206 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
faces of the Indians are still lit up with excitement, that 
will soon pass away, and leave them cold and expression- 
less. The successful hunters spare not the gibe and 
joke at the expense of the unfortunate. Slowly they 
wend their way back to “ the encampment ;” their work 
is done. 
The squaws, who, like vultures, follow on in the rear, 
eagerly begin their disgusting work. The maiden is 
not among them; slavery commences only with married 
life; but the old, the wrinkled, the viragoes and vixens, 
tear off the skins, jerk the meat, gather together the 
marrow bones, and the humps, the tongues, and the 
paunch; and before the sun has fairly set, they are in 
the camp with the rewards of the day’s hunt. 
The plain, so beautiful in the morning, is scattered 
over with carcasses already offensive with decay; the 
grass is torn up, the flowers destroyed; and the wolf and 
buzzard and the carrion crow are disputing for the 
loathsome meal, while their already gorged appetites 
seem bursting with repletion. 
As might be supposed, the members of a party 
of adventurers once accustomed to the luxuries of 
refined life, and who had recently for weeks slept in the 
open air, congratulated themselves when they discovered 
upon the distant horizon the signs that mark the habita- 
tion of a “squatter.” A thousand recollections of the 
comforts of civilized life pressed upon us before we 
reached the abode. We speculated upon the rich treat 
