46 A WIDOW ON MY TRAIL. 



had endeavoured to separate them, and drive off the 

 strangers, lest their owners, when in search of them, 

 should discover her retreat. This she failed to do, 

 for the three nags, unseparated, wandered off into a 

 neighbouring meadow. Not satisfied, she extin- 

 guished her fire, searched for the horses' back-trail, 

 found it, and with the skill so peculiarly charac- 

 teristic of the North American Indian, followed it 

 up to within a short distance of my camp. As it 

 was then nearly dark she desisted till dawn of day, 

 when she renewed her exertions, and easily dis- 

 covered me by the smoke from my tell-tale fire. She 

 had closely watched all my movements, followed 

 me in my search for my horses, and in my stalk up 

 to her camp. Perceiving nothing hostile in my 

 manner, she perhaps saw gentle reader, do not 

 consider me conceited the prospect of a future 

 husband, for hers had been dead some months 

 killed, as she told me, by the falling of a limb of 

 a neighbouring tree in one of the gales of wind of 

 last winter ; and Indian widows, as well as English 

 ones, often think this quite long enough to mourn in 

 solitude the loss of a dear departed. 



As is very common among the Western tribes, 

 the husband of this squaw had been a trapper. An 

 Indian beauty would sooner link her fate with such a 

 man than with the proudest chief of her tribe. This 

 preference most probably results from the fact that 

 the red man expects all manual labour, it matters not 

 how severe, to be performed by the women. 



