_ 
234 THE HIVE OF THE BEE-HUNTER. 
shirt—the trophies of honorable warfare, and the skins 
of birds of beautiful plumage. The corners of the hide 
were then brought together, and tied with thongs; the 
bundle was set afloat upon the stream, and its owner 
dashed on the rear, guiding it to the opposite shore 
with its contents unharmed. 
Again decking himself, and bearing his wooing to- 
kens before him, he ran with the swiftness of the deer 
to the lodge that contained his mistress, leaving the 
simplest of all the water-craft of the back-woods to de- 
cay upon the ground. 
The helplessness of age, the appealing eyes and hands 
of infancy, the gallantry of the lover, the hostile excur- 
sion of a tribe, are natural incentives to the savage 
mind to improve upon the mere bundle of inanimate 
things that could be safely floated upon the water. To 
enlarge this bundle, to build up its sides, would be his 
study and delight, and we have accordingly next in the 
list of back-woods craft, what is styled by the white man, 
—the Buffalo-skin boat. This craft is particularly the 
one of the prairie country, where the materials for its 
construction are always to be found, and where its build- 
ers are always expert. | 
A party of Indians find themselves upon the banks 
of some swift and deep river—there is no timber larger 
than a common walking stick to be seen for miles around; 
the Indians are loaded with plunder—for they have 
made a successful incursion into the territory of some 
