150 VOW OF VENGEANCE. 



with care, submitted to his loss, only vowing that 

 his revenge would be commensurate with the injury 

 received. 



' The next evening, as the sun set red and fiery in 

 the western heavens, tinging the clouds with a blood- 

 like margin, we deposited my wife in her lowly bed, 

 under the hickory beneath which she loved so 

 much to seek for shelter from the noon-day heat. 

 That tree still flourishes, green and vigorous for 

 I was there only a few years since ; but the 

 little mound that marked her resting-place has 

 disappeared : in my heart alone is her memory 

 preserved. 



' Vowing vengeance against the savage, and deter- 

 mined that our revenge should not be satisfied till 

 death terminated our careers, we both started for 

 the Indian country, resolved like the panther to 

 dog every Hed-skin we met, and, with a barbarity 

 equal to their own, satiate our passions. 



6 The old man and I wandered for many a day, he 

 growing from hour to hour more moody and silent, 

 eating but to live, and living but to gratify his 

 revenge. The year glided on ; and as his hate 

 increased against the savage he grew thinner, his 

 strength gradually failed, and he became less capable 

 of carrying out his purpose. That he was not des- 

 tined long to survive his daughter, whose name was 

 ever upon his lips, hourly became more apparent. 



' On the Yellowstone River there is a branch. 

 At the time of which I speak beavers were plentiful 



