1763, Nov.] INDIANS AT THEIR HUNTING-GROUNDS. Ill 



that the hist melancholy change is at hand. And, 

 in truth, on the morrow the sky is overspread with 

 cold and stormy clouds ; and a raw, piercing wind 

 blows angrily from the north-east. The shivering 

 sentinel quickens his step along the rampart, and 

 the half-naked Indian folds his tattered blanket 

 close around him. The shrivelled leaves are blown 

 from the trees, and soon the gusts are whistling and 

 howling amid gray, naked twigs and mossy branches. 

 Here and there, indeed, the beech tree, as the wind 

 sweeps among its rigid boughs, shakes its pale 

 assemblage of crisp and rustling leaves. The pines 

 and firs, with their rough tops of dark evergreen, 

 bend and moan in the wind ; and the crow caws 

 sullenly, as, struggling against the gusts, he flaps 

 his black wings above the denuded woods. 



The vicinity of Detroit was now almost aban- 

 doned by its besiegers, who had scattered among 

 the forests to seek sustenance through the winter 

 for themselves and their families. Unlike the 

 buffalo-hunting tribes of the western plains, they 

 could not at this season remain together in large 

 bodies. The comparative scarcity of game forced 

 them to separate into small bands, or even into 

 single families. Some steered their canoes far 

 northward, across Lake Huron ; while others turned 

 westward, and struck into the great wilderness of 

 Michigan. Wandering among forests, bleak, cheer- 

 less, and choked with snow, now famishing with 

 want, now cloyed with repletion, they passed the 

 dull, cold winter. The chase yielded their only 

 subsistence ; and the slender lodges, borne on the 



