the least indication of the encamp- 

 ment. At length we discovered a smoke rising over a hillock at a 

 short distance from the river, which we at once concluded must be 

 our companions. We hastily drew up to the shore, and ascended to 

 the top of the hillock, where, as soon as we had shown ourselves, 

 we were greeted by a startling and horrid yell, from a band of fifty 

 or sixty savages, encamped at the foot. What was to be done? 

 The whole party started after us, and several bullets whistled about 

 rny ears. Without waiting for a consultation in such perilous times, 

 I took to my heels, and ran for the boat. " Don't go there, Miles," 

 shouted Jack Sanford. " They'll kill you if you do. Run for the 

 thicket." Regardless of his advice, which may have been very 

 good, I continued on, threw the canoe into the river, and, with all 

 my remaining strength, gave it a powerful drive into the stream. 

 I had just time to give one or two additional strokes with the paddle, 

 and to throw myself into the bottom of the canoe, when I heard the 

 savages running down the hill towards the river, screeching ana 

 yelling like so many maddened fiends. I expected, of course, that 

 they would swim after me, and that I must soon be, at least, their 

 prisoner, and subject to all the cruelties they could devise. How- 

 ever, I kept perfectly still, being determined, as there were three or 

 four tomahawks in the canoe, to sell my life as dearly as I could, 

 if they did swim after me. I had not lain many minutes, when I 

 heard the noise of some one near the canoe, apparently swimming. I 

 grasped a tomahawk, and in a perfect agony of suspense, heard the 

 noise approaching nearer and nearer, while the outcries of the In- 

 dians upon the shore now, at some considerable distance from me, as 



